Click on the headline (link) for the full text.
Many more articles are available through the Energy Bulletin homepage
Goods by Bicycle in China
Robin Chubb, Spacing Toronto
Despite dramatic decreases in the number of cyclists in Chinese cities over the past 15 to 20 years, transport of goods and products, informal collection of recycling, deliveries and use of bicycles for retail and selling is still very common…
Worth looking at this post just to see the pictures of what you can haul with a bike if you really put your mind to it – SO
(14 May 2009)
Not Just Present at Work, but Presentable
Joshua Brustein, New York Times
Once she locks up her bike each morning at work, Andrea Cortes-Comerer faces a series of potentially awkward moments. She climbs into a crowded elevator, still sweaty, her hair matted down from her helmet, hoping to avoid eye contact. She rushes into the bathroom, where she changes clothes, combs her hair (which she has shampooed and tied into a ponytail before leaving her apartment), washes her face and applies deodorant. Then she heads to her desk, where she has arranged some cardboard boxes at her feet where she can hang her clothing to dry, out of sight.
It is the bathroom stall that poses the biggest challenge, Ms. Cortes-Comerer says. She becomes increasingly self-conscious the longer she spends there.
… Like many bike commuters, Ms. Cortes-Comerer speaks about the time she spends on the bicycle each morning as a revelation, the joys of which easily offset the associated indignities. But she also acknowledges the disadvantages of a form of transportation that can leave a person sweaty and dirty at the beginning of each day at work. With the hottest months of the year looming, concerns about personal hygiene on the bike are heightened.
… About 185,000 people in New York City bike to work or use a bike for work each day, according to Transportation Alternatives, an advocacy group that encourages bicycle commuting. The responsibility for making commuters more comfortable when they arrive at work should fall to employers, said Wiley Norvell, the group’s communication director.
… Short of installing showers or locker rooms, Mr. Norvell said, employers can designate a space as a changing room and provide space for clothing storage (his own office’s changing room consists of a five-by-five area cordoned off by a curtain). Employers are increasingly receptive to such suggestions, Mr. Norvell said.
(26 May 2009)
Recommended by Toban.
Vancouver engineer invents self-balancing unicycle
Allan Brettman. The Oregonian
Off in the distance, a unicycle rolls around the ellipse that circles downtown’s Esther Short Park.
Nothing unusual there, though you might think of Vancouver as more of a meat, potatoes and bicycles-only kind of town. But there’s something different about this unicycle.
There’s a blocky-looking thing under the saddle. And the rider isn’t pedaling, yet the contraption is moving. And the rider is playing a guitar.
By the time the rider rolls into closer view, it’s clear that the unicycle is battery-powered. And it’s clear that the rider is doing his best to promote the wizardry of inventor Daniel Wood.
Wood, a high school dropout and self-taught engineer, invented the electric, gyroscope-packed, one-wheeled cycle to help launch a new company in downtown Vancouver.
(25 May 2009)
