Wheels To Woodstock

We were conversing the other night, my mother and I. We talked about the usual things:  family, the weather, things that are and aren’t the way we remember them. Her doctor visits and stroll on the boardwalk, my bike ride that day, to Connecticut—and my recent trip to Greece.  Oh, and we said a thing or two about the state of the world. That the weekend marked the 50th anniversary of Woodstock came up.  She saw some footage of it on TV, she said, and became wistful.  “You know, I would’ve liked to be part of something like that.  All of those people, and they all girls along and had a good time.”  She wouldn’t have wanted to partake of the drugs—she’s never done such things. I pointed out that there were indeed intoxicating substances consumed, but among half a million attendees, there must have been at least a few people who didn’t “toke” or “drop”.

Of course, she could no more have made the trek than I could’ve: “I had four young kids”—one of them being, of course, yours truly.

As with the Stonewall Rebellion, which happened a few weeks earlier, a lot of mythology and misconception surrounds what one commentator has called “the world’s first viral event.”  (Interestingly, ARPANET, the predecessor of the Internet, was getting started around the same time.). But from what I’ve seen, heard and read, my mother’s perception about the camaraderie of Woodstock is accurate:  According to police and civilian reports, there were no reports of violence.  Also, there were only two overdoses reported.

On the other hand, one of the major misconceptions about the event is it’s location:  It wasn’t in the town of Woodstock.  The name came from the company that organized the event, which was actually held nearly 40 miles away from the fabled Catskills ‘burg.

I’ve been there three times, twice on bicycle tours of the area.  There’s lots of lovely riding up that way and, not surprisingly, the area is well-served by bike shops.

The upstate New York haven is far from the only town called “Woodstock.”  Every US State seems to have one and many seem to have more than their share of cyclists—and bike shops.

Here is a bike that would look out of place in any Woodstock—actual, historical, mythical or otherwise.

What Did You Hear?

You're pedaling down a litter-strewn street or a pebbly path.  You hear something go "clang".  And you feel a thump.

You wonder:

Any Color, As Long As It's....Plum?

How might the world be a different place if Henry Ford had said that a customer could have a Model T "in any color so long as it is plum"?

Better yet...What if he'd offered a bicycle in that one shade?  He did, after all, repair, design and manufacture bicycles before he turned his attention to automobiles.

The closest we may come to answering the answer to those questions comes in the form of RE:CYCLE, a bike just developed by the Swedish start-up firm Velosophy.

So how did plum purple (which, as you've probably guessed, I love) come to be the one and only color  you can choose for your RE:CYCLE?

Well, it just happens to be the color of the Nespresso Arpeggio pod.  Turns out that Nespresso, a Nestle-owned company, has been trying to encourage the recycling of its pods, which are made of aluminum.  Turns out, the metal can be melted down and recycled almost indefinitely, so today's Nespresso pod or Coke can can be tomorrow's Swiss Army knife bodies, fancy pen or--you guessed it--bicycle frame.  As Jimmy Ostholm, the brainchild behind RE:CYCLE, says, finding a way to convert the lightweight aluminum into a material rigid enough to meet bicycle maunufacturing safety standards "isn't rocket science."  The problem, it seems, is to get consumers to embrace the idea of re-purposing the containers that brought them their "morning Joe."

The bicycle's color isn't the only clue as to its origins.  The bell is shaped like a Nespresso pod, and the front carrier has straps to hold a take-out coffee cup.  

In case you're wondering:  It takes 300 of those Arpeggio pods to make one RE:CYCLE frame.  Oh, and it takes about 150 years for one of those capsules to decompose in a landfill.  It can be argued that we'd be better off if we didn't have single-use containers in the first place. (In 2016, Hamburg, Germany became the first city to ban all types of single-use coffee pods in its government offices.)  But given the numbers I've just mentioned, the RE:CYCLE, while not the solution to all of our waste problems, is an example of how we can move toward  more circular, sustainable ways of consumption.

And you can have whatever color you want...as long as it's plum!