Best Bikes For People With Arthritis

Choosing a Bike

March 22, 2019

Hey guys, Dustin here. CEO of 630. I want to talk to you today about the best bikes for someone who suffers from arthritis. Now, I do want to say a disclaimer here before we get started. I am not a doctor. I'm not giving the opinion that is medically approved, necessarily. I have spoken to some doctors, some massage therapists, some people with arthritis, generally speaking. So I'm using their opinions and their feedback to present you with my ideas today.

Arthritis can obviously be a very debilitating condition. It can immobilize a lot of people. We've had a lot of success stories actually, with 630 bikes, about people with some cases of severe arthritis, actually being able to get back on a bike, because of certain bikes we offer that have certain riding positions. When we talk about what's the best bike for someone with arthritis, I think there's a couple of ways to approach. Number one is really looking at where is arthritis affecting you. I know it can show up in all areas of the body, including the neck, the back, the wrists, the knees, anywhere, the legs, the feet, et cetera. The hands, in particular. I know some of the more common areas obviously would be things like knees, even shoulders and back.

I'll start with a couple of ideas. Number one, there's bikes called recumbent bikes. Now, we actually don't carry recumbent bikes, but recumbent bikes are essentially bikes where you're sitting down and you're peddling with your leg straight out in front of you, and you're literally sitting in a seat. Now, these would be great for someone, if you have actually a pretty, I would say a severe case of arthritis, where it's very hard to lift your leg, or you don't really want much pressure on your hips or your shoulders, or even your back. Recumbent bikes would be a great option because you're going to be in a very comfortable sitting position, and it's going to take a lot of pressure off your back, off your hips, off your knees, things like that.

They're very, very comfortable and there's a whole slew of different types of recumbent bikes. From the seats, you're sitting into the wheel size, to how low to the ground you are. Now I would say that is one negative piece of a recumbent bike, is because of how low they are to the ground, it could be a little bit difficult to get on and off the bike, if bending too low is difficult. There are recumbent options that wouldn't be as low to the ground as others. So if bending is an issue, try to find a recumbent that maybe is not quite as high as a bicycle, but somewhere in between the really low recumbents and the higher recumbents.

Now moving on, there's something called a step-through bike. With that is step through bike with a forward peddling design. If you have arthritis in your knees and bending or lifting your leg, even if you have it in your hips, so it's difficult to live your leg, I would say I recommend a step-through bike. Basically what that means is that just the frame comes low enough, so in order to mount or dismount the bike, you can literally just step through the frame. If once you're on the bike, you typically don't have any issues in terms of peddling, then you could just do a normal step through bike with a perfect down tube connected from the seat, to what's called the bottom bracket, to where the pedals are.

The step through will make it very easy to get on and off, and it'll eliminate the danger of mounting and dismounting the bike. Especially if you don't have complete mobility, again in your hips or your knees, or things like that. Now another element to that is something called a forward pedaling bike and what this is, is it's an upright bike riding position, but the pedals are shifted forward about four inches. What this does, is it basically puts the rider in a little bit more of a relaxed position, takes some downward pressure off the hips, and typically speaking, bikes with forward pedaling would have an upright position. Upright riding position, meaning your back is straight. So if you have pain from arthritis, any part of your body, you really want to take as much tension off of those parts of your body when you're riding.

So if you're an upright position that's very natural, you don't have to be forward. You don't have to be leaning back, you're not tensed up in any one place on your body, and so a forward pedaling bike would be great for that. It will also allow you to keep your arms right out in front of you, or actually right here, so it'd be very relaxed. No tension on any piece of your body. So hopefully that would alleviate any pain during the ride, that you maybe would experience because of your arthritis on another type of bike.

One bike we offer is called the 630 Every Journey, and we've had a lot of people write reviews in particular on Amazon, talking about how they got back into biking after arthritis, particularly in their knees or in their back. That was a great option for them. Again, I'm not a doctor to advise, but this has been common feedback from our customers, that particularly people with arthritis find that bike to be great for them.

Then I would say my third option if balancing on a bike is just too much, and your arthritis has affected your body where it's even hard to tense up anything to hold yourself up, a tricycle would be the last best option, in my opinion. So there are different types of tricycles, there are multi-speeds, there are thinner tires, you don't have to think of a tricycle and think it's going to be this big clunky thing. There are different types of options. You can get baskets, no baskets. The bicycle will not be going anywhere, because it's on three wheels it's going to easily balance on the road, and you can also get a step-through model, so you can easily mount and dismount.

So it's just a great option if there's so much pain in any one of your joints, that it's hard for you to like I said, bear any weight on it or put any pressure on it. You can get a tricycle and you can get a tricycle with some speed options, so the first gear is very easy to pedal. Even though the tricycle's a little bit bigger in size, if you get something with speeds, it will make the pedaling easy in the lowest gear. So you shouldn't be worried about dragging around the weight of a very large tricycle.

They're fairly common for people over the age of 50. They're sometimes difficult to find. We at 630 actually don't make tricycles. My suggestion would be, you can shop around online, look at different models and then visit a local bike shop near you. If you can, I'd recommend potentially buying a tricycle fully assembled, because the assembly might be a little more difficult. Or, if you have a local bike shop, you could order online and have them assemble it for you.

Those are my three options for best bikes for arthritis. The step-through frame or the forward pedaling frame. The tricycle and the recumbent bike. If you have any other questions about those three, please reach out to us directly. Also, comment below if you have a bike that's been good for your arthritis. I'm curious to hear of other examples of bikes, whether it be the model or the type or the brand, that maybe you've ridden, that you found is great for your arthritis when you go out for rides.

If you want to reach us directly, please shoot us an email theteam@630.com, or call us, 310-982-2877, and please check out our bikes in the top nav of our website. We have men's, women's, kids. Also, go ahead and enter your height and your weight, in our body fit calculator and it will tell you what bikes of ours will fit your body, 'cause our goal at 630 is to find a bike that's the perfect fit for your body.