With My Own Two Wheels

With My Own Two Wheels Trailer from Jacob SB on Vimeo.

I Was Lovin It

Results of the exportation of the Western diet

I came across this video over at Healthy Girl's Kitchen and was astounded. I had never seen this CBS story on Nauru but it is an eye-opener; both sad and a serious warning bell for the U.S. where our type II diabetes rates are estimated to grow to 1:3 in the next forty years. Food for thought.

Joyride

Meet Mia Birk, founder and CEO of Alta Planning and Design. I stumbled across Mia's book Joyride in Amazon.com and love it!Very cool! 

Keeping Moving

This image and quote from Einstein remind me to keep moving, keep biking, keep on keepin on. The weather has been so cold the past few days that I am tempted to slow down, grow sluggish and quit being very active (or retreat entirely to the gym). Let it not be!  If Dervla Murphy can bike with icicles on her nose, then I can easily ride in 25 degree weather. If you don't know who Dervla Murphy is, then you are missing out. The woman knows how to live life---her book Full Tilt is a cycling/traveling classic--her depiction of a 1963 Afghanistan is worth the price of the book alone.


Ride on People!

The Great Energy Equalizer: The Bicycle

“Bicycles let people move with greater speed without taking up significant amounts of scarce space, energy or time. They can spend fewer hours on each mile and still travel more miles in a year. They can get the benefit of technological breakthroughs without putting undue claims on the schedules, energy or space of others. They become masters of their own movements without blocking those of their fellows. Their new tool creates only those demands which it can also satisfy. Every increase in motorized speed creates new demands on space and time. The use of the bicycle is self-limiting. It allows people to create a new relationship between their life-space and their life-time, between their territory and the pulse of being, without destroying their inherited balance”  Ivan Illich, Energy and Equity, 1973

Car-centricity and Christmas

In the film What Would Jesus Buy the other night, Judith Levine, author of Not Buying It: My Year Without Shopping, is interviewed and makes some interesting remarks that intersect the U.S. obsession with shopping and car culture. 

In WWJB, Levine states: "There are many places in America where there are no sidewalks. What does this say about us? It says that we have to be either in our cars or in our house....or in the mall. There are only commercial spaces in almost all of America.... or private spaces. You are either trespassing, or you are buying."

I am always amazed during Christmas by how car-centric the holiday is. It is not that shopping requires a car, but that people seem hardwired in the U.S. to view navigating from point A to point B as car-necessary no matter how small the distance (statistics show that 40% of urban travel in the U.S. occurs within 2 miles). Then they complain about the cost of gym memberships, obesity, and the inevitable weight gain during the holidays. Even holiday activities are geared towards car-culture rather than an activities that are, well, active. At least in Copenhagen they are finding ways to be active during the holidaze. :-D

Ride on people!