B-Cycle

Another company has finally gotten together what looks to be the right amount of money to do what I've wanted to do for quite some time. This one looks like one of the best implementations of this style system outside of some of the ones deployed in Europe. Very well-done B-cycle! Now let's just get it to come to SLC, ask for it here: http://bcycle.com/who_wants_it_more/

To drill or not to drill, you decide.

Will drilling in ANWR and the outer continental shelf help our energy situation? You decide, based on this chart built from the US Department of Energy's data.

(Data from the US Department of Energy)

***my opinion*** Sure we can drill, but why the heck are our partisan candidates even talking about drilling when it will have such a minimal effect on our situation? They've coerced us into believing that what they're talking about (drilling) really is a significant issue with regard to our energy independence when it is so clearly insignificant. Besides, in 10 years shouldn't we have other things going for us instead of needing to use our last few remaining drops of domestic oil? (and it really is drops on the grand scheme of things) Additionally, when the oil finally does come on line, we will still only be able to get it for the international oil price (currently over $100). At that price, it won't have any effect whatsoever on what you pay at the pump. Bottom line, that is not cheap oil, and there's not much of it. Yes, that little bit of oil would come from the US instead of abroad, but the other 99% of the oil we use would still be foreign. Shouldn't we address the 99% instead?

To put things in perspective, OPEC met yesterday and simply decided (it took them all of one day to decide) to turn down the flow on their 'spigot' by 530,000 barrels per day. So, on not much more than a whim, OPEC reduced their oil output by more than twice what the US could ever get by drilling as much as we possibly could. That is, assuming we would also have built the required infrastructure to process the additional oil that we drill. I'm not singling out either candidate here, because both of them are making such a big deal about whether to drill. They should NOT be focusing on drilling at all, it is a drop in the oil bucket, that's all. We have much bigger fish to fry. Don't you love partisan politics? It's either one extreme or the other and each candidate's flame is stoked further by his/her respective party instead of by the real issues.

"Clowns to the left of me,
jokers to the right,
here I am stuck in the middle with you."

Want to double your fuel economy?

Without a doubt, there are many gimmicks and suggestions for improving your fuel economy, more-so now than ever due to the recent increase in US fuel prices. Some of the gimmicks and suggestions work great, some work only marginally, and others don't work at all. One that is guaranteed to double your fuel economy is carpooling (when compared to driving alone).



Roughly 99% of the cars I see on the freeway or on the road in general have only one person in the car. If you put another person in the car, you double the efficiency of the car, thus doubling your fuel economy. For example, let's take your average Toyota Corolla. We'll pick that car because right now I'm sitting on the bus in the express lane passing one that only has one driver in it. (Yes, that's right, I'm posting this using the free wi-fi that's available on the bus). If you have one person in that Toyota Corolla, the car is getting around 30 p-mpg (passenger-miles per gallon). Meaning you have one passenger multiplied by the miles per gallon. If you put just one more person in that car, the fuel economy jumps to 60 p-mpg because you now have 2 people multiplied by the miles per gallon (2x30 = 60). Put a third person in the car and you get 90 p-mpg, and so forth. Carpooling is the best thing you can do right now to lighten your wallet when it comes to fuel costs. And it's guaranteed to work, no gimmicks or tricks.

Now on to the reason for this post. The reason is that I found this awesome website that connects you to people that are traveling your same commute so you can easily find them and start cutting your fuel costs in half. It's called eRideShare. Go to www.erideshare.com for more information. Best of all, it's free! Happy motoring.

ps, pics of our trip back east are coming soon!

Bakfiets

I couldn't help but post this when I saw it on the news tonight. We've posted about the "bakfiets" (cargo bike) before: See here, and here. But this takes the cake because it's an Orem family doing it. They stopped driving their car for short errands and just take the bike instead... complete with child seats, seat belts, and a convertible roof for the rainy days! See here for the complete story.



They're a bit pricey, but Mad Dog Cycles in Orem can get them in apparently. Now I want one even more!

Have your cake and eat it too

'Nuff Said:

Miles per Dollar?

I heard a good suggestion the other day. That is to start thinking about fuel economy in economic terms, i.e. to think about it in "Miles Per Dollar" or, MPD. It's all too easy to just stick in that credit card on each fill-up and just kind of forget about how much you're actually getting for that money. Some people just pour that money down the drain (or out the tailpipe for that matter) without even thinking twice about how much it's costing them. To other people, they couldn't care less how much it's costing them no matter how high the cost.
Now for some examples using $3.00/gal fuel:

A 15mpg (insert nearly any SUV here) would do roughly 5 miles per dollar.
A 22mpg Audi A4 (which I used to own and loved) would do roughly 7 miles per dollar.
A 25mpg (insert nearly any regular sedan here) - 8 miles per dollar
A 30mpg Honda Civic - 10 miles per dollar
A 45mpg Jetta TDI still only allows you 15 miles per dollar

So next time you're driving down the road in an "economical" car (e.g. Toyota Camry) doing 25mpg, just count mile posts! Every 8th mile post you pass, pull a $1 bill out of your pocket. For you locals, a normal round-trip drive from Provo to SLC (45 miles) costs over $10 in that "economical" 25mpg car! If you drive around town frequently, just try zeroing the tripmeter in your car at the beginning of the day and see where it ends up at the end of the day. You may be surprised. Let's just be glad we don't have the $6+/gallon fuel that other parts of the world have.

Remember, gas prices go up in the Spring! :-)

Smooth Steel

***Rambling post alert!*** ***with videos***
Airplanes are great for traveling long distances (long being 1,000+ miles) but for shorter distances, trains can't be beat. I know you're thinking clickety-clack

but believe it or not, as much as it has been shunned in the USA, train technology has been doing more than just "clacking along". As mentioned earlier, UTA is starting up their "Front Runner" commuter rail line from Ogden to SLC with a line from Provo to SLC to follow in the next few years.

It's going to do about 80mph so that means that during heavy traffic on I-15 (which is most of the time), it'll be faster than driving! Not to mention the comfort of Wifi, work tables, and comfy chairs perfect for napping as the train cruises along the smooth steel. As cool as that is going to be, there is something better on the horizon for parts of America... high-speed rail. You may be asking yourself, (see the steam train pic above for reference) c'mon, how can trains be that fast?

This one to the left really is that fast... 357.2 mph!! That train is the current world speed record holder. Should be fast enough, eh? The technology that goes into making that train go that fast is not trivial, for example, if the wire above the train doesn't move back and forth enough, it will burn right through the pantograph! The physics behind the contact point of the wheels to the track are unbelievable to allow them to spin that fast.

I know this is a video heavy post, but they are worth it if you're interested in trains, alternative transportation, energy independence, engineering and a whole slew of other issues. Below is a proposed (and very likely at this point) high-speed rail line from the Bay Area in California to Los Angeles. Other lines are planned from L.A. to Las Vegas that would be a maglev train which would be even better!

For you locals, imagine sometime in the future being able to book a high-speed train from Salt Lake City to Las Vegas that leaves at say 9:00 am. Now swing back to what it's like to make that trip now... You have to be to the airport at least an hour early (they recommend two hours) and then the plane waits for 15 minutes (at least) on the tarmac to take off. (trip time=1.5hrs) Then you fly in cramped quarters, unless you fly JetBlue or Virgin America which don't fly to Vegas from SLC, with the heavy-set man next to you taking up more than his two purchased seats. Because of the dry aircraft air, you're pounding the Ginger Ale and H20 so you'll have to pee at least once on the trip. Those bathrooms are a joy, aren't they? Think of the movie Tommy Boy. (travel time=3hrs) You spend another 15 minutes at least at the destination airport on the tarmac (total trip time 3.25hrs). Then you wait, and wait, and wait for your bags at the luggage carousel for 30 minutes, and don't forget that you're now one bag lighter than you were when you got on the plane because your other bag is in Mexico City. (trip time=3.75 hrs) So after roughly 4 hours, you're in Vegas! Which is good, because driving would have taken you 5 hours to get there (depending on how you drive) so you got there an hour earlier.

Now imagine the first scenario where you book your 9:00am high speed train from SLC to Las Vegas. You arrive at the train station about 15 minutes before the train is set to leave. You take your bags to the train and you watch the conductor load them on the same car you're traveling on after which he gives you a hand as you board the train. You get settled in a very roomy seat with huge windows, foot rests, and various recline positions. You can also get a work table seat if you'd like. All the room you need to stretch out. The train slowly pulls out of the station and gently accelerates up to above 200 mph almost without you even noticing. You arrive in Las Vegas rested, having used the spacious, nearly full size restroom on your car and after having a drink from the cafe car. As the train pulls into the Las Vegas station, less than 2.5 hours have passed. The train has saved you more than an hour of travel time and has also saved you more headache than you can imagine! All the time you have used much less energy to travel the same distance and with the new trains, they will either run on electric powered rails or be maglev powered. If that energy comes from a clean, domestic source, you're better off still! My opinion is that with the $1.2+ Trillion we have spent in Iraq, (somebody's got to pay that someday BTW) we could have built a large high-speed rail infrastructure which would help to get us off of foreign oil and increase national security and still have enough left over to completely double cancer research in the US, treat every American with heart disease and diabetes that goes without care today, and implement newer, energy efficient cars. That's a good chunk 'o change.

***EDIT*** I just came across this article talking about a train from Madrid to Barcelona which happens to be the same distance as Salt Lake City to Las Vegas that I referenced above. It's challenging planes at that distance, and I know I would surely take the train over the plane for a 410 mile trip!

Fields of Fuel

First off, I'm not going to do this film justice in any way, shape, or form without holding your hand and taking you down to the theater to watch it full-length. That might be a bit difficult to do, so I'll do my best to try to get you interested in seeing it yourself.

First off, the trailer.

Gina and I really wanted to see this movie, and thanks to Tom getting us tickets at the SFF we were able to go!

"A Crude Awakening" and An Inconvenient Truth" were good and decent, respectively; however, on a scale with the three films together, "Fields of Fuel" is way ahead of the curve. While the first two show us all how screwed up we will be if we don't do anything, they don't offer very many glimpses of hope and they make it seem like there is nothing the individual person can do to help the problem.

Fields of Fuel, on the other hand, offers a very humanizing view of the current energy situation that the US faces. It does not dwell on well-documented but not-quite-proven theories (like the Theory of Global Climate Change and that crazy Theory of Gravity, for instance) but instead focuses on tangible evidence that the way we use energy here in the US is not sustainable and has backed us into a corner that requires immediate change. While some other countries have done this too, we don't live there, we live here and should worry about it here. Josh Tickell then continues on to give the audience various ways in which the individual can make a difference. Below is a list of 10 things he suggests. Not everybody can do all of these right away, but everybody can do at least one of these.

1) Buy a biodiesel, hybrid, electric, or ethanol car
2) Change your fuel to biodiesel, ethanol, or electricity
3) Switch your local school buses to biodiesel
4) Get your gas station to sell biofuel
5) Start a biofuel purchasing co-op
6) Get green energy education into your local schools
7) Use public transportation, bike, or walk
8) Vote for leaders committed to green energy
9) Buy electricity from solar and wind companies
10) Learn more: read Biodiesel America

In the film, Josh gives a very holistic approach to the use of biofuels. He realizes that they are not the ultimate answer, but they are what we can do NOW to get the ball rolling in the right direction. He tells the audience very matter-of-factly that the only way to fix the energy problems in the world is to move towards a diversified energy structure where the energies being used cannot be monopolized by governments or by any one large corporation.

PS, did I mention it received the Documentary Audience Choice Award at Sundance?!

What do you get when...?

What do you get when you combine the following in a German Engineer's stirring pot:

Air
An alternative fuel (biodiesel, BTL, synfuel, etc)
2.2L of sparkplug-free engine displacement
Two turbochargers
A splash of urea
A 7-speed transmission
4 wheels (with all-wheel drive)
And a few other bits and bobs

????

Short answer: Gina's future "mom car," the Mercedes Benz GLK.

Long answer: You get an engine that pulls like a train, has cleaner exhaust than L.A.'s air, has dual stage turbochargers (so you can still have fun), and is quieter than any diesel you've ever heard. And you get that engine with a 7-speed transmission put into a body with all-wheel drive that will tow toys, lug the kids/bikes/dog/skis/etc around, (or if you're the typical American it'll just be lugging you around alone) while already beating the fuel economy standards of the year 2020 (35mpg). The best part? It comes out this fall, so start saving your Benjamins, you'll need about 380 of them, give or take.

VW and TDI marketing

VW has kind of lacked on the marketing for TDI's (diesel engines) in my opinion, but then again I can kind of understand why... They don't need to advertise when most TDI's are sold before they even reach the lot and used ones hold their value so well. Why advertise when more people are trying to buy a TDI than there are TDI's available? Well, they are finally upping the production of TDI engines in multiple models in the near future and more specifically the new Jetta TDI wagen (dubbed the Sportwagen) is set to appear on US roads this fall! So, with the increase in TDI production, they have a reason to start marketing it. I can't wait, if only I could afford one!

And here is the web page that sparked this post And that's right, a true 40-50mpg out of a car that literally hauls! Not to mention it is cleaner than nearly all other cars currently on the road today.

Reincarnation

My late 60's model Bottecchia steel-framed bike has been through a number of incarnations. I'm sure that since the late 60's until the latest few incarnations, there are even some that I don't know about. Judging from the way I found the bike, I'm sure it has quite the history. It is named after Ottavio Bottecchia, the first Italian winner of the Tour de France clear back in 1924. His death is still mysterious and his legendary status was preserved into the last half of the 20th Century by the bicycle company bearing his name. The model that I have is the model that was ridden by the 1966 "Campione del Mondo" (World Champion). So, back in the heyday, it was quite the bike... Nice polished chrome lugs, lightweight steel frame tubes, and classic geometry. Regarding the time between the year it was built and 2005 (when I found it), who knows the stories that it could tell. Even Greg Lemond won one of his Tours de France on a Bottecchia bike in 1989. What more can I say, it's got heritage!

Despite it's proud heritage and not unlike many other 60's-70's era bikes, I found the bike in my Uncle Stu's garage one day when we were over there for a family get-together. Another bike, a Gitane, also caught my eye, but it was too small for me. The Bottecchia was dust covered with faded paint and some of the chrome was pitted and had a rust sheen to it. Most of that cleaned right up with a little TLC and some elbow grease. When I found the bike, it didn't have anything exept the frame, fork, handlebar/stem, and a crank. I figured it would be the perfect bike to reincarnate as a fixed gear. (see here for the bike in "fixte form")

The fixie worked great and was a blast to ride, but I ran into some problems. The main one is that I live 1,000 feet above the valley floor and there are some brutally steep hills that I have to ride to get home. Sometime I would need to ride it a couple of times a day. With a geared bike this is no problem, but with a fixie, it gets a bit tiresome. Not to mention going back down you have to keep pedaling the whole way because you can't coast on a fixie. I did gain a love for fixed gear bikes and really wish there was a velodrome around here to race on. If we ever live somewhere flat, I'll definitely be riding a fixie around again.

Velodrome

Continuing on, I decided the life of the Bottecchia as a fixie was over. I needed some gears and a freewheel (to coast). I didn't like the look of a deraileur and all the clutter that comes along with it, and I didn't want a single speed because that would still only leave me with one gear going up and the same gear coming down. So, for me, I fell in love with the planetary gears of an internally geared hub. This allowed me to keep the clean chainline of a fixed gear or single speed but still have 7 speeds to choose from. I decided on the Shimano Nexus 7-speed and Cyclesmith happened to have one. I picked it up and started the task of reincarnation. This included adding brakes, re-lacing the rear wheel, and installing the shifter mechanism. Today was the re-inaugural ride and she rode and handled like a champ! Now enjoy some pics of her in the current state.

Car-free day

Bottom line, Gina wanted to ride to work today, so we rode together. What a great wife! Click here for the full story.

That crazy track bike disease...

No matter if you're a cyclist or not, if you look around Salt Lake City lately you will see many more bikes than you used to. They are becoming a very popular mode of transportation as residents discover the well defined bike lanes and bicycle-friendly roads of Salt Lake City, not to mention the added benefit of losing a few extra pounds. (and I'm not talking about making your bike lighter...) It is likely that a good number of the bicycles that you see are fixed gear bikes, commonly called track bikes. People choose these types of bikes for a number of reasons: less maintenance, no dérailleurs to break or go out of tune (and thus no griding gears), extra leg strength from riding only one gear... the list goes on. Most importantly, they're a lot of fun to ride and people have compared it to almost "walking" on your bike because when you pedal forward, you go forward. Pedal backward, and you go backward. Pedal slow, you go slow. Pedal fast... you get the idea.


Ahhh, the Raleigh One-Way, mmmmm (Cyclesmith sells it, need I say more?!)

Now, if you're looking for more fun on your commute than you normally have eating that "footlong" and coffee from Maverick in your car while stuck in traffic (probably on Foothill Drive), then commuting on a fixed gear bicycle is for you. Believe it or not, you'll actually have fun getting from point A to point B! (not to worry all you "geared-bicycle commuters," there will be a post in the near future for you too)

As mentioned on Cyclesmith's website, Salsa's new line-up also includes a hot new pre-built fixie that would make a great commuter bicycle somewhat "on-the-cheap." If you're truly looking for a fixie to commute with, pay special attention to the rear drop-out area to look for eyelets that will allow you to mount fenders. (see photo at left, eyelets are the little round loops on top) Because having a nice "pin-stripe" up the back on a rainy day may be considered cool while you're actually ON the bike, when you're off the bike it doesn't do so much for attracting the opposite ... well, let's just say that it's a pretty good wife repellant. So get those fenders on for a rainy (or snowy) day and ride worry free.

Hebmüller Pre-Filter

I finally got my pre-filter installed on the Jetta. It filters down to about 150 microns, which is not very small for a filter, but the larger filter medium makes sure that I don't lose any flow capacity across the filter element. However it's still small enough to catch any dino-diesel crud left over in my tank that gets cleaned out by the biodiesel before it clogs my main fuel filter. Thus, a clogged main filter is a thing of the past. :-) Had my car been running on biodiesel from the start, there would be no crud in the tank for the biodiesel to clean out so there would be no worry for a clogged main fuel filter.

It is still kind of fun to see the "bean juice" flowing freely into the engine through this clear pre-filter though. It should also help out in the winter when there *might* be a chance of the fuel gelling. This will allow me to see it easily if it happens. The air space in the top is nothing to worry about because it's a low pressure line on these pre-2003 TDI's. If it were a post-2003 engine (PD engine), the line would be pressurized by the tank pump and pump that air pocket right out.

If anyone local is interested, I have some extra filters and high-quality fuel line because I had to buy in bulk. The filter cost me $3.25 each and the hose cost me about $2.00/foot, both prices including shipping. If anybody local wants to put one on your TDI, let me know and you can buy the stuff from me for what I bought it for. Some people don't even put the new fuel hose on, but instead they just cut a section out of their original fuel line and put the filter in place, this works just fine too, but I liked the look of the blue hose, haha.

A Crude Awakening

I haven't blogged for a bit, so today turns out to be a good day to blog. We had a great time this weekend with our friends, Steve, Liz, and Nash (and Lexi too of course), that finally joined us up in Salt Lake. Cornia even showed up at their house! He's got a great reggae band, "Carlos Cornia" that I actually have yet to see in person, but want to really bad. We went to eat at Settebello, mmmm, that's all that needs to be said about that :-)

But the main thing that spurred me to post was the movie that Gina and I just got done watching, A Crude Awakening. My favorite part was hearing about Hubbert's Peak because I have learned about it in school already and could relate to it. I highly recommend the movie if you have not seen it

The movie is very well researched and follows along very well with what scientists like Hubbert have been telling us since the 60's and 70's. So far, they've been very close to perfect with their estimations about oil reserves and our obscene exploitation of those reserves. For those of you that remember the 70's gas crunch, that was only a drop in production of crude oil by about 5%. Royal Dutch/Shell announced in 2004 that it really knew of 20 percent fewer oil reserves than they had been reporting up to that point. At the time, 20 percent of just their reserves equated to 3.9 billion barrels of oil valued at $136 Billion at that time. Today that same amount of oil equates to nearly $254 billion at current ~$65/barrel prices. Evidence that our oil reserves are limited is all around us. Many countries are now importing more oil than they are producing and it's not far off for the U.S. either. At the rate we're using it, even all of our "untapped" reserves would not sustain us for very long in a crisis. It's an interesting movie and shows how dependent we are on oil. A change is needed, and there is no silver bullet. No matter the mechanisms that you use (even my beloved biodiesel) we will all have to use less of it and promote sustainability and conservation. Go out and rent this movie, if nothing else, to simply be aware of what is to come in our future.

Biodiesel report

I figure that after 9 1/2 months of having the "ole oil burner" aka "The Jetta" in her new home in SLC that it was time for an update on how she's running. As stated in an earlier post, we found the Jetta on Craigslist after months of searching for a cheap, TDI that I could run on biodiesel. It also took a few months convincing Gina that getting one new car and selling our other two would be worth it. After getting it home, the first few tanks were a B20 blend of biodiesel (20% biodiesel 80% regular diesel) to kind of ease into the whole biodiesel thing. The car had nearly 100,000 miles on it and biodiesel really cleans out the system, so it's not a good thing to make the switch very fast. The weather started to get cold and we had to continue to run B20 until the spring time because a higher percentage of biodiesel would have a problem with the cold weather. So B20 it was throughout the winter, and I was still 80% tied to foreign oil. But, glorious spring time came around and I topped off with B100 (100% biodiesel) from Cardwell Distributing.

It smelled a little vegetable oil-like and not like a fuel at all (which was nice compared to the oily smell of regular diesel), so I pumped it in and drove away happy on a mixture of 100% soy and canola-based biodiesel from Idaho and Colorado. The car immediately quieted down a significant amount and the exhaust was devoid of it's normal slightly pungent diesel aroma in favor of the new cooked vegetable oil fragrance. And it was about $0.05 cheaper than regular diesel at the time to boot!

I can now report that after 21,000 miles on either B20 or B100, the Jetta is still going strong and just ticked over to 120,000 miles. I have performed the regular maintenance with a filter change here and there, an oil change (which only needs to be done ever 15,000 miles BTW), and a timing belt job and that's about it. During this last tank, the weather was extra hot (think A/C on all the time) and we did almost exclusively city driving and we got a horrible 39 MPG. It was the first time we have dipped below the 40 MPG mark, so it was a sad day. On the flip side, here's a shot of our fuel mileage record:



Yep, that's a 53 MPG in the middle there. That was on the way to Durango and back on one tank. Diesels really excel at the freeway driving, so the times where the mileage was high were times when we did a lot of freeway driving. The times when it was low was city driving (which we do more of anyway). What drives me nuts though is the stupid EPA. Just look at these numbers, eek!



Can you believe that? That's the EPA trying to say that my car is supposed to get 38 MPG combined and I actually get about 43 MPG! How can they do that?! The one that irks me the most is the freeway rating. They say the car gets 44 MPG on the freeway, I have never gotten below 50MPG on the freeway and I run a renewable fuel instead of gasoline! I don't understand the EPA sometimes, it's ridiculous. At least they revised the bloated numbers to better reflect the mileage that hybrids get (believe it or not, hybrids do NOT get 60 MPG as Toyota claimed). A prius for example gets a little better mileage than the TDI in the city, but gets worse mileage on the freeway. Hybrid technology is great though, don't get me wrong, although it would be nice if they could run a renewable fuel and still get the same mileage numbers. Can't wait until Europe brings over the diesel-hybrids to replace all the gasoline ones, can you say true 60 MPG combined mileage?

UTA Frontrunner - Commuter Rail

After way too long, Salt Lake City and the adjoining areas of the Wasatch Front are finally getting a commuter rail line. When all is said and done, it will run from Davis County (up North) to Provo (and maybe even further South). After Salt Lake City killed the two amazing train stations that it had to it's name, it was time for another one to take the place of the other two (Rio Grande and Union Pacific).
The new inter-modal hub is just the ticket and is pretty cool although if somebody was thinking straight they would have converted one of the existing train stations in all their glory and turned it into the inter-modal hub. Oh well, I can always dream that someone might think in the long-term, right?

Anyway, I was riding out to eat lunch with Gina out at Franklin-Covey and as I was riding over the 400 railway overpass, I looked to my right towards the inter-modal hub and saw a gathering of people around a new Frontrunner train car! They weren't supposed to have those cars for another year! I quickly turned around (dodging traffic of course) and headed over to "investimagate" with the trusty point and shoot camera in tow.

Once I got there I saw that it was a small press conference for the Proposition #3 "Rails and Roads." It was exciting to see and I got to go inside and take a look around the two story rail car. It was quite comfortable and will even be equipped with Wi-Fi capability! It's planned that it will travel at about 85 MPH, so that will help lure people to it because it will be faster than driving. The section from Davis County should be done sometime next year from what I hear with the SLC to Provo section being completed by 2010 or so. Proposition #3 will help speed this along.











Finally, I gotta throw in a couple of pics of the bike and the ride.

Bicycle Commuting

Today when I was riding to Sandy to pick up my car and finish the commute to work it was a beautiful morning and as I was riding along watching the gorgeous sunrise I thought how great bicycle commuting is. I saw quite a few other bicycle commuters making the trek into work, school, etc. and as each passed, we exchanged friendly waves of understanding and comraderie. It was a nice feeling. Yesterday when I was sitting waiting for the train at the TRAX station I saw quite a few people cruising around on bikes in Downtown. This may seem like a normal thing in other cities, but Salt Lake still needs to grow up and seeing a handful of cyclists in a 10 minute time span is pretty good. It's nice to see more now than I used to.

Most trips that people make are under a mile or two long which means that at just 14mph you could travel 2 miles in just 8.5 minutes and you get to ride straight to the front at traffic lights. Now think about how long it takes you to pull your car out of the garage, drive through traffic (sometimes the worst part), and then you still have to find a parking space. While the parking space issue might be quickly resolved just outside the city, it can get much more difficult (not to mention expensive) in and around Downtown. The bicycle is the perfect solution for most of these short trips. If you haven't started using a bike for transportation, you should try it, you just might remember those early days of freedom that came from learning how to ride.