Topographical and physiological data collection for urban handbike tracks design

Cities should guarantee, to all the citizens, spaces for physical activity to allow people to reach the correct amount of activity during the week. Physical activity areas for people with disability need specific safety and accessibility precautions. The aim of this study is to give suggestion to modify tracks suitable for handbike practice and to classify and describe them in order to give useful information to the users. Ten healthy subjects were tested on a dedicated handbike equipped with a powermeter. The oxygen consumption, heart rate, speed, track elevation profile and distance during the execution of one selected track were simultaneously detected. This experimental set up resulted a reliable tool to describe the relation between the track topographical features and the individual metabolic engagement as a function of the speed. Further measures, on subjects with motor disability, will be the crucial translational phase of the whole project.