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The Instrument of Good. by Chris Zigmont: I'm talking about your bike of course. If you’re reading this, you're likely already on board. You've incorporated the bicycle into your life already, or at least you have planned to. Since we were kids we've know that the bicycle is fun. It was an explorer's galleon, your Mach 5, your escape mobile. Maybe later it was racing in local road races or on mountain bikes. That is, before we got married, got jobs, and had kids.
Now the bike sits in the garage, blocked in by the garbage cans, two overflowing recycling containers, just behind the fender of your car. Tomorrow before you fly though the kitchen and out the door for another day in the salt mine, pause a minute and look in the garage. [continued] |
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Getting Smaller in a Super-Sized World by Scott Cutshall [LFoaB]: The Bicycle is a real, viable, affordable solution to many of the World's ills: oil, gas, gas+oil wars, mental [depression] and physical [everything from obesity to heart disease] issues, sprawl, the lack of community in our communities, road rage, pollution, the decline in small family-owned businesses while corporate "Big Box" stores thrive onward and endlessly. [continued] |
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Clean Water and Commerce - Combating Poverty: It’s obvious in the third world that so few have the ability to own wheeled vehicles. The ability to transport items such as clean water and goods for commerce is critical to the livelihood and economic development. Organizations like Project Rwanda and World Bike Relief play an important role in promoting and facilitating that type of development. [continued] |
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The Best Thing All Day by Tom Radamacher: I'm not a cyclist. No racing, no matching outfit or ultra-light components. No bike stand in my basement, no energy gel in a jersey back pocket. I'm a guy who just likes to bike. Through all four seasons, my bike gets me to work and back, but we make no great show of it, and break no speed records. [continued] |
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Cooling off our hot planet by Wendy Booher: There's no denying the lusty sound of an engine roaring to life unleashes something thrilling, raw, and primeval. As viscerally titillating as it may be, internal combustion sounds more like fingernails raking across a chalkboard these days as fuel prices grow more volatile and climate change skeptics finally admit that we might have a problem here. [continued] |
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What You Can Do: Ideas for a Green Lifestyle |
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What
You Can Do by Maynard Herson: You've read and
heard this stuff before, but perhaps not in
a context as trustworthy as the Pedro's
catalog. Chris and Jay at Pedro's (and I)
would like to suggest respectfully that
we'll all be better off if we ride a little
more and drive a little less. If we get
creative about integrating our bicycles into
our lives, we'll feel better about ourselves
and everyone will benefit - riders and
non-riders alike. [continued]
Tube
Recycling By
Ben Hewitt: I worked in a
bike shop for nearly a dozen years. To
anyone in the bike industry, it will come as
no surprise that this was not a lucrative
time. So I saved where
I could, employing the bike junkie’s tricks
for stretching the useful life of my gear. I
filed brake pads, rotated chains, and rode
my wheels until the braking surface was worn
so thin that it folded over on itself. [continued]
*Maynard
Hershon lives happily in Denver these days,
he reports. He’s a bicyclist and
motorcyclist who writes magazine columns
about both activities. His work appears
regularly in the Bicycle Paper (Pac NW); the
Rivendell Reader; motorcycle monthlies
CityBike (SF Bay Area) and Motorcycle Sport
and Leisure (UK), and occasionally in
VeloNews. He is able to ride his bicycle
nearly every day. While he hasn’t raced for
years, he works at bicycle races "driving" a
technical support motorcycle. Hershon’s
writing focuses on the human aspects of our
riding lives. He’s more interested in your
commute or your local training ride than in
trick bike parts. Hershon moved to bike
path-rich Denver in 2006.There, he has
fallen in with a disreputable band of
youthful urban cycling greenies. It is their
influence that has made him what he is
today: more strident and whiney than ever
about cycling as a favor to the environment
and to our neighbors near and far.
**Once
upon a time, Ben Hewitt raced his bicycle
through the woods of New England. Now, the
majority of his riding consists of chasing
his 6-year old son Finlay in very small
circles around the front yard. When he
starts sweating, he retreats to his office
to write for numerous magazines, including
Bicycling, Men's Journal, Mountain Bike,
Outside, Portfolio, and Skiing. |
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