I wanted to help spread the word about two upcoming events in our area:  Joy Ride and the 2011  kick-off stop of the 2011 edition of  the Tour de Fat. Both events are being held in our neighboring city of Durham, NC.

The Joy Ride is a celebration of New Belgium Brewing Co’s 20th anniversary. New Belgium, for those uninitiated, is a bike-centered company and makers of fine adult beverages. The  Saturday June 4th event starts with a toast at Tyler’s in Durham @ 3pm. Then a ride leaving @ 3;30pm to Full Steam Brewery with a second toast @4pm and finally back to the tobacco district for more liquid refreshments. Costumes are encouraged and appreciated.

The first stop of the 2011 Tour de Fat sponsored by New Belgium gets underway at 10am Saturday June 25th @ Diamond View Park (in American Tobacco Park). Here a couple of links : http://www.newbelgium.com/events/tour-de-fat.aspx  and  http://www.facebook.com/TourDeFat . Be sure to get there early for registration. This ballyhoo of good times will be benefitting North Carolina Active Transportation Alliance. Music and theatrics to follow the ride.

Hope to see you there!

Steve

Sustainability, and the Connections Between Humans and Earth

The earth is a changing and adaptable place. In fact, the very nature of a changing environment is what leads to the great diversity of life in this world. We humans are changing the earth as well, but we are not separate from the earth. There is no time we can “go back to” before we “changed the earth”. The earth has been changing and adapting long before and will be long after we humans are around.

I am not a climate change nay-sayer, nor am I one of those “technology will save us all so do nothing” people. But I do think a lot of folks concerned about environmental issues view humans as the root of the problem somehow, and I disagree. The pace of our effects on the earth are greater than what has come before due to our culture and ability to communicate. But those effects can go in many different directions, not just bad ones. We also have the ability to view potential future scenarios and have some effect on how we’ll get there. So I’m not writing us off. Neither am I writing off the earth and all it’s creatures. Today’s video explores this idea.

-Elise

Go By Bike is a video series that talks about how to be green by riding more and using your car less, including electric bikes, electric kits, cargo bikes, bike safety, and getting motivated to bike

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What’s the hardest part about something new?

When I listen to a lot of people talk about biking more often, I hear them say they wished they biked more, or they “should” bike more. But a lot of them don’t. In fact a lot of people don’t make any kind of change in their lives unless they’re forced into it by options running out. This little story about trying a new bike illustrated to me an important point about change – it’s hard and the hardest part is trying it!

How do you get over the hump of trying something new? Is it easy or hard?

-Elise

Go By Bike is a daily video series that talks about how to be green by riding more and using your car less, including electric bikes, electric kits, cargo bikes, bike safety, and getting motivated to bike.

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Are you an every-day hero?

Being an aware citizen and taking action can do more for keeping our streets and communities safe than most any other measures we can take. It’s been proven that the more people that are around witnessing a crime, the less likely it is that any one will do anything about it. It’s a psychological thing – we don’t want to be bothered and hope one of those other people will take action instead, so we can go along with our own lives in a bubble.

It’s stories like these that really reinforce for me the idea of community and what it means to be part of one. In some ways biking and walking brings our communities back to a more human scale. I notice when I’m biking that I take more notice of what is around me because it’s easier to do. It’s a way to connect with the environment and the people I see. I love it when I see another biker on the road and they wave to me, just because we’re both out biking and no other reason.

Do you have any stories like this to share?

-Elise

When do we learn to hate the rain?

After our long dry spell and then recent gusher, I started contemplating our reactions to rain. In today’s video I give you my thoughts and something to contemplate yourself next time it’s raining out.

What do you think? Do you hate the rain? or are you able to enjoy it sometimes?

-Elise

Go By Bike is a daily video series that talks about how to be green by riding more and using your car less, including electric bikes, electric kits, cargo bikes, bike safety, and getting motivated to bike

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Why do we go by bike, car, or feet?

I’ve been thinking lately about what motivates us to bike versus drive or take other forms of transport. There is certainly a big contingent of people in the US who believe the “car is king” philosophy. I was talking with one of our city planners recently who had just returned from a regional meeting to discuss pedestrian facilities. After a full day of discussion, he said one of the other planners from a larger city in this area expressed the viewpoint that people really wouldn’t walk or bike in most places, even if we built the facilities. Then this other planner turned to our local friend and said “well, you guys are different up there in Chapel Hill/Carrboro”. Why is that? What makes us “different” if we even are different? Why would people bike more here than they would in other areas?

Around the country I find little pockets of people who are into biking for transportation. Maybe it’s not mainstream yet, but there are lots of us out there. What motivates people to bike rather than drive, or reversely, drive rather than bike?

In today’s video, I talk about one reason that is a big consideration for me personally when deciding how to get somewhere.

What do you think? Why do you bike? Leave your comments here to motivate other people to keep biking. The more of us who are out there biking, the safer it is, the more resources we conserve, and the less we pollute. Spread the word….

-Elise

Go By Bike is a daily video series that talks about how to be green by riding more and using your car less, including electric bikes, electric kits, cargo bikes, bike safety, and getting motivated to bike.
If you like this video, please  digg it, stumble upon it, tweet about it or post it to delicious or facebook using one of the links below.

What Can Chapel Hill Learn From Durham?

In today’s episode of Go By Bike, I talk about what makes a downtown a nice place to hang out – at least in small to mid-size towns? Downtown Chapel Hill has been on a quest to “improve” downtown for as long as I’ve lived here, but I think they’re missing one key element. What is is? Listen and find out.

What do you think are the critical elements to making a downtown a nice place to be? Write your comments below.

-Elise

Go By Bike is a daily video series that talks about how to be green by riding more and using your car less, including electric bikes, electric kits, cargo bikes, bike safety, and getting motivated to bike

If you like this video, please  digg it, stumble upon it, tweet about it or post it to delicious or facebook using one of the links below

Give your kids a cleaner, brighter future

Welcome to Go By Bike! I started this series to talk about how to ride more and use your car less, including electric bikes, electric kits, cargo bikes, bike safety, and getting motivated to bike. Using your car less reduces your carbon footprint, saves energy, helps the environment, keeps you healthy, and makes your community a nicer place to live, so overall most people would agree it’s a good thing.

In today’s episode of Go By Bike, I discuss energy use, the environment, and one key thing we can do right now to be green and give our kids a better future…

What do you think? Can you replace some short car trips by bike? Send me your comments.

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I recently returned from a trip to Hilton Head Island, in South Carolina. Hilton Head is located at the very south part of South Carolina, close to Savannah Georgia, and is a very popular beach vacation location. My parents, who participate in the condo swapping programs that have become popular lately, had a week to spend there and invited us to come down. I’m not usually so big on this kind of vacation, but the beach is really nice on the Island, and the kids love the beach. Plus, the island is populated with tons of bike paths, which make it theoretically easy to get around (more on that later…). So we decided to go for it.

The Electric Madsen was perfect for the beach

After a very long and tiring drive, punctuated by changing a flat tire on the side of I-95, in the dark (of course) we arrived at Hilton Head. The island is built up with lots of resorts and expensive homes, grouped into “Plantations” – really just a fancy southern name for parts of the island. Maybe it had to do with the original plantations on the island back in colonial days, I’m not sure. Now, each Plantation has it’s own cache and level on the hierarchy of perceived wealth. The resort where we were staying is owned by the Mariott group, and was located in the exclusive “Sea Pines” Plantation. To access this Plantation, you must go through the guard checkpoint, where the guards collect $5 from you if you are not a “guest” and enforce a cadre of rules designed to enhance the exclusivity of the place at the expense of common sense. I think they just don’t like anything that does not conform to the aura they want to project.

For example, we brought along with us a sit-on-top kayak, in case we wanted to explore some of the area via water (it is an island after all). Well, apparently, the Sea Pines homeowners have a prohibition against any kayaks or surfboards being “displayed” in the open, on top of a car, etc. They are supposed to be kept in a building out of view at all times. The guard at the gate determined by sight that our kayak was too big for our resort to handle, and almost didn’t let us through the gate (what were we supposed to do with the kayak?). But after lengthy argument, he agreed to let us go to our resort and see if they could find a place to store the kayak out of site. They did (fortunately, the Mariott people were very helpful and accomodating) and sure enough, the guard’s supervisor came to check on us 15 minutes later, just in case we decided to ignore this prohibition.

Anyway, I’m digressing, because after that original incident, the rest of the vacation was actually pretty nice.

The island is great for family riding

So, since we had all 3 children with us, we decided to bring the Madsen bike to transport the smaller ones, and my older (5-yr-old) daughter’s kids bike, and a third bike to get everyone around. While the roads on the island are narrow, there is actually a very good network of separated bike paths that run along the sides of the roads, so you can get from your accommodation to the beach and back via bike.

Because of this network of paths, a large industry of rental bikes has been built up, and many people rent bikes for the week. Most of these are beach cruisers with one speed (the island is totally flat, the only hill being the bridge over the inlet) and appear to be fairly low quality bikes. I discovered the reason for this right away, when we rode past a rental place with a sign “$20 rental for one week”. Now, the last time I rented a bike was when I was in Moab, Utah, and rented a mountain bike. It cost me $40 for ONE DAY. Similarly, a bike rental in Boston, to get around the city, cost even more than this. So obviously if you only pay $20 for an entire week, you get what you pay for.

Well, we did quite a bit of riding while we were there, in fact we didn’t use the car at all (except to go to the tire place to buy a new set of tires that is!). My daughter could easily ride safely on the separated bike paths, and we didn’t have to worry about her getting caught up in traffic. She rode over to the Children’s museum and back with her grandparents, rode to the beach, even rode ON the beach. Riding on the beach is very easy and fun when the tide is low. The beach there is very flat, which makes for great sand for riding, and you can go the whole length of the island, several miles.

Enjoying the swings at the playground

One day we all took the trails and rode up to the harbor, where there are lots of yachts, (many of which are very, very large), a great playground, and some little shops and restaurants. We took a round-about way on the way back, having to stop and examine the bike path signs that are dotted around the intersections here and there. The signs were a good thing, because it was pretty easy to get lost with everything looking the same (the uniformity mantra works!).  In fact, I was not sure we were on a different path until we rode past what appeared to be a heritage vegetable farm, which I didn’t remember from the way out. Hmmmm… well, it was a nice day and we weren’t in a hurry.

Occasionally while riding, we would go past a little “borrow pit”, where we spotted some small alligators. (I wonder where they take them when they get too big?). A borrow pit is where they’ve borrowed some soil to fill in another place, such as where the road is. It’s common in areas that were swamps and wetlands at one time. They just move the dirt around and make them ponds and berms – easier to travel around. The kids all enjoyed seeing the alligators and the herons. We never saw the alligators move much. They have a way of making you wonder if they really are alive….just so you might come a little bit closer….and closer….

As we rode around, we encountered many other people on bikes, some of which probably did not ride a bike except for once a year, at Hilton Head. This was evidenced by several near-crashes I witnessed involving curbs and pilot error. One couple almost colliding with each other while getting started. I thought the fact that these people were even out on bikes was pretty cool though, because here is an opportunity to see that one can actually get around by bike. How great! The side paths really were important in making people feel safe to ride a bike and not have to deal with traffic. It was obvious that the investment the Island had made in bike paths really did help people get around while they were on their vacations, and hopefully relieve some traffic and parking problems at the beach.

But at the same time there were some gaping holes in the infrastructure when it came to actually using the bike to go anywhere except the beach. This was especially true because if you had to go somewhere there wasn’t a bike path, the roads themselves were very busy, narrow, and populated by heavily traffic.

For example, we decided to go one day to get some Gelato at a great little Gelato place called Pino Gelato. The Gelato place is in a strip mall Hilton Head style – that is, the stores are arranged in a semi-circle, and there are trees in the parking lot. It’s on the north side of the main highway that transverses the island. The bike path is on the south side of this highway (no path on the north side). Fortunately, there was a stop light at the entrance. But to cross at this stop light required navigating a 4 lane highway with right and left turn lanes and turn arrows, no crosswalk or pedestrian signals. We had the Madsen bike with the 2 little kids in back, my 5-year old on her little bike, and 3 other bikes. We decided the best strategy was to cross en-masse, so we waited for the cross light to change, and then walked our bikes quickly across 8 lanes, avoiding right and left turning traffic. At least we were a highly visible group all together. It was not an easy crossing, but everyone made it safely and had their gelato. Of course we had to repeat this in the opposite direction.

The thing about it that was most annoying was there was absolutely no provision for any kind of crossing at that light. So if you were a pedestrian, you would also face a pretty big risk just getting across the street. And once across there is no shoulder, sidewalk, or any other way to travel down that side of the street if you needed to go to the next establishment, for example. The way it is set up, the only way to easily access any business on the north side of the road is by car.

More Beach Riding

The other time we ran into a similar issue, although this was not quite as bad, was our trip to the grocery store. With the Madsen, we were able to do this easily without the use of the car because it is SO easy to load that bike. (Take grocery sacks out of grocery cart, pile in the bucket, return grocery cart, off you go!). Again, there was no way to access the grocery store strip mall except for traditional car routes, so we negotiated traffic and a convoluted parking lot with a lot of cars backing out of spaces, turning, etc. There was actually a small bike rack at the grocery store (better than I’ve seen in many places!). This traffic negotiation was not a big deal for us, having ridden in traffic a lot and being very comfortable with it. But for these people who can barely negotiate the ramp up the curb to the bike path, there is no way they would ever access this store by bike.

The other strange thing I found about the bike infrastructure was that there was a lack of bicycle racks at the public access points to the beach (also a lack of car parking). As you approach the public access point, there are signs on every fence stating that bikes locked there will be removed. But I didn’t see any actual legitimate place to park your bike. I guess you are supposed to take it with you onto the beach? I think this has more to do with this idea of exclusivity and keeping the “rif-raf” at bay. Don’t provide any parking of any kind, and this discourages beach use except for the people who have actually paid for ocean-front accommodation.

So, overall, my reaction to biking on Hilton Head island was mixed. On the one hand, the island has a great network of paths to get you around most of the places you need to go. There are periodic signs that show you a map of the network and the island so you know where you are. And the paths encourage bike use by many, many people who would otherwise be driving around and clogging up the streets even more than they are.

But on the other hand, the infrastructure falls short when it comes to using the bike as an alternative to the car for practical purposes, such as groceries, or even other shopping. Those parts of the island are still heavily dominated by the car/strip-mall pattern of development, although with a flair to make it seem not so ugly. I found this to be a disappointment, because with just a few changes, it would be possible to greatly expand the way people could get around.

Because you have to have a sunset photo in any discussion of the beach!

But at any rate, I still think that most cities could learn a lot from the Hilton Head model and this kind of investment in alternative transportation infrastructure would really pay off with reduced traffic and higher quality of life.

Fear pervades our culture. That’s because fear sells. And marketers figured this out long ago, so we all get a healthy dose of fear, every day. We’ve become a society that fears far too much, and usually the wrong things.

That’s because fear sells news. It sells all sorts of products to keep you “safe”. And it makes people crazy.

Fear is one of the basest of human emotions. It drives all sorts of negative behaviors – from violence to anger to greed. Why is someone greedy? Often because they fear going “without” so they hoard.

Fear is often misplaced. We fear the “unknown” more than the “known”. For example, many people fear biking because of the “unknown” factor of car drivers on the road who might hit us. Yet the number one killer, heart disease, does not raise the same specter of fear. Why not? Every time a cyclist gets killed in my area (about once or twice a year), that news gets rapidly spread all around amongst the cycling community. What if the same propagation of news happened every time someone had a heart attack, or cancer? There would certainly be far, far more news reports of it than the cyclist deaths. And so it becomes familiar. And because it is familiar, it is not feared. Yet many fear the very thing (biking) that would drastically help reduce the chance of heart attack. People fear a minor killer that would avoid a major killer. Fear is not rational.

But there is a more insidious difference. Why do we fear biking? For one thing, bike helmet campaigns. (I wear a bike helmet, so please don’t consider me anti-helmet). There are many people who benefit from promoting helmets through fear. If you are afraid of getting hit by a car and splitting your head open, you’re much more likely to buy a helmet than if you’re not afraid. And so marketing campaigns for helmets are often fear based – it sells more helmets. This is true not only of helmet sellers, but a small group of people who believe their will should be imposed on everyone because they are sure that helmets would save lives (contrary to the facts).

The thing all this fear does is very insidious. So many people that come into our shop have fear as the number one reason for not biking. Yet it is that very fear that makes biking less safe. It has been very strongly proved that the more people are out biking, the safer it is for everyone (helmeted or not). If many people are afraid of biking, there will be (and are) less cyclists on the road, so it is more dangerous for all of us who do cycle. Fear is self-fullfilling. Even though helmets may be good for the individual, their fear-based promotion is not good for society. That’s because so many people end up just driving their cars rather than biking, which leads to all manner of ills like hear disease, cancer, pollution, oil dependency, etc.

Perhaps an even more egregious case is another product that I see advertised in all the bike magazines, an identification device to wear in case something happens while biking and one needs to be taken to the hospital. Every one of those ads has a story about some cyclist who got hit by a car and wound up in the hospital, with the ID helping “save their lives.” Talk about promoting fear of cycling. The last time I read one of those ads, my active imagination took over, and I had repeated visions of waking up in a hospital after being hit (and no, I’ve not had similar visions of waking up in the hospital after a heart attack, though the latter is more likely). This does nobody any good whatsoever, except for the seller of the device. I’m sure they will sell more IDs through the fear they generate. But they will also convince people that biking is unsafe. In general, it might be a good idea of having an ID for any activity where one isn’t carrying another form of ID. But targeting it specifically at cycling in this fear-based way will only turn people away from cycling, which, again, makes cycling less safe for everyone.

It reminds me of something that happened last year. I was in a bike race where a fellow died, after loosing control on a steep and fast descent (he was going at least 50 mph down the hill, and the accident didn’t involve a car). Everyone in the race was shocked. I was quite amazed to see his daughter state after the fact that he died doing the thing that he loved, and she sounded very sad but not overwrought. After having lost a family member to cancer, which was a slow and painful process for everyone, it makes me wonder – is that really a better way to go (hooked up to a machine and slowly degenerating), than doing something one loves to do?

It is not that cycling is without any dangers. It is that everything else we do in life is dangerous – living itself is dangerous. Fear often misplaces that perspective. And fear causes anxiety, a form of stress that is not at all healthy. We all are going to die, and only a few of us will be lucky enough to have that death be peacefully in our sleep when we are in our late 90′s. I can’t find statistics for it, but it is probably only 1 in 10 or less that will survive that long and in good health.

It is not only in cycling that fear has run amok. There are many other examples:

1. Peak oil. Peak oil is a real and important phenomenon, where once we pass the production peak in world oil, it will become more expensive and more scarce. Since our economy is quite dependent on cheap oil, this will be a major hiccup for us. I don’t debate the basis for peak oil, nor do I debate that we are likely past the world’s oil production peak (Summer 2008). But for many people who inhabit places like the Oil Drum and other peak oil sites, one may notice that a sense of fear (i.e. “gloom and doom”) pervades. There are many folks who follow the views of James Kunstler that society will degenerate and fall apart. Every blog post by Kunstler indicates that the degeneration is just about to begin.
These are fear based responses. People like Kunstler gain a great amount of traction, because fear sells. And there is actually a chance that peak oil could lead to a worldwide collapse of human societies, if a lot of things go wrong. But, these folks underestimate the human penchant for muddling through. While they may point to past societies that have collapsed — the most famous case being Easter Island — there are many more societies that have survived drastic calamity and not collapsed. For example, Europe suffered the Black Death, killing more than 1/2 of the population. Yet with 1/2 of the people gone, society did not collapse. Nor did it collapse after the Irish potato famine. Nor did Germany collapse after its hyperinflation in the 20′s, the rise to power by Hitler, and its defeat in World War II. Economies have often collapsed without a societal collapse.
Economic collapse – a quite common occurrence throughout history – happens when societies and governments overspend and overreach. It is just like a household that overspends and has to declare bankruptcy. It is not fun or pleasant. But it is not the end of life, either. Collapsed economies lead to some years of hardship and pain for many, they are also opportunities – for new businesses, and for forging closer ties with ones community. And so the world keeps turning. Economic collapse has happened many times, and in only a very few of those has society itself collapsed.
My point is that the fear revolving around peak oil is useless, and worse, often incapacitating. If one pictures total collapse of society, then what is the point in doing anything to prepare? One cannot prepare for utter collapse of society. There would be nowhere to hide (unless you have access to a mighty nice spaceship). But it is possible to prepare for lesser forms of hardship, such as oil price spikes due to a US dollar devaluation. Bikes are one way to prepare, and there are many others. Those include moving closer to town, growing a garden, raising chickens, etc. Preparation shouldn’t be about fear, it should be calm and rational preparation for the unexpected disruption of things we rely on for daily survival (food, shelter, transportation). This preparation will be useful regardless of the cause of disruption – whether due to hurricane, earthquake, economic collapse, or one of many other things that could happen.

2. Fat. Seriously, people fear fat. Somehow, marketers have convinced folks that everything they eat must not have fat, or they will collapse right away due to a heart attack. But the funny thing is that the link between fat and heart attack is still not that clear. What’s more, there are many fats that are absolutely essential to body function. In fact, the Omega-3 and monounsaturated fats look like they prevent heart disease. And there’s even accumulating evidence that butter is good for you. The only true “bad” fats that consistently are linked to heart disease are – get this – trans fats that were sold as an “alternative” to butter because they were supposedly “healthier”. Talk about fear leading us up a blind alley.

3. Child abduction/etc (parental fears). When I was a kid, I started walking to school 4 blocks each way, every day, when I was in 2nd grade. Parents would never do that now. It would be considered crazy to let a child walk on their own. Yet fears of things like abduction are far overblown, it is an extremely rare occurrence. What is not so rare are cases of childhood obesity (an epidemic), childhood ADD, and many other ailments associated with kids being kept indoors and not getting enough exercise. Yes, an abduction of a child is horrific. But isn’t a child developing arteriosclerosis by age 10 similarly horrific, especially if it is 100 times more common? A lifetime of health problems and medical costs for all of us? And fear of going outside? That seems plenty horrific.

I could go on and on – the examples of fear being used to sell are all around us, and as a result, so many people I know live in fear. I have been trapped in it myself at times. When I learned of Peak Oil, I became trapped in a cycle of fear about it for quite a while. But when I’m in that mode, I can’t live life happily. A while ago, I began practicing a martial art. The initial reason was fear – wanting to be better prepared in self defense. But I soon realized that fear was not the best reason to do it. What I figured out was that I enjoyed the exercise, focus, release of aggression, and that those benefits far outweigh the whole fear thing. And doing it for those reasons, I find myself more relaxed about it, which leads to faster progress.

Fear of the future prevents enjoyment of the present. And then, what’s the point of living?

I have recently started a campaign: “say no to fear”. Except in rare instances, fear is a waste of human energy.

For more reading on the subject, check out the book “The Culture of Fear” by Barry Glassner, or “False Alarm: The Truth about the Epidemic of Fear” by Marc Siegel. Also, there’s a great podcast on Fear by Gil Fronsdal courtesy of Audio Dharma.