Wednesday, June 25, 2008

The Beautiful Solution










There are three major issues facing us in this country that can be simultaneously improved by the bicycle and its use. Gas prices are at an all time high, Americans are facing a serious epidemic of obesity, and air pollution is leading to global climate change and mucking up our environment.

The leg powered solution? Ride your bike! The energy is renewable and cheap, the health benefits are dramatic and plentiful, and the impact on the environment could be huge. I am hoping to increase bicycle use by supporting those who have already fallen in love with the beautiful machine and convincing those who haven’t to give it a try. Can such a simple machinge be expected to bring about such monumental changes. I believe it can. I would love your help in making this a reality. If you have an idea for a post, or want to alert me to something going on in the quest to change our car culture into a bike culture, please email me at legpowered@gmail.com

Revolution #1

Pick one common trip in your daily life and compare car travel time to bike travel time. Pick a destination that is relatively close, but that you typically drive to. The library, coffee shop, grocery store…any place will work. Time how long it takes to drive there on your next visit (or better yet, mapquest it). Now pick out a safe and comfortable route to ride there. Go to mapmyride.com or a similar mapping site and see how far your ride would be. If you’re an experienced rider, calculate your trip time with a reasonable average speed for you. If you don’t know how fast you ride, anywhere from 10-15mph would be a good conservative guess. So how much time do you actually save by driving? I bet you’ll be surprised by how little it really is. So ride next time! Be sure to tell your friends how easy it was. I’ll do my local coffee shop as an example. In my car, it’s a 2.27mile trip that takes me 6 minutes. On my bike, I take a 2.65mile route that takes me about 17 minutes. There you have it; I save a measly 11 minutes by driving my car.

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