Folding bicycle manufacturer Montague Cycles has announced a new line of 700c road bikes, including its first ever full-sized single speed. The Boston model includes a flip-flop hub, allowing to transform the bike from a traditional free-wheel single speed to a track ready “fixie.”
It features a 42x16t drivetrain, which is considered ideal gearing for city riding. Designed more for the urban canyons than off-road, this bike still offers the durability that has become a Montague signature. The Boston model features the Cliz quick release and the company’s patented folding system, which allows for a conversion from full-sized ride to trunk-worthy bike in just about 20 seconds.
Ever since the Nintendo Wii debuted in December of 2006, there has been an increase in more “active” games, such as Nintendo’s own Wii-Fit. As the video game companies prepare to showcase the next generation of fitness games at next week’s E3 (Electronic Entertainment Expo) in Los Angeles, an interesting question was brought up this week by The Boston Globe: can you get hurt by playing the games?
As we’ve noted this week, there have been findings that games are being used more and more as a form of exercise, but this needs to be done as part of an “active” lifestyle. So in other words, just sitting on the couch doesn’t do it. But now the other half of the equation is being presented, and that is whether you can actually over do it by playing games.
There are obviously the repetitive stress disorder type injuries such as mashing away with too much Rock Band, or mouse wrist from shooting all those zombies in Left 4 Dead. But could this lead to other injuries. The Boston Globe reports that a pilot study is “being conducted at Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital in Boston this summer,” and “may be the first to address the injury problem directly, by looking into the biomechanics of Wii gaming.”
This no doubt comes as bad news to anyone who thought that gaming alone would be the ticket to better fitness. So maybe its time to take the advice offered earlier this week from the University of Essex researchers, and use fitness games as a way to cross train instead.
