Ode to cigarettes redux

if only he
had a bike

Sierra Club gears up

to hike, bike,
and paddle

The venerable enviro-org has launched a new website, Sierra Club Trails. It's up and running in a beta test now, and they're planning to launch it soon. As far as I know, the site is the first-ever comprehensive hiking wiki where anyone can post their favorite trails for hiking, biking, even water trails for kayaking. Anyone else then can edit the So if I post a route to Milwaukee, anyone who rode it recently can update road conditions, construction, traffic, etc.


It's also an online community where users can create profiles and meet other bikers, hikers, surfers, you name it, and join discussion forums with topics like the best trail mix recipe or whether guns should be allowed in national parks. Community members can form groups around a particular outdoor interest or place. So it features tips for outdoor adventurers alike, a birding blog, photo contests, and Nature Notes, a series of audio features based on interviews with naturalists and Sierra Club Outings leaders.

Rollin' in the rain

on the need
for keepin' dry

April in The Windy City has indeed been the cruelest month. The seasonal rains are back with a vengeance. Not that it's especially heavy. It's more of a constant, dribbling mist that creeps under your skin. And with temps fluctuating from the low 40s to the low 60s, it's almost impossible to get the layered commuter wear right. I shouldn't complain though. It's a regular, and therefore, expected part of living 41° 59' north of the Equator. Besides, there's a bit of comfort in the thought that Chicago bikers have been dealing with this for over 100 years.

For instance, the old Chicago Daily News published these two photos on 15 June 1915. Early summer is typically warmer than late autumn. But that particular summer was the coolest and wettest on record. So back then before the Age of Lycra and Gortex, the best way to keep dry was roll fast and carry an umbrella. The only problem was probably rolling single-handed in the wind. Thank goodness that there doesn't appear to be any traffic!

Swiss spaghetti harvest

enjoy!

This BBC Panorama documentary, first aired on 1 April 1957, presents the fascinating world of Swiss spaghetti production to millions of deprived and hungry post-war Brits.

Rides of March

...with Chainlink

Despite Sunday night's last FU of Winter, spring is near. Change is in the air ... and on the streets. I'm SO READY to drastically increase my saddle time. While I'm an enthusiastic winter biker, I've got to confess, this winter was the toughest in the 10 years I've lived in The Windy City. But get through it I did!

Doing a lot more group rides was a significant part of my winterizing strategy. Lee Diamond, a local realtor and self-described bike freak, started leading monthly neighbor bike tours back in 2008. As he states on his website,

Chicago is made up of neighborhoods rich with history and character. Chicago is a many-layered city. While you have to work hard to not find great spots while aimlessly wandering about, some of the most special places require a tip from someone “in-the-know.”... We’ll lead you around and show you the parks, landmarks, and business establishments that make a neighborhood great while also pointing out residential buildings and properties of interest.

I found other monthly rides over at Chainlink, a new social networking site for local vélotarians. Based on Ning, it encourages like-minded bikers to connect on shared interests and issues. A lot of established rides like Midnight Marauders and Chicago Critical Mass have already set up shop there. It's spawned a whole new set of monthly rides as well. Two I really enjoy are the Full Moon Fiasco, hosted by FBC Chicago, and The Northside Critical Mass, hosted by The "far" Northside Riders.

How tomorrow moves?

bike cargo trailer advert
from CSX Rail

Pinoy traffic taming

those who have less in wheels
must have more in road

I've been to the Philippines 4 times now and for considerable amounts of time. Unfortunately, I've never had the cajones to get around by bike. Much of my work takes place well off the beaten track ... literally. It rains most of the time ... at least when I'm there. And like most Asian countries, kar kultur is king. I won't even get into how Pinoy cagers drive. However, the next time I go I just might be tempted. Philippines President, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, recently issued Administrative Order 254. As part of her government's plans to cut fossil fuel use by 50% in two years, all major roads nationwide will be made more pedestrian- and bike-friendly.

The new paradigm in the movement of men and things must follow a simple principle: those who have less in wheels must have more in road. For this purpose, the system shall favor non-motorized locomotion and collective transportation system such as walking, bicycling and the man-powered mini-train.

Sounds like a step in the right direction but I've no idea what a man-powered mini-train might look like. Perhaps something like this?

I'm back!

now this
is the Chicago
I love

A WINTER WEATHER ADVISORY REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL MIDNIGHT CST TONIGHT. A BLIZZARD WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT FROM MIDNIGHT TONIGHT TO 12 PM CST TUESDAY. THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN CHICAGO HAS ALSO ISSUED A BLIZZARD WATCH... WHICH IS IN EFFECT FROM WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON THROUGH LATE WEDNESDAY NIGHT.

Bike nerds & green geeks

an image problem?

...for most people the bicycle is something you use for transportation until you are successful enough to buy a car; that the bicycle is not seen as a sexy, technologically advanced machine worth aspiring to tells me that cycling has an image problem. This image problems crops up in numerous T.V. shows and movies. One example is The 40 Year Old Virgin, where Steve Carell, in the role of a loser, rides his bike everywhere.

So writes Andy Posner in one of my favorite web articles of 2008. It appeared in The Huffington Post on 29 June. Although I don't shared his fetish for high tech materials, he does makes good sense when he asserts that if can change the image of erstwhile bikers we can definitely change the world.

But if we can change the way cyclists are perceived we can create a paradigm shift in what individuals do with increasing wealth. Just imagine hundreds of millions of people in China, India and America happily riding carbon fiber bicycles alongside carbon fiber plug-in hybrid electric vehicles. Sure, getting there will require a lot more than a change in values: we need policy changes and the infrastructure to make cycling safer and more convenient, as well as a renewably-powered, electrified transportation system. However, as long as cyclists are seen as losers, the bicycle will lose out to the hybrid. And given the scale of climate change and the geopolitics of oil, that would mean that we all lose.

Christian the lion

Happy
Thanksgiving!

Anthony "Ace" Bourke lives in Australia as a lecturer and expert in the area of Aboriginal Art, and John Rendall lives in the UK and is a Trustee of the George Adamson Wildlife Preservation Trust.

Vampire power

will suck
you dry

Trick-or-treating this Friday? Be afraid ... very, very afraid! Halloween poses more risks than ghoulies, ghastlies, and ghosts. While your out, your cell phone charger will be burning up power even if you have the phone with you. Your sleeping computer will be doing the same, as will your your modem and wireless system. Even your innocent TV, with that little red light keeping your remote control company, will be using electricity. What's happening?

Vampire power sucks
17-25 % of your household electricity.

It can add up to 10% of your monthly electric bill.

It costs US homes and businesses
an estimated $1 - $3.5 billion annually.

Eco-driving...

too little
too late

why not teach 'em
how to ride a bike?

The ultimate renewable resource:

Youth!

Avila Chicago: Making a Difference will air my recent interview on Comcast Chicago Access Network TV, Channel 19, Friday, 5 September at 5pm and again on Sunday, 7 September at 12 noon.

The better world club

Ohio boys
make good

There's finally a roadside assistance program for us bikers. Available from Better World Club, it provides service up to 30 miles with a maximum of two service calls per covered member per year. You also get League of American Cyclists membership as well as discounts/special offers on travel and cycling products.

Energy crisis solved?

Paris Hilton responds
to McCain Ad

More great videos at FunnyOrDie.com.

Off to Mindanao

again!

Slovenia rolls!

KRPAN & Cult

The former Yugoslav republic's Bicycle KRPAN is truly an alternative form of transport. It's a safe, economical, and green bike for moving light- to medium-weight goods. It's high quality components were carefully selected and built with an eye toward its primary users – Europe's postal workers.

Manufactured entirely in Slovenia, the KRPAN comes in various design options. Weighing in at 25kg it can carry up to 200kg. There's no news about when it might be available in the US, however.

The only model known to be in the US is owned by George Bush %( He was given it by Slovenia's prime minister, Janez Jansa. It was presented during Bush's recent farewell tour of Europe. Jansa is a bike-freak like Bush. He spends much of his free time on a carbon Black Gold XTR, a top level hardtail bike. It's a Cult Bike, the same company that produces the KRPAN.

Manhattan traffic taming

The Big Apple's
Highline Park

The High Line is an abandoned elevated railway that once carried freight to, and sometimes inside, warehouses. It's a mess industrial decay and native plants, and it has the potential to be the most delightful and unconventional green space in the country.


Back in June, city officials and the group Friends of the High Line presented the final design for part of the $170 million High Line park that is under construction on the West Side of Manhattan


It's an opportunity to create a one-of-a-kind recreational amenity: a grand, public promenade that can be enjoyed by all New Yorkers and visitors. They'll be able to rise up from the streets and step into a place apart, tranquil and green. They'll see the Hudson River, the Manhattan skyline, and secret gardens inside city blocks. And they'll will move between Penn Station and the Hudson River Park, from the Jake Javits Convention Center to the Gansevoort Market Historic District, without meeting a car or truck.

Thinking inside the box

when brown
is green

Phil Bridge, a 21 year old design student at Sheffield Hallam University, is building bikes from cardboard. It's extremely inexpensive at around $30. But some worry that it won't hold up in inclement weather. You know, like when your backyard refrigerator box fort collapsed in the rain?

Bridge, states that it's very strong and it has a honeycomb core. It's mainly used in partition walling and packaging. So his idea is that people could buy them to see if they like biking. Then if they like it they can then upgrade to a normal bike. Nor is he alone. Ryan Perkins of Pacific SouthWest Container made this cardboard single speed from a PDF CAD drawing done on Bike Forest Pro.

How much oil?

no matter what,
it ain't enough

Hanging out socially with bikers and professionally with environmentalists, I've observed their almost giddy satisfaction with rising gas prices. Even some muscular liberals, despite being burned on the Iraq War, seem to think that working class families require exactly this bit of tough love to force them to be free from our Car Kultur.

Now comes the offshore drilling debate between Obama and McCain. Essentially it boils down to there's enough oil out there (McCain) vs. there may be BUT the issue is really about American consumption (Obama). A great way to understand the significance of the difference comes from Juan Cole's Informed Comment. Cole, a former prof of mine, is best known for his commentary on Middle Eastern affairs. However, given, the ocean of oil under those country's sandy wastes, he can't ignore its impact on current events. I really, really urge any biker or environmentalist to check out his blog. Here's a startlingly relevant example:

The world uses on the order of 86 million barrels a day of petroleum. That figure is expected to veer sharply upward as China and India go in for automobiles and trucking in a big way.

The United States uses nearly 21 million barrels a day of petroleum and liquified hydrocarbon fuel, or nearly 25% of everything the world produces daily. The US has 5% of the world's population.

The US produces about 5 million barrels a day of petroleum and another 3 million barrels a day of liquefied fuel. That 8 million barrels a day is only about a third of what we use, so we import the rest. The lower 48 states produced about 4.4 million barrels of petroleum a day in 2006.

If all the known offshore fields were drilled and panned out, the lower 48's oil production would be increased by 7%. That would be 300,000 barrels a day.

Millions of barrels of oil a day produced by US and by world, with McCain's proposed increase through offshore drilling.

0.3 million barrels a day would make very little difference whatsoever to current oil prices even if it could be brought online right now. It would be a matter of a few pennies. And, in fact, if there were to be any impact of all of offshore drilling on prices, it would not come until 2020 or even 2030.

You will note that the Saudis just offered to increase their production by 0.5 million barrels a day, and the oil futures market just yawned. And that is in the real world, right now, not in some decade or two-decades-out in the future drilling scheme.

Moreover, US consumption of petroleum is increasing over time, so the extra 300,000 barrels a day would quickly be used up and then some.

McCain is cynically wooing Big Oil in Texas in order to get campaign contributions, while lying to the American people about his offshore drilling plan having a quick impact on oil prices and their quality of life. Bringing the 300,000 barrels a day on line would make somebody a lot of money. It will do us no good with regard to energy prices, and in fact will harm our standard of living because drilling for the oil will endanger beaches and the environment more generally, and burning that extra oil will accelerate climate change.

An informed reader writes, "We can save more than 300,000 barrels a day by everyone in the US using just one sixth of a gallon less a day. The US did it in WW2, why not in the War on Oil?"

It isn't even a matter of just voluntarily using less. If the US depended more on trains and increased automobile and truck fuel efficiency, it could reduce its use of petroleum by millions of barrels a day, which would have a stupendous impact on oil prices compared to what could be achieved from offshore drilling. Rail is much more efficient at transporting goods than trucking. Trucking in the US receives very substantial hidden subsidies. Trucks tear up the highways in ways that passenger automobiles do not, so the hundreds of millions of dollars the government spends on road repair every year, which you pay for with your tax dollars, is effectively a vast subsidy to trucking companies. If that subsidy were cancelled, or given to the railroads, and trucking companies had to actually pay the cost in carbon production and road repair generated by their industry, the US would be light years closer to energy independence. It is Congress, which is bribed by campaign contributions from concrete and trucking concerns, that has set up this ridiculous system of hidden subsidies that harms us all. Moreover, Detroit's silly resistance to fuel efficient automobiles will bury the US car industry, as the world turns to vehicles produced by the Japanese or Europeans that are much cheaper to run. And Congress coddles them on all this.

"Redshift" notes below,

'To add to his new energy policy instanity, McCain is a longtime opponent of Amtrak. He's actually worse than Bush in this area. In the "differences" column of the recent NYT chart comparing Bush and McCain on policy, this is noted under "Federal spending":

"Mr. McCain has sought to emphasize his differences with Mr. Bush by portraying himself as a stronger opponent of pork-barrel projects and other wasteful spending. He says he would not sign any earmarked projects into law and would cut financing for ineffective programs, including Amtrak." '

McCain is not against Federal subsidies for commuter airlines, on which Arizonans depend.

It is estimated that Federal subsidies for highways annually amount to $500 an automobile, while subsidies for Amtrak amount to only $40 a passenger.

(Since rail is also more efficient in moving passengers than automobiles, and since automobiles account for a significant proportion of US petroleum use, opposing subsidies for Amtrak while spending billions in public money to build and repair roads for autos is suicidal.)

But I have a sinking feeling that the Democrats will have no effective answer to McCain's cynical offshore drilling ploy. Developing a Green rhetoric that is convincing to the public is the most essential political task of our generation, and of tremendously more import than terrorism or war.