Saturday, October 02, 2004

Bike Nation

Click here to access Bike Nation, an internet portal promoting "a movement of people and efficient machines churning towards a civilized society." In one way or another my cousins, Brian and Jeremy Cavagnolo, of San Francisco and Berkeley respectively, are at the very least partly responsible, or perhaps crucially responsible for the creation of this portal as a window into their growing community of family and friends who preach a simple moto: If it can be done on a bike, do it on a bike. As a regular bicycle commuter in Vancouver, I have also been a commited member of the two wheeled anti-engine mod squad for quite a while now. There are a lot of reasons I chose to get around on a bike. It is cheap. It is healthy. There is no polution. It is more convienment a lot of the time. It is fun. I adore the thrill of bicycles. And many more. Sure, I own a car, but I try to use it as little as possible. I mostly use it to get my bike somewhere! The point is to try to progress to a more "human scale of living." Whatever you can do towards that, no matter how small and seemingly insignificant, so much the better. I encourage you to check out Bike Nation and get into the lore. Yo! Bike Nation Y'all!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hey Shawn,

Yeah, bikes are really responsible, but let's prove it. According to the sierra club, per capita carbon dioxide output in the US in 1999 was about 5.5 tons. If instead of driving your car, you ride your bike for an hour per day, your carbon dioxide output is only 0.05 tons. That's about a 100x savings. Go bikenation! (If anybody wants to know what sort of assumptions and calculations I had to make to generate this number, let me know...'cuz I probably made a mistake somehwere:)

Ciao,
Brian