To The Moon and back: 20,000 times
According to this article, that is how many miles Americans saved in May by reducing their usage of cars. Way to go everybody!
Public transit, bikes, walking and car trips when necessary. That's how to do it. Now, where's my moon beer?
Just in case you were wondering: There were 9.6 Billion miles saved and the moon is on average 238,856 miles away. That won't be on the test.
The African Cyclist
Spied this over at Trackosaurus. With the dearth of Black-African cyclists, Nicholas Leong is attempting to prove that the region that produces so many world-class marathoners can also produce world-class cyclists.
From the site:
In a nutshell, I have gone to a place in Kenya where all the marathon champions come from. It's called Eldoret, and it's situated 7000-8000 feet above sea level. Almost all the people there are slight in build and have amazing endurance, the perfect build for a marathoner ... or a climbing specialist. I found a small number of cycling enthusiasts. Among them I have chosen the best two I could find, and we are going to Alpe d'Huez in August to do a timed ascent on that mountain. Lance Armstrong holds the record up the mountain, and all the greats have times up the mountain. We want to see if we can do a useful, drug-free time, and if we can benchmark it against some of those known times.
Visit the site for more.
Auto Zone and the Clueless Ad Exec
Jeff gets the point for spying this ad while he was watching Le Tour.
Not only is it a straight up dis to the cycling community, but why in the name of Merckx would you pay big money to air it during the world's most watched bike race!? Two demerits and a flat tire to the exec who gave the go ahead for that plan.
For bonus points check out the LA StreetsBlog for the breakdown of money wasted by our fictional anti-hero in his attempt to resurrect a busted Ford Torino. Choice bit:
The kid starts making a lot more trips to Auto Zone, because since he got a "free" car he had to take on a job just to pay for repairs and gas (the Torino, in its day, averaged about 10 miles to the gallon).
Well, guess they showed us how it's done! Wow, would you look at the price of gas?
NPR gets the scoop on Democratic Congressman Earl Blumenauer, head of the bipartisan Congressional Bike Caucus. He believes that creating a culture of biking to work in every state is essential to fixing America's oil woes.
Sounds like a good idea to us!
Hey Congressman Blumenauer: Drop by the shop and we'll take a look at those squeaky brakes, FOR FREE!
Are you ready for it? The route for this year's Tour of Missouri has been announced and it's even better than last year.
Get'cha some!
Did you know that there are 1.4 billion bikes in the world and there are only about 400 million cars? It's true and there are so many great reasons why bikes are one of humankind's best ideas. Check out this article, for more interesting tidbits about our favorite conveyance.
