If you’re big enough to buckle an average sized bike, Vermont company, Super Sized Cycles, wants to give you a hand…and an electric assist motor. According to the company website, SSC is the only bike manufacturer that builds bikes capable of withstanding the stress of an obese rider.
At the outset, it seems like a good idea. Obese folks have just as much a right to enjoy a bike ride as I do. But an electric assist motor? One of the biggest benefits of biking is cardiovascular exercise. Classic biking has a solution for the most difficult parts of a workout – gears.
One paragraph of the company website even mentions the following:If the rider is really fat, there may be some hitting of the belly on the other bikes, but it shouldn’t be enough to interfere with the ability to ride.
If the rider is big enough to be hitting his/her belly on the handlebars, they need more help than a sturdy bike.
SSC strikes me as another example of a decent idea crippled by thoughts of profitability. Selling bikes to obese folks is tough enough. Maybe I’m being insensitive, but it seems like selling bikes to people in desperate need of physical activity and then giving them ways to significantly reduce that activity is just bad business. But maybe it sells?
