Turning What You Ride Into What You Ride On

Bicycling is commonly seen as an environmentally-friendly form of transportation, recreation and exercise.  Some people ride their bikes for exactly that reason.  And, for the most part, bicycles are less damaging to the planet than many other things, including motorized vehicles.  But there are two bike parts that, too often, end up in landfills.

I am talking about bicycle tires and tubes.  Some of us re-use tubes that have been patched one too many times:  as tie-downs, for example, or underneath clamps to prevent them from slipping and marring a finish.  And, for a time, Pedro's made "Blowout bags" partially from re-cycled inner tubes.  Those bags strapped underneath a rider's saddle and were used to--you guessed it--carry a spare inner tube, patch kit, tire levers and maybe a small multi-tool.

The problem with old tires and tubes is that although they crack from drying out (which is how many Blowout bags, including two I used, met their endings), they don't decompose quickly in the way of some other materials. 

Since 2002, England and Wales have had a law forbidding the disposal of automotive and agricultural tires in landfills. But, interestingly, bicycle tires and tubes were exempt from the law although, according to chemical engineers, they are nearly identical in composition to car tires.

Five years ago, Russ Taylor founded Velorim to bridge this inequity.  He comes from Staffordshire, known for its bull terriers, so it is perhaps not a surprise that he is forward-thinking and ambitious.  He realized that all of those tires and tubes that were being sent to landfills--or overseas--for disposal could be put to better use, not only for consumer products, but in public works.  

As an example, Velorim has developed a process that is now being used to turn pellets from reclaimed rubber goods into a porous material that can be used to lay cycle paths in urban or rural landscapes.  This not only re-uses those old tires and tubes, but also lessens the need to make new asphalt or concrete, both of which involve processes that are harmful to the environment--to say nothing of the fact that asphalt is made from petrochemicals.

So, the tires you now ride could be rolling over...the tires you used to ride.  Somehow that's fitting in more ways than one.

Whoever Is At Fault, Blame The Cyclist

I have no connection with Dartmouth College, much less with its (American) football team.  But reading about what happened to the squad's coach, Buddy Teevens, sent a chill up my spine--not only because of his potential spinal injury, but also because of another he suffered and, more specifically, how and where he incurred those injuries.

Buddy Teevens and his wife, Kristen

A month ago, he and his wife were enjoying an early-spring evening ride in Saint Augustine, Florida. They own a home nearby, and I have ridden there a number of times during visits with my parents.  

Route A-1A, the road that zigs and zags along Florida's Atlantic Coast, cuts through the "mainland" part of the city, crosses the bridge into the area beloved by tourists.  Perhaps not surprisingly, the road is heavily trafficked, as it offers everyone's idealized image of a "road trip" with ocean views--and, for much of its length, has only two lanes.

Also, because it's in Florida--specifically, Northern Florida, which is about as Southern, culturally, as Alabama or Georgia--that traffic includes more than its share of pickup trucks.  Now, I don't mean to pick on pickup truck drivers in particular, but I can understand how they, because of their vehicles' size and potential for speed, feel--especially with those wide marine vistas--that the road is theirs.  And, like SUVs, pickup trucks offer their drivers poor sight lines and even more "blind spots" than smaller vehicles. 

So, whether or not 40-year-old Jennifer Blong was drinking--police declined her offer to take a blood-alcohol test--she struck Mr. Teevens with the Ford F-150 she was driving at 50 MPH in a 35MPH zone.  The constables' report of the crash noted that he wasn't wearing a helmet and didn't have lights on his bike.  It also cited him for "failure to yield the right of way" as he crossed A1A.  

Blong claimed there was "nothing I could do" as Teevens "just kind of appeared in front of me" as he crossed, as the police allege, outside of a desginated crossing area.  

While I, as a longtime dedicated cyclist, can find fault with both Blong and Teevens, I am struck by the Florida Highway Patrol's inclination to place the blame on the Teevens, the cyclist, for the crash.  

That said, I am sad for him and his family because, as of yesterday, the incident had another terrible consequence:  Teeven's right leg was amputated.  And he has a long rehabilitation ahead of him, as a result of his spinal injury.

You Don't Have To Ride To The End Of This Tunnel To See The Light.

 As a cyclist, I have an interesting relationship with tunnels. (A Freudian would have a field day with that statement!)  I've ridden, probably, my share and some long underpasses that could just as well have been tunnels.  (I think of one in particular that dips as it goes under the Long Island Railroad trestle at 130th Street in Queens.)  I can't say I seek out those long, enclosed passages, but when I enter them, I experience a mild adrenaline rush: Even if I know what's on either end of it, I like to imagine that I'm going to emerge in a different world from the one where I entered.

That said, one of the most gratifying experiences I've had as a cyclist took me through a tunnel. I detoured from one Alpine road--closed, probably, by an avalanche--to another, only to come to a tunnel in which an electrical outage extinguished the lights.    

A driver in a Citroen waved to me.  He told me to ride ahead of him, in the wake of his headlights, and the drivers behind him would follow.  And they did!

I thought of that day when I came across this news item:  A three-kilometer (1.8 mile) tunnel through the base of  Lovstakken mountain Bergen, Norway has just opened in Bergen, Norway.

While that, in itself, may not seem so unusual--after all, the Norwegians, French, Italians, Japanese and other people who live in or by mountains have been building them for centuries---the purpose of the tunnel makes it a record-breaker.  

Photo by Ronny Turoy

The Norwegian under-pasage is the longest such structure built specifically for cyclists and pedestrians.  There are separate lanes for each, and motorized vehicles are verboten. (OK, I know that's a German word.  I don't know Norwegian!)

Perhaps the most unique and gratifying part of the tunnel, though, is that its designers seemed to do everything they could to make it seem less like a tunnel.  The walls are lined with art and other visual delights, and the cave is illuminated with different colors of light in different parts of the tunnel, which helps to give people who pedal, walk and run an idea of how far they've progressed through it.  And, in the middle of the tunnel there's a "sundial" in a place where the sun will never shine.  It's intended, in part, to further break up the monotony of the tunnel, which is completely straight (which is something I never could claim) except for slight bends at the entrance and exit.