You might save some money on gas, but if you get doored or worse, run over, it won't cover your hospital bills.

People try to run you down sometimes. I call it attempted murder. I think I am gonna get me a gun to deal with this problem...

biking is such a great way to get around , unfortuantely cars and bikes don`t match very well... just think if a small portion of the money wasted on the wars in afganistan and iraq were put toward improving roads and making bike lanes in all major cities and towns...thats the kind of surge i like....during the first gulf war , the winter of 1990 and 91, i took off on a bicycle journey with all the money i had (less then five hundred dollars) with an old junker 10 speed beach bomber bicycle a friend gave me and i traveled from northern california down to baja mexico crossing over sea of cortez on boat to mainland and Mazatlan and that`s where i found out the first gulf war was beginning and i realized my trip was a personal protest against oil and pollution. my journey ended near the guatemala border months later (traded the bike to a mexican family in oaxaca state for a small sum to keep my journey going on trains) and was difficult at times, but a totally magical timelessness experience to arrive in small villages were i would get mobbed by children and curious faces asking me all kinds of questions.. you get to really feel many things unlike you do in a car and connect with people and nature in a different way..since then i have updated and now own a hybrid pedal assist bike and when people say i cheat cause i have an electric motor , i ask them how many hills they have climbed on a regular bike...peace to the bicyclists and thanks to you Dana for the good article.

Our Mission

In ancient Athens, Aristotle condamned the idealists who "... spoon-feed their pupils a simplified world, populated with imaginary, perfect forms". His school, he said, is "... grounded in the real world". So "... if you wish to join those frivolous philosopher kings and lodge your head in the clouds, now is your chance to leave."

Back to today's world, and for those of us who prefer Reality over Ideals, we begin to realize that our planet is consuming more energy every day, that temperatures rise and will reach a point of no-return within one generation. We see these phenomena as unavoidable as long as human nature does not change.

And human nature will not change.

If someone was to announce to the world that we still have a very slight chance of stopping the ecological disaster provided we agreed to reducing the global economic activity drastically, human nature would resist on the ground that we "deserve" to live better. If someone explained that the only way to live better without increasing global economic activity is to reduce the world's population starting today, human nature would resist on the ground that we all "deserve" to live, including the next generations.

Many times, the search for ideals prevents us from adopting any solution at all.

We simply decided to offer the VeloSolex as a better alternative to cars. No, it is not the ideal vehicle, but the ideal vehicle either does not exist or when it exists, it is will not be suitable for all functions.

On the other hand, VeloSolex is the lowest cost, lowest carbon signature, lowest gas consumption vehicle you can find today for your daily commuting needs. True, it is not that flashy, does not include high tech gadgets and looks old fashioned. But when you force your human nature to disregard all these non essential aspects, you remain with a set of real, cool advantages, the best vehicle that will take one person from A to B, using the strict minimum of ressources.

Luckily, the VeloSolex is not only a logical vehicle, it happens to be also a fun ride that can make you feel really good and put a smile on your face.

And when you ride it, you convey a message. You state that you let go of the habitual ways of doing things.

http://www.velosolexamerica.com

Yesterday, my bike was stolen right off my second story porch, in broad daylight, while I was in the shower. The scumbags were nice enough to leave the cut chain and lock, though. Good thing I live in a "security" building...

This is the third bike I've had stolen in just under two years living in what some call the "nice" part of North Dallas.

Remember bikers - sadly, your bike is only secure if you can see it at all times.

Hal_9000 a moped/scooter is an excellent idea. OTH get a 4 stroke engine as opposed to a 2 stroke like the velo if you can find one. Small two stroke engines put out at least as many particulates as an SUV, 4 strokes, don't.

Put your TV in your driveway. Put your bike in your car. Drive over your TV until you puncture a tire. Get out your bike. Ride away. Never go back.
Hoa binh

TORONTO: bike protest
Yesterday hundreds of cyclists in the down town core of Canada's largest city took to the roads and blocked in protest a major road used by thousands cars every morning. It wasn't over high gas prices it was over lack of bike lanes. 3 arrests were made and I hope this is a start of something to get the city planners off their fat limo driven butts. Giving an extra 5 to 10 feet on each side of new roads isn't that big of a deal to do.

I have to admit I was in the best shape of my life when I rode my bike 21 miles a day 5 days a week. Now I ride maybe 1 or 2 times a week since.
Bike theft, I like to remove the seat and front rim and about 10 LBS of chain to lock up the rest.

Two things happened to me:

First, I got hit by a teenager doing 55 on a back street. Broke my wrist. I was lucky they didn't have to fuse the wrist joint. I was also lucky I had insurance, cause the guy who hit me had nothing.

Commuter safety is not to be scoffed at. I hate those wheel=grabbing storm drains too. (I switched to fat tires deliberately) But what really counts is getting the accident rate seriously down toward zero. This is a plea for kid-safe bikeways, thru routes that have no weakest link.

Then I got a lover and we got married. She drives everywhere. She's not in excellent physical shape and she's heat-sensitive to the point where we ought to get a disability plate for the car. Someday we'll invest in a tandem to solve the leg power inequality problem. No solution in July.

Although I am pushing 60 and have NEVER been athletic, I have ridden a bike as my only transportation since 1993. I live in rural Utah, which is anything but cool and flat. In 2001, I got an electric mountain bike, which one also pedals. I can now easily "joy ride" (in some of the most beautiful areas of the planet) thirty or forty miles on the electricity most people waste by leaving their TV plugged in (but turned off) for 24 hours. Although my income (thank you Clinton and Bush) has crashed to amounts that would embarrass most Brazilians, I am saving for a single PV panel and a few other accessories that not only will charge the bike battery, but serve as an emergency power system for lighting, evaporative cooling, and my heater fan during those frequent power outages, courtesy of the crumbling, predatory capitalist owned power grid. All this stuff is mature technology, and not some lab experiment. You don't need ten acres of solar panels to recharge a tiny battery, nor a trust fund to buy them.

I laugh at the idiot "gasheads," those poor stressed out folks tied to petroleum. One of my best friends, who can only be described as a milk-toast of the highest order, becomes a raging bull behind the wheel of his new $25,000 gas-sucking, rust bucket SUV. Just the stress of riding with him to the supermarket makes me weary and worn. I can get my errands done nearly as fast as he can (faster if the horrible Jeep Safari is in progress) and hear birds chirping, and the Colorado River flowing. Buying my bicycle, replacement parts and batteries, and the electricity to charge it, since 2001 has cost me LESS than his insurance for ONE YEAR. He has every health problem imaginable and spends way too much time at the chiropractor. I have lost eighty pounds since 1993 and suffer nary a twinge of pain because of daily exercise. The positive effects of this are extreme. If you take this medicine in tiny doses, it is almost effortless.

Gas is a cheat. It is like heroin, relieving pain but shutting out reality. It is a delusional addiction. Just say no to gas, and use it only when needed. If I can adapt, so can any reasonably normal person. You don't need a thumping, smoke belching, pernicious piece of environment raping fecal matter in your life. (Gosh, it sounds like I am talking about John Mc Cain!)

Bicycles are not for everyone, but if you are even reasonably normal physically, you owe it to yourself and the environment to try to replace your car.

I believe in bikes. I grew up in Europe where every accomodation is made for bikes: separate lanes with their own traffic lights -- REAL lanes, with room for five bikes abreast. And they go everywhere. You never have to even think about the car traffic. When I came back to the U.S., I put my bike away forever. I can't think like a hunted animal, which is how you have to think to survive on American streets. People hate you. They loathe you. They believe you have no right to be on THEIR roads. If you slow them down, god help you. They will break all manner of laws just to get around you, even if it means slamming on their brakes at the next red light as you slide up beside them and stop as well, once again side by side. There are next to no bike lanes where I live, and I sure won't compete with SUVs, who are a danger not only to bikes but even to compacts. Hell, SUVs are a danger to everyone, including pedestrians. My little city suburb is always putting out little stories in its paper about people learning to get around on bikes and how good it is for the environment, but you can't shop in this burb without crossing a six lane mega-street (via a four lane street with no lanes for bikes) and I don't know who these people are who are converting to bikes-with-baskets but I sure as hell never see them when I'm out shopping.
Just to be clear: I love biking. I loved spending the years from 9 to 20 (in Europe) biking everywhere. I went into withdrawal when I came back to the U.S. and had to get a car. But it isn't safe. Car drivers are often hostile, or at best indifferent. Or sometimes they flat-out don't see bicyclists. Bicycles are so small, you see, and we're all attuned to looking for cars. Even motorcyclists complain about it.

Oil is going to have to cost a whole lot more than $4/gallon before bikes become the transportation of choice. And I say, hasten the day.

Cool bike tales. I am a nicer person on a bike than in a car, but I suppose that's an adaptation to living in Florida with interstates that hold drivers who show RAGE if you're not going 80 at ALL times.

CHOO CHOO JUSTICE: Did you ever bike from Ojai to Ventura? The route is as picturesque as any Western movie set. I remember the first time I did it (15 miles) people said no big deal, it's mostly down hill. But I also came back, 30 miles, the 2nd part in direct sun (ugh!) How amazing your experience to get deep into Mexico. I went on a 2nd honeymoon in Mazatlan and it's still one of my favorite places ON earth.

A good way to get into biking gradually is to start by using a bike for local errands. With a mounted basket or cargo carrier it is possible to carry those 3-4 items that send so many people to the grocery express line.

Picking up or dropping off mail, getting a newspaper, and
going to the library are just some of the activities that most often do not require a car. As you get comfortable with biking as a means of reliable transportation, you will find more ways to do more biking and less driving.

A study in California (http://www.tsc.berkeley.edu/newsletter/Spring04/JacobsenPaper.pdf)
showed that when out of the total traffic the percentage of bikes on the road increased just 1-2%, safety for each cyclist improved 75%!

So, the more bikes out there the more the cars learn to share the road!

For a real 'car-substitute' go to www.xtracycle.com. This turns your bike into a truck that can carry everything from the whole family to a week's worth of groceries.

I also have an electric assist. This combination makes me car-free, even in an area with hills.

Take a trip to Holland, Germany, or Switzerland. Everyone rides bikes, the elderly, women going to the office (in dresses), entire families out for the afternoon. Of course the streets have bike lanes and drivers are very bike conscious. When I was there last year gas was $7/gallon, now it is $9/gallon. Cheney said our gas guzzling lifestyle is not negotiable. How wrong he is again. Americans will have to lose some dignity, but riding a bike is really a lot of fun.

In 95, after my old auto needed a brake job that cost me $500 and took away all my savings, I got rid of it the next time it went to the shop and bought a used mountain-bike for $100. I've been auto-free and bike-riding since. But finding a good deal on a mountain-bike isn't as easy as it used to be. 2 years ago, after the bike finally fell to pieces from over-use (I must've put at least 10,000 miles on it), the gear-spokes were worn down so bad that the chain kept slipping, I found a good deal for $250 in craigslist.org.

Around here, unfortunately, all the bike-shops closed down. Dunno why, but I had ride my bike 25 miles just to get a U-lock (chains get cut too easily). The Pro-shops are taking over and they are expensive. Bikes fall under the "recreational" and "sport" heading, so that gives the Pros the kind of status they need to make big profits. That's another of the reasons why bikes aren't making a big comeback -- the Pro-shops charge too much for them.

Most people can't afford bikes at the prices the Pro-shops are charging. So, if you need one but are low on cash, try craigslist like i did. If you really are serious about it and prefer to ride a bike, remember 2 things: 1) The USA is still an auto-run world and auto-people think they own the roads. They don't watch out for you so you have to watch out for them. 2) Get a U-lock, chains don't work, and take your bike inside whenever possible, especially at home, where you think it is safe (because it isn't).

I have a mountain bike fitted with road slicks with which I pull a single-wide Burley trailer. I take my 4 year old daughter downtown to preschool twice a week, do my grocery shopping, banking, errand running, etc. all with the bike and Burley.

I'm also a long-distance road cyclist, so I'm comfortable riding in traffic and know our laws well. I find that when I'm pulling the Burley, people in vehicles tend to give me more room. They're also a lot friendlier and more courteous when they think I have a small child in the back.

The point is, I act like a vehicle and make sure drivers around me know what my intentions are. I make eye contact as often as possible and either wave or mouth a "thank you" when drivers have been especially courteous. I like to think of myself as a goodwill ambassador for cycling.

As long as we have confidence and use common sense, riding in city traffic can be safe. Rubber side down....

t.

I am now 70, but spent two years in Geneva, Switzerland while in high school and I biked everywhere. It was a serious means of transportation, not a toy - which is the way many Americans then and even now think of a bike. In Geneva, there was compulsory insurance as well as licensing. I had to call on my insurance policy after doing something stupid and wrecking the front fork of a friend's beautiful Bianchi. I had to go to the bike authorities, and explain, in French, what had happened. Even though I was to blame, the insurance covered it. Also, I once got a ticket from two Swiss motorcycle cops for a rolling stop instead of a complete stop. Tried to play the dumb American but it didn't work.

Trouble is here, in Billings, Montana, many bikers don't know the first thing about proper riding. They ride against traffic, ride on sidewalks, run red lights, all of that. Whereas in Geneva I had no problems with cars because I rode responsibly (except for the two instances above, which were valuable lessons!).

So when bikers behave like kids in the 50's, it's no wonder cars give them no respect. We need, in this city (which is behind the curve in many areas), tremendous learning on all sides. There are some serious and knowledgeable bikers here, I'm not saying everyone is irresponsible. But in the meantime I'm rather scared to go out there.