I've moved!

Hi people! I have moved to: The Freedom Machine

Bob Mionske: Man O' Bike Law

Bob Mionske: Man O' the Law (blond guy in the middle)

I just ordered Bob Mionske's Bicycling and the Law and can't wait to read it. I have become obsessed with knowing what the law says about cycling--which comes in handy when refuting junk when I hear it! I like knowing not only my responsibilities, but my rights. I will post more on this as I learn more so stay tuned!

Ride on people!

Pushing Pedals, Not Budgets

This article appeared in the New York Times today--I LOVE that it is school children who are being trained to learn bike mechanics and helping others gain more control and freedom over how they get around. Awesome!

Welcome back to the bikey life!

Last night was the first night I have been able to get to Cycle Recycle and it was AWESOME! I remembered how to do stuff that I was not sure I could do. Had lots of patient help from others and laughed a lot. I have stayed in 'ok' shape this winter by going to the gym but my thighs were still burning when I got home last night. Nothing like a good burn! :-)

I am so ready for Bike, Walk, and Wheel Week!

Miles: 7

Stuff I heard:

Guy: Is that how you say duodenum?
Girl: Yeah, I say do-ah-deh-numb. How do you say it?
Guy: I say duo-dee-numb too. Me and my wife have had some intense conversations about that.

Cycling with Parkinson's

An article in the New York Times covers some research on how patients with Parkinson's, people who cannot walk unassisted, are able to ride a bike! It is very cool so check it out!

Bike Commuting with a Cold

Dottie over at Let's Go Ride a Bike recently had a post on commuting with a cold. I have had two bad head colds over the last three months. Both times they came on after flying somewhere---all that internally circulated air on airplanes means passengers are bathed in one another's germs for several hours. Yuck!

To me, biking with a runny nose is not an issue but the cough I often get makes working up a sweat a bad proposition. Once I get warmed up and break into even a little sweat, I start coughing up a lung. I easily go through a large bottle of cough syrup per cold just to get some sleep at night. It is frustrating and causes me to miss at least a week of working out and bike commuting.

What do you guys do?

This modern life

This Andy Singer cartoon sums up what a lot of work in the modern world amounts to: Sitting in front of a computer for the majority of a work day. I am amazed that so many professions have been centralized into basically "technological" work. I see this in education all the time: We foist technological "solutions" onto teachers and parents often urging them to make sure their children spend even more time in front of a screen each day. Then we all wonder why so many of our children (not to mention adults) are obese.


It is not easy to find solutions if so much of our work is attached to technology that requires we be passive physically to use it-- but I think active transportation is one solid solution that solves more than one problem; actually attacking multiple issues in a low-tech and effective way (rising cost of fuel, pollution, road safety, expense of road upkeep and maintenance, obesity, heart disease, diabetes, etc).

I would love to work out a way to collect my research data at schools here in Columbia so that I could ride my bike there and feel I was addressing more than one important lesson in life. I don't know if this will pan out, but I think it is worth trying because I feel more and more conflicted with only offering high tech, consumer oriented solutions to teachers, students, and parents that are creating as many problems as they are solving. (I realize some people think this is a simplistic answer, but they have not seen the amount of dialogue that is created when you arrive somewhere by bike when everyone else is stumbling out of cars with fast food wrappers spilling everywhere :-)