Peace Coffee: Bicycles Make Everything Better
Just remember anything you do, can be made better by adding in bicycles.
More info here.
Someday, Someday
Amsterdam Bicycle Parking. I would hope that someday where I live looks like this.
Water Water Everywhere But Not A Drop To Drink
If you cant read this map, it basically shows that people in most of Africa, Much of Asia, and a fair part of South America have very poor access to clean water. Even though most of the Earth is covered with water, hardly any of it is drinkable. With over pumping of aquifers, pollution, and over use for industrial use, it is even harder for many people to find clean water to drink.
This lack of clean water leads to millions of deaths each year from easy to cure water born parasites and bacteria. The man who invented the Segway thinks he might have one answer.
Combined with solar power, or a wind turbine this machine could revolutionize the way much of the world gets water. The obvious problem is that these sort of machines most likely contain complicated parts, parts that can break, parts that cost a lot of money, and parts that are hard to get to places that need them. This doesn’t even take into account the problem of training people how to use them. But I would hope that a country (ours) that can spend more than a trillion dollars on killing people (the Iraq War) could find it in its heart to spend at least a couple billion brining clean drinking water to the world.
More info here.
Of course its not as cool as this.
This Fifth Grader Is Smarter Than You: Builds His Own Air Powered Car
This kid (and his father, you know his dad helped) built this freaking sweet air car.
All that and catchy music. It also looks like it uses a fair amount of bicycle parts, making it even cooler. I wish I had learned how to weld in fifth grade. According to the Youtube page it can go about half a mile and goes about 9mph, not going to change the world, but still pretty awesome for a fifth grader. My science fair project in fifth grade was a stupid volcano made with vinegar and baking soda. To my credit it did have a cut away model showing the magma chamber, but still it was no air car.
Rush Hour In Copenhagen - Bikes Are Awesome
Sure as hell beats the rush hour in Boston. Were some of those people actually having friendly conversation?!? Was that a smile I saw!?! Are those people working out and having fun and commuting home all at the same time!!!
I am pretty sure they are having a good time. You could tell cause you could hear them, you know cause the horn symphony was turned off, and the roar of diesel engines was gone. Someday Boston… someday.
*to be clear, this is not some event, this is every day in this city, thousands of people use the bicycle as their main form of transport.*
Another Sweet Use Of A Bicycle: The Bicycle Snow Plow
When the $4 a gallon gas hits, and you can’t fill up your snow blower, try this guy.
Kevin Blake, who by day is an engineer at Trek Bicycles, came up with the idea of using pedal power to push show about 13 years ago. In 1993 Blake built a recumbent commuter tricycle with a friend and remembers thinking “could I put a blade on the front and push snow?”
His friend was skeptical about it working at all because of traction and weight issues with the light weight trike. Undeterred, Blake figured that if he could “snowplow” with a regular shovel then it should be possible to use the legs in a pedaling motion to do the same thing.
It took another eight years for Blake to acquire a junked Craftsman riding lawnmower to use for the chassis of his brainchild snowplow. Every time he shoveled snow in those eight years he would think about his pedal plow. Then one day while watching the show “Monster Garage” he was inspired. He immediately turned off the TV and started sketching some ideas for the snowplow. Within four months (Oct ’03 – Jan ‘04) of working after hours and week-ends Blake had a functional machine. (via)
Awesome. See it in action here.
Cool Bike Video’s
Because I had such a good time this weekend on a bike, and because bicycles are one of the most eco-friendly forms of transportation and I want all of you to go get one and ride them, I present these videos for your enjoyment.
Monday Confessional
Wow so did I have a good time this weekend. Good times, let me count the ways.
Friday: Yea its a little think I like to call going to see the funny man. If you have never seen or heard of this guy (as I hadn’t) then you should check him out. Warning he is really really really really really dirty and crass. If thats your cup of tea check this out. I have to admit I laughed till my abs hurt. It was a great time.
Saturday: So you think to yourself funny man pretty much makes the weekend, BUT WAIT, there is so much more. Saturday was the culmination of a dream for me. Everyone who has ever gotten really in debt knows the mental anguish that that has on you. You think about it all the time, you worry about paying it off, its generally a no good time. That is why when you finally pay off that debt, it’s like the world is suddenly a glorious and fantastic place, a magical world of elves and unicorns. I now inhabit that world! Story time.
Once upon a time in a flat flat midwestern land, a small boy wanted to go to school. The only problem was this boy was broke as a joke, so broke that for the first semester of his modestly priced state school he was forced to foolishly borrow exceedingly large sums of money from Citibank. He was the first person in his family to really ever deal with this sort of thing, and he wasn’t very good at it. Lets just say that Citibank saw him coming. I was that boy.
In a kinder genteeler world I would be saying “thank you kind Citibank for loaning me the money to attain my education.” “A million blessings upon your head for allowing me the schooling that helped lift me up from poverty to just plain broke.” We don’t live in that world.
You would think with a name like “student assist loan” that what they were offering me was a “student loan” you know the kind you can consolidate, the kind you lock into a (at the time) super low interest rate, the kind that wont suddenly sky rocket to over 9.4% interest. If you thought that, you would be wrong.
So long story short, what started out as a modest loan soon blossomed into a mob like “the juice is running” situation in which I soon realized that if I didn’t bay this bad boy off, and soon, that it was going to be with me for a LONG time. A couple of months of rice and beans for dinner (every day) ramen for lunch (most days), and paying near 100% of my income to the bank = BAMN no more loans. TAKE THAT Citbiank!
Saturday night, surrounded by friends, I logged in for the last time to Citibanks online payment center and sent them the last of the money they will ever get from me. There was cheering, and much joy was had by all.
Sunday: With a Friday and Saturday like that you must assuredly be thinking that Sunday would be spent resting, well you would be so wrong! “This is madness” you would say, to which I would respond “no, THIS IS SPARTA (bike racing)”. Thats right Sunday was the premier of the Boston Boldsprints! Think indoor racing, think people pushing themselves to the limit of their skill, think potential vomiting, yes it was a fantastic night of awesome. Many many more pictures below the fold.
Read the rest of Monday Confessional
It’s Snowing Build Yourself A Ski Bike
Proving once again that bikes can do ANYTHING I present the ski bike.
Build your own, instructions. See one in action below.
(umm do I need to even mention that these things are dangerous?) Proving once again that you don’t need something that runs on oil to kill yourself Have an insane amount of good clean eco-friendly fun.
There Is Nothing A Bicycle Can’t Do (Bicycle Powered Forklift Edition)
We have covered a lot of bike stuff around here from bike powered super computers, bike powered welders, even bicycle powered tennis ball launchers! Here is yet another awesome bike device (yaabd).
Behold! The Bicycle forklift!
I love it, uses no fuel, and I bet the person who operates it is wicked ripped. Of course you couldn’t use this for everything, but if your warehouse is small, or perhaps you only have a few things you move around all the time, why spend the extra money for fuel and a big machine when this lovely device will do just fine, plus at lunch you could race it around the parking lot! You can find more interesting bicycle devices here. (Japanese translation)
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