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Older adults gain many health benefits from riding bicycles regularly. We aimed to explore whether older persons who ride bicycles regularly have better balance than controls. Balance control and voluntary stepping were assessed in 20 older adults aged 65–85 years who live in an agricultural community village and who ride bicycles regularly, and 30 age- and gender-matched nonbicycle riders (NBR). Self-reported function and fear of fall were also assessed. Bicycle riders (BR) showed significantly better balance, faster voluntary stepping, and better self-reported advanced lower-extremity function compared with NBR. The results might suggest that bicycling regularly preserves balance control and speed of voluntary stepping in older adults because bicycling might maintain specific balance coordination patterns. The results should be treated with caution as bicycle riders were older adults who selected an active lifestyle (i.e., bicycling as well as living in an agricultural village) that may bias the results.

We examined whether older adults who cycle outdoors regularly have better reactive balance control than noncycling older adults. Sixteen cyclist older adults and 24 age-, sex-, and health-matched controls who did not cycle (noncyclists) were exposed to unannounced perturbations of increased magnitudes in standing. We evaluated the strategies and kinematics employed at each perturbation magnitude. We found that cyclists exhibited a significantly higher stepping threshold, lower probability of stepping at each perturbation magnitude, and lower number of trials in which the participant needed to make a step to retain their balance. Cyclists also tended to recover balance using unloaded leg strategies in the first recovery step rather than a loaded leg strategy; they showed faster swing phase duration in the first recovery step, better controlling the displacement of center of mass than noncyclists. Older adults who cycle regularly outdoors preserve their reactive balance functions, which may reduce fall risks.

Human gait is symmetric and bilaterally coordinated in young healthy persons. In this study, we aimed to explore the differences in bilateral coordination of gait as measured by the phase coordination index (PCI), gait asymmetry, and stride time variability of gait between four age groups. A total of 44 older adults were recruited: nine young-old (age 70–74 years), 26 old (age 75–84 years), nine old-old (>85 years and older), and 13 young adults (age 20–30 years). Subjects walked on a treadmill; walking speed was systematically increased from 0.5 to 0.9 m/s in steps of 0.1 m/s. There were marginal effects of age on PCI, significant main effects of walking speeds without interaction between walking speeds and age group. A difference in PCI could distinguish between young’s and late aging group, and only during their preferred treadmills walking speed. This study explicitly shows that bilateral coordination of walking is modified by gait speed, and deteriorates only at a very old age.