What if everything was the color of your safety vest?
A human/solar powered off-grid rock and roll touring apparatus.
[Check this stuff out! Generators that engage when braking or going down hill and other sustainability issues addressed.]The Ginger Ninjas are on a 5000 mile tour from Northern California to Southern Mexico, carrying all equipment on their bikes, including this 1000 watt human-powered sound system.
The human powered PA makes extremely low-impact music touring possible, sans automobile and sans electric outlet; it also makes it possible to play music in any location.
50 year old almost jailed for parking to get recycling cans!
Ok this story is not bike related but Baltimore related and
Switchbike video
This is the Switchbike, an innovative bike that you can use as a city bike but also as a 'laydown bike'. In the clip you see a demo version. The guy that made it is still looking for a company to take it into production. Contact Fresh Creation (<a href="http://www.freshcreation.nl">www.freshcreation.nl</a>;) for more details.
NYPD Slaps Hit And Run Victim With A Ticket For Not Having Bell On His Bike
How do you add insult to injury? How about giving a ticket for a missing bell to a cyclists who has just been smashed up in a hit and run collision? That's exactly what NYPD Officer Torpey did, when he was flagged down by a dazed cyclist in the Bronx back in July....
While perhaps the ticking was technically valid, since bikes are required to have a bell, this kind of ticking seems quite pointless and makes one suspicious that this is only about meeting some sort of ticket quota. Meanwhile, what about the hit and run? Mr. Hellner had kept enough of his wits about him to get the license plate number of the van that hit him, which he turned over to police! The plate is issued to a Mr. Dibaga Sunbundu. So was the driver charged? Presumably not Mr. Hellner says, the NYPD has never followed up with him about the hit and run.
...
You see, on top of fighting a stupid ticket for a missing bell, Mr. Hellner has been having trouble collecting money for his bills from the driver's insurance company. Geico hasn't made a single payment to Mr. Hellner yet; they seemingly have been stalling for weeks on paying out the claim. Mr. Hellner says he has alread paid out a couple of thousand dollars for medical treatment, and could be stuck with tens of thousands in medical expenses. "I stopped going to physical therapy for my elbow because I am afraid I might get stuck with the bill, and my left sholder gets sore easily."
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Mr. Hellner has now gotten himself some legal assistance to try to get Geico to pay up. So far, Geico has been more snake than suave gecko.
Reduce Waste this Holiday Season
Facts on Holiday Waste (from www.recycleworks.org)
From Thanksgiving to New Years Day, household waste increases by more than 25%. Added food waste, shopping bags, packaging, wrapping paper, bows and ribbons - it all adds up to an additional 1 million tons a week to our landfills. (EPA and Use Less Stuff) In the U.S., annual trash from gift-wrap and shopping bags totals 4 million tons. (Use Less Stuff, 1998)
- Cards
- 1.9 billion Christmas cards are sent to friends and loved ones every year, making Christmas the largest card-sending occasion in the United States. (Hallmark research)
- The amount of cards sold during the holiday season would fill a football field 10 stories high, and requires the harvesting of nearly 300,000 trees. (Use Less Stuff)
- Ribbons
- 38,000 miles of ribbon is thrown out each year. The Earth's circumference is 25,000 miles - enough to tie a bow around the Earth.
- Food
- At least 28 billion pounds of edible food are wasted each year - or over 100 pounds per person. Putting one less cookie on Santa's plate will reduce his snacking by about 2 million pounds. (Use Less Stuff, 1998)
- If every American throws away just one uneaten tablespoon of mashed potatoes it adds 16 million pounds of waste to our landfills. (Cygnus Group)
- Paper
- Half of the paper America consumes is used to wrap and decorate consumer products. (The Recycler's Handbook, 1990)
- Christmas Trees
- Each year, 50 million Christmas trees are purchased in the U.S. (Cygnus Group). Of those, about 30 million go to the landfill. (Environmental News Network)
- Gifts
- The average American spends $800 on gifts over the holiday season.
- According to a national survey, 70% of Americans would welcome less emphasis on gift giving and spending. (Center for a New American Dream)
- About 40% of all battery sales occur during the holiday season. (EPA)
- Transportation
- If each family reduced holiday gasoline consumption by one gallon (about twenty miles), we'd reduce greenhouse gas emissions by one million tons. (Use Less Stuff, 1998)
Bike rack news
I don
Get your own HumanCar for $15k
No I am not for sale but this is:
OMG we have Sharrows!
I don
A fellow cycling enthusiast - the Mayor
Thank you for sharing with me the fact that your children enjoy the bike trails. Positive sentiments like these are wonderful to hear, and I am delighted to have so many fellow cycling enthusiasts in Baltimore . Please feel free to share any ideas you might have with me regarding the trails, and this administration will continue to work hard to improve Baltimore for residents and visitors alike.Sincerely,
Sheila Dixon
Mayor
City of Baltimore