Regular readers of this blog might remember that last "summer" (it was still chilly), I biked for brain health here in Toronto.
I rode 75 km, raised $3,800, and helped Multiplex Construction Canada raise over $14,000, with 100% of these donations going directly to the Baycrest Foundation to fund work related to dementia, Alzheimer's, and other brain-related illnesses.
This summer I'll be riding again on Sunday, May 31, 2026, except with a few changes:
They've moved the starting location to the Aga Khan Museum (architecture by the Pritzker Prize-winning Japanese architect Fumihiko Maki).
They've increased the longest circuit to 90 km.
We've created our own Globizen team! If we're feeling really ambitious, maybe we'll even create our own cycling bibs. (This strikes me as a low probability scenario.)
If you're up for it, I would encourage you to join our team and ride for brain health. Alternatively, you can always just participate with your wallet.
Full disclosure caveat: Bianca and I are expecting our first child (a girl) in June. This ride is closeish to the due date, creating at a minimum three possible scenarios for the day:
Scenario one is that she is not yet born on May 31 and I ride as one would expect.
Scenario two is that she is born early, and I then spend this Sunday morning at home in some kind of sleep-deprived state. (Or, the "vibe" is that I should probably stay home.)
And I suppose scenario three is that I don't finish the ride and I end up at the hospital in head-to-toe lycra, clicking and clacking around in my cycling shoes.
Scenarios one and two feel more optimal, in my humble opinion.
Cover photo: Len Abelman (Principal at WZMH Architects) and me completing the Bike for Brain Health end-of-summer follow-up ride in September 2025.
The other morning I woke up and thought to myself: "My cycling isn't nearly nerdy enough. Sure, I've got the spandex. But what I really need is an enormous rear-mounted selfie stick on the bike so I can capture footage of my rides and the city." So I searched around and found a seat mount rig from Insta360 that looks like this (please note that the stick extends to 1 meter):
Now, I don't have an Insta360. I've heard they're fantastic. I have an old GoPro Max that is, well, okay. I find it has terrible dynamic range. The sky is often blown out. It also shuts off constantly when I'm snowboarding due to the cold. It's suboptimal and at some point I'll likely invest in an Insta360. But for now, I used an adapter to connect my GoPro to the mount.
Below is what the photos/videos end up looking like. As an aside, captured on the right is Good Gang Ice Cream on Annette, which my friend Chris Spoke (of Toronto Standard) tells me is top.
And here's a video from Instagram.
The way these 360 cameras work is that, as long as the camera is perfectly aligned with the selfie stick, then the entire apparatus disappears in the videos it captures. But if the camera gets misaligned because, for example, things start bouncing around, then it can show up. I'm not exactly sure what's happening in the above, but something is getting in the way of a clean 360-degree stitch.
I'll keep working on it.
Cycling is good for you. This much is obvious. But what might be some of the lesser known benefits?
Here's a fascinating study (that I discovered through Lloyd Alter's blog), which looked at the association between active travel modes and brain health — specifically dementia risk. For this study, the researchers analyzed nearly 500,000 people in the UK and then tracked them for a median period of 13.1 years. How people got around was classified according to the following groups: non-active (like driving or taking public transit), walking only, mixed-walking, and cycling and mixed-cycling. This latter category is meant to capture people who cycle exclusively and who mix it with other forms of mobility.
Based on this, the researchers uncovered these cycling benefits compared to non-active travel:
19% reduction in all-cause dementia
22% reduction in Alzheimer's disease
40% reduction in young-onset dementia
17% reduction in late-onset dementia
Cycling was by far the best performing category. Why is that? Well, exercise in general is good for brain health. It increases blood flow and oxygenation to the brain, decreases cortisol levels (stress hormone), and reduces anxiety and depression, among many other beneficial things. But perhaps the most important feature for this particular discussion is that it's simultaneously a physical and cognitive activity. In other words, it's exercise, but your brain also has to do a lot of other stuff like balance the bike, avoid obstacles (such as car doors being flung open), and generally navigate an environment with many stimuli.
This gives new meaning to biking for brain health. And it reinforces the case that bike lanes are actually one part mobility infrastructure and one part public health initiative.