Biking at 28 Weeks Pregnant

This is a series I'm doing where I chronicle my time cycle commuting while pregnant. You can see the previous entry at 24 weeks here

Recently, I’ve hit my 28th (!!) week of pregnancy and with the snow/ice finally gone and the weather hovering around 0 to -5C, I decided I would bike commute to the office on a Bikeshare bike.

Overall the bike ride was nice, extremely uneventful which was great. You can see my stats from the ride below:

A screenshot of my commute to work - 6.3 KM in 32 min with an average speed of 14.1 km/hr

Now that I’m 28 weeks along, my bump is definitely getting bigger but since I’m fairly tall, I’m still able to zip my North Face 3-in-1 ski jacket up while wearing a light sweater and shirt under. It’s tight but doable (for now).

One of the things I find most surprising is that I find cycling to be easier than walking. Yes, I know this is shocking but when I’m on a bike, I can gear down, I can use my electric cargo bike and I’m able to control how much physical effort I want to exert. When I’m walking, I’m bringing my whole self around and there’s no battery to help me 😢 which means I find myself a bit winded walking up a flight of stairs or even a tiny hill these days.

I love Bikeshare and how convenient it is but the angle of the bike is slightly more forward than my own bike which means that I might not be able to use it once my bump gets much larger. As it is now, I’m finding some minor restrictions and my legs getting close to hitting the bump but that could also be due to the layers I have on for winter. I’ll try again in a few weeks and see how it goes.

Other things I’ve noticed

SI Pain

I ‘m getting some minor SI pain from walking and cycling. Apparently this is super common in pregnancy and can be attributed to weak gluts and core. I’ve been doing the Figure 4 stretch and that has helped a lot. Historically, I’ve always had very weak gluts, despite working them out every week so this might be a me problem.

Questions about Cycling and Labour

When I've talked about biking while pregnant to my friends and family, I've also gotten questions about whether I’m going to be biking myself to the delivery room which feels kind of random??? I honestly wasn’t planning on it and was just going to take an uber when the day is here. I’m trying to take these questions in good faith but the tone I’m getting sometimes is that people are asking, not from a place of curiosity but rather they use it to justify why my actions are ‘crazy’ and of course they aren’t (and would therefore never bike while pregnant). It’s frustrating because exercising while pregnant is highly encouraged by medical professionals and I’m just continuing my activities from pre-pregnancy. But you can’t control what other people say or do 🤷‍♀️.

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My energy levels are good and I’ll post another update at 32 weeks 😄.