Creating Physical Fitness Opportunities with the Burley Coho XC Bicycle Trailer

Phase 1: Drawing Inspiration from my Previous Life Experiences

On July 29th, 2026, I watched a life-changing video on YouTube: "The PROBLEM with Capitalism - Smarter Every Day 316" by Destin Sandlin's "Smarter Every Day" YouTube channel. In the video, Destin detailed the difficulties that his company faced manufacturing parts solely in the United States. He also talked about the fact that the incentives in capitalism often pressure business owners to maximize profits at the expense of the quality of their products, and the well-being of their customers and employees (see References A and B).

I've been a fan of Destin's channel for years, and I've always loved the fact that he is constantly trying to improve his life, and the lives of his family, by thinking. He thinks hard about the problems of life and he tries to actively come up with solutions. In the late 1990s, I had been playing the saxophone for about 10 years, and I really wasn't very happy with my practice regimen, and my rate of improvement. I thought carefully about how I practiced, and I decided to make a very simple change. Instead of disassembling my saxophone after every practice session and putting it back in the case, I decided to always leave it assembled in a stand in my bedroom. The improvement in my practice regimen was instantaneous. I would wake up in the morning, and I would immediately start to practice because I made my saxophone so accessible.

Almost 30 years later, I remembered that experience and I realized that I could use the exact same philosophical approach towards using my bicycle to regain a high level of physical fitness. In July of 2026, I decided to minimize my use of my car, and to maximize my use of my bicycle by purchasing a Burley Coho XC Bicycle trailer. This would allow me to burn calories while I did routine activities such as going to the grocery store. For example, I used to load up my car with empty cans and bottles and return them to my local grocery store. The Burley Coho XC can haul up to 70 pounds (31.8 kilograms) of cargo, and it could hold up to 70 liters of cargo volume (see Reference C).

Phase 2: Actually Building my Physical Fitness Through Bike Rides

My road bicycle is currently in the shop getting fitted with Tannus airless tires. My old pneumatic tires had 700x32 c tires on a 13 mm internally wide rim. I decided to replace the pneumatic tire with Tannus Shield 700x32 c airless tires that have the equivalent stiffness of 80 psi pneumatic tires. However, these tires require an internal rim width of 18 mm, so I had my bicycle technician replace my bike's 13 mm rims with 18 mm ones. My original plan was to install the Tannus airless tires myself, but I had to waive the surrender flag when I realized that I had bought the wrong size tires for my 13 mm rims. However, I did do one of the most time-consuming parts of the Tannus airless tire installation process: installing the 40 plastic pins on each tire that are later snapped into the rim to hold the installed tire in place. When I delivered my bike to my bicycle mechanic, I took him the Tannus airless tires with the pins installed, the Tannus P tool that I had purchased, and the 2 Tannus S tools (I received 1 S Tool with each of the two airless tires). I tried to make his job of completing the Tannus airless tires install as easy as possible (see Reference D).

The bicycle will be ready for me to pick up very soon, and when I do pick it up, that's when my new fitness journey will start. First, let's talk about the physics of how I'm going to get fit beginning with the Tannus airless tires. I knew going into switching to Tannus airless tires that it was going to be a little bit harder for me to ride due to Tannus airless tires having slightly higher rolling resistance than pneumatic tires. I asked Google's Gemini precisely how much increased rolling resistance I should expect to see. It replied that I should expect to see about a 20% increase in riding difficulty. This means that I should roughly expect the bike's resistance to go up by one gear: 5th gear will now feel as difficult as 4th gear used to feel (correction: I got this backwards in the original article/video: 4th gear will now feel as difficult as 5th gear used to). This means that on average, I'll have to exert 20% more effort to move at 15 miles per hour than I used to.

What will happen in reality? Before I put the Tannus airless tires on, 15 mph felt like a very comfortable speed for me to maintain. That will probably drop to 12-13 mph. Over time, I'll slowly get more fit, and I'll eventually get back up to 15 mph on the Tannus airless tires. In the process, my body, my heart, my lungs, and my mind will have become much more fit and much more efficient.

Phase 3: Replacing Much of my Car Driving with Bike Riding

For the last several years, I've gone to band and choir rehearsals by throwing my saxophone in the back of my car trunk. That will entirely change soon. My alto saxophone (in its ergonomic flight case), my music stand, my Android tablet, and my foot page turn pedal, all fit nicely in the Burley dry bag that I bought along with my trailer. I drove the route that I'll bike ride to my choir and band rehearsals, and both are very manageable and accessible bicycle rides. So weather permitting, I'll now always ride my bike to those events.

Grocery shopping and returning cans and bottles are two other incredible opportunities for me to use my bicycle to become physically fit.

Conclusions: It All Comes Down To Actively Choosing to Get Fit

At the end of the day, physical fitness is a choice. We can choose to let our cars do all of the work for us, or we can choose to let a bicycle do some or all of the work. Ryan Van Duzer, an avid bicycle enthusiast, said something in one of his videos that I'll never forget: "I've never owned a car, I ride my bicycle everywhere" (see Reference E). If you look at him and see how physically fit he is, you immediately know that bicycle riding works for physical fitness. I still need a car because I do occasionally drive extremely long distances, but if I can replace 50-75% of my car driving with bike riding, I know that I'll be much more healthy, and much more physically fit. Thank you so much for taking the time to read this article/watch this video!

References

[A] The PROBLEM with Capitalism - Smarter Every Day 316 (YouTube). Retrieved July 29, 2026 from here

[B] Destin Sandlin (Wikipedia). Retrieved July 29, 2026 from here

[C] Burley Coho XC Features & Specs. Retrieved July 29, 2026 from here

[D] Tannus Shield 700 x 32 c airless tires. Retrieved July 29, 2026 from here

[E] The Best Commuter Bike I've Ever Owned-The Priority 600 with Gates and Pinion (YouTube). Retrieved July 29, 2026 from here