Ride Lugged

Here’s Toyota’s concept vehicle (RLV, Renewable Lifestyle Vehicle) to deal with LA traffic. When you are in stop and go, you use the pedals. When you are crusing at high speeds you use the electric motor.

Is it just me or is this just a fancy 4 wheel electric moped?

Is this the solution to the energy crisis? You know that most people would use the pedals for the first few weeks while it was all shiny and new then they would use it like an electric car. So I’m guessing no.

via gizmodo

The photographer calls this ‘Dutch Wheelchair’.

This is either great social commentary on the healthy benefits of a biking populace, or a picture of Floyd Landis from the future.

Courtesy of streetsblog

Go check out the pictures of the Tour Casey, Deller and I did over the weekend. I’ll leave the full details of the bike tour up to Casey or Deller beacuse I just spent a crap load of time uploading those pics. But you can at least get the gist of the tour, I’d break it down as part foraging nature ride, part guerilla camping, and part cycling tour. It was awesome.

Here’s a little plug for Shaun. Once the temperature began to drop Casey got to test out his new recycled wool Deller bike hat. Looked pretty damn warm in the 30 degree weather.

When I wrote the post about the black label bike club and burning man I proposed underwater biking. I didn’t realize that it already exists. Check this shit out.

Oh yeah, my google search for this stuff also turned up the Nude Underwater Mountain Biking Association. Not quite what I was thinking but still funny. And that leads to the 24 hours of Pisgah in NC. Who’s up for that next year?

• Ladies, if you bike too much your labes are going to fall off. It’s scientific fact.
• Persistence of Vision Pacman bike spoke thing via.
• And to continue with the suv gas theme, here is a thing about consumers and gas.

We had a guy post in the comments on Johnson’s art project who seems to be a fairly well accomplished computer artist. I don’t know anything about this guy but I think his work speaks for itself.

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Sexy

His website is a bit extreme so don’t go there if you have a history of seizures or if you are pregnant or nursing. Be sure to check out The Writer’s Nighmare Comic
Here is a little taste:

If you like what you saw visit cafe press and buy this for me.

I had a woman, a photographer, apparently liberal, and obviously pissed off, write a comment in response to our proposed project. I accidentally hit submit before I could sign my name and wish her a happy thanksgiving. Here, reprinted for your enjoyment, is her comment, and my response. Go to her website to confirm one of my parting shots.

1. Moogirl November 21st, 2006 9:28 pm
   I don’t own an SUV.Having said that, you are a giant asshat. SUV’s are not the cause of this war. A maniacal, sociopathic, power hungry administration is. Do you really think that if, by some magical wand waving, there were no more SUV’s, then this war would end? Grow up! Soccer moms are not the cause for the war or the continuation thereof.This war was waged for control and power and money. Control over the oil, power over the land that produces the oil, and the money that comes from owning the oil. This entire country is run on oil. Do you really think that an SUV is the source of all the need? You are pitifully uninformed.

   Soldiers are not dying so people can drive SUV’s. Soldiers are dying because we have self-centered, greedy, evil men running our country. How dare you lay the responsibility of this outrageous war at the feet of people because of the kind of car they drive. Stop wasting your time and resources on such worthless banalities. Put the blames where it belongs. Perhaps then you will actually accomplish something worthwhile.

Moogirl,

I’m sorry you misinterpreted my intentions. I think you missed the underlying subtext of this proposed guerilla action. I would like to employ text from your argument, in defense of mine. You wrote: “Soldiers are dying because we have self-centered, greedy, evil men running our country.” I would counter and say soldiers are dying because of the complicit agreement/belief between power and consumer that consumption is beneficial,ie consumption drives the economy, with no side effects, environmental, social, or political. This neoeconomic structure is based on a world where there are no static reserves of any material, water, oil, steel, space. Therefor it only makes sense to encourage growth, at least on paper. However it must be remembered that neoclassical economics got its foothold in the late 1800s, a time when the industrial revolution had a certain romance and thus a public support system that propagated and encouraged rapid growth. It goes without saying that this rapid growth was a result of unbridled consumption. Before the industrial revolution, only the upper classes could afford to consume beyond thier immediate needs. But, now, all but the poorest of the poor could afford that little extra something; extra shoes, new pants, labour saving devices that ultimately helped lead to women being liberated from glorified (sometimes) domestic servants.
Conspicuous consumption connotated your
pecuniary status. With the development of the middle class, this lead to the average consumer (if we deem the middle class average) consuming beyond their needs. Of course, this was great for the economy, and economists noted that.
By the 50s, neoeconomics (and thus widespread conspicuous consumption) was becoming synonymous with Democracy. This implied need for yearly growth lead to a number of things: after the war, American big interests got together with the Whitehouse, and called for a constant state of war, in order to justify continued high capacity manufacturing (it was after all, not the New Deal that pulled us out of the Great Depression, but the act of gearing up for war), and in what should have been a massive anti trust case, Detriot motor companies bought out almost every public transport system (not buses, but street cars, subways, ect), and quietly disbanded them, forcing the American city dweller to go buy a pink Chevrolet. Still with me? The mid 50s to early 60s saw cars grow to unsurpassed sizes. The biggest car of all, it should come as no suprize, was a Cadillac. Again: consumption as status signigier. The American public’s thirst for status (and in my argument, status through oil consumption) lead to 1971’s record American production of oil. Need we be reminded that, among other things, (of course SUVs and Mustangs, ect arnt the only things to blame, but to say they arnt to blame as well would be foolish)
the late 60s was the period of the biggest engines ever put in a car, the time of the muscle car. Manufacturing capabilities became refined to the point that even lower middle class buyers could afford to purchase the most inefficent status symbol on the road. Hmm… inefficent status symbol, whats that sound like? Now the claim could be made that individuals are controlled by the marketing that reaches them most effectively. And they will buy where that marketing leads them, like a sheep to slaughter.
This absolves the individual from blame, much like German officers (or American soldiers) claiming they were only following orders. Of course, that argument never holds water in war crimes tribunals: why should it hold water where the consumer is concerned?
Are American consumers symptomatic of a continued denial of the unfeasible nature inherient in neo-economics? Or did neo-economics merely position a theoretical ground work to facilitate the lust of the consumer? You wrote:
“How dare you lay the responsibility of this outrageous war at the feet of people because of the kind of car they drive.” Who does the responability ultimately lie with? If American consumers acted with prudence and thought, unbridled consumption wouldnt lead to unprecidented drains on natural resources, and the constant campaign to exploit new ones. You see, at heart I am a stanch environmentalist. I believe all of our actions affect us ten fold down the road. I think we need to start somewhere. If people start to think like power figures, (perhaps you should read Jean Lyotard’s The Post Modern Condition) which is to say, if they start thinking in terms of abstract units or numbers, rather than in pronouns, they lose sight of the impacts of thier actions. If the consumer ignores that which it is convient to ignore, or thinks of actions only in terms of convience or status, then they become one step closer to unfeeling automatons, only looking forward, never side to side or backward, much less into the future.

You wrote: “Put the blame where it belongs.” I ask you: if the American consumer cant be held accountable who can? It is after all, the American consumer who elects our leaders. How can they be absolved of that? Blame it on marketing?

You wrote: “Do you really think that an SUV is the largest source of all the need?” Did I ever posit that claim? No. In fact, in the first sentance of my post, I wrote: SUVs (easy target).
You do have to start somewhere. It would be pretty impractical to put stickers on a power plant. This is about oil consumption, but its also about consumers taking personal responsability for thier actions. Oil consumption is a result of a consumer action. If we didnt drive as much, or as needlessly, or as inefficently, our reliance on oil would go down. If we lowered our even further, bought local produce, and didnt eat meat, it would again go down. If we lived in closer to work, again. Its about choice, and the choices people make, and the consequences therein. I feel that I am
putting “the blame where it belongs.”
I think I have herein negated your first paragraphs arguments. Also: what is an asshat? Also: you kind of look like Ann Coulter. Read Thorstien Veblen’s Theories of the Leisure Class, which is all about conspicuous consumption and its affects.
Check out neoeconomics. Subscribe to adbusters.

Wednesday, November 22, 2006 8:25:12 AM

Ran across this instructable. Dude claims it comparable to HID. 500+ lumens with only 8 watts. The final product looks like shit but I guess it could save you some money. And you have to love it cause it has a heatsink on the back. He should attach a little box to heat up tamales or something. It looks like too much effort for me but, Cory? Get on it stat.

ok here’s a reason to carry that slick little camera of your around with you.  i cribbed it from the reader (rivendell reader) but i thought it would work better in colour.  take photos of cheap bike art, by which i mean bikes that arnt nice in a gucci sense, but have some redeming physical trait that makes them endearing.  Examples:  outlined lugs on shitty french bikes, real headbadges on beaters, fancy decals on bikes that dont deserve them, ect.  There will be a prize, probally in liquid form, for best cheap bike art.  Lets say you have until jan 1st.  get crackin.  oh, and pictures should be submitted to individual posts, not in some massive uni post.

I don’t know anything about the burning man, the black label bike club or the tall bike / bike jousting subculture. And honestly I think I want to keep it that way. I just read this post from bike hugger. At first it sounds cool, black label bike club has a nice ring to it. I was hoping it was some kind of advocacy group that slaps black stickers on cars that cut you off like those guys do with the yellow cards. But no, it’s burning man stuff. Which is lame. I guess I shouldn’t really judge because when we were in college we tried to start a bike polo league. I think mel got as far as making mallets.

Does this make you want to join their club? if so I think you should stop reading this and watch Mad Max again.

I will admit this looks kind of interesting:

But that’s about as far as I want to delve into this sub culture.

I think I’m going to start my own sub culture though. Scuba Biking, for the underwater enthusiast. Anyone who joins my subculture will get genuine replica steve zissou adidas sneakers and a fancy red cap.