Paleo Vélo

Been wanting one of these for a long, long time.

. . . and get outside and play! Can’t say it any better than this:

Hat tip to Jill Homer for the Calvin and Hobbes.

Well, there’s lots of it, but mostly it comes down to being the real deal:

The folks at Firefly are doing some ridiculously fine work.  Must help to have rich customers who kit out each frame to the $10,000 and up mark!

I often wish I could move back to the Utah/Colorado rocky mountains where I grew up. But you know, sometimes this whole California thing ain’t so bad. Especially when you find yourself wading in the water with your daughter on a lovely sunny day in JANUARY!

As an old-school BMXer at heart, I gotta say that this is just lame.  Vans were for catching big air while rocking to Iron Maiden, not a preppy accoutrement for parties in the Hamptons.

A number of people have told me that the reason they don’t commute more by bike is because of safety concerns associated with riding in traffic. Having had more than a few encounters with agressive or oblivious drivers, I can definitely relate to that. In places where massive numbers of people use bikes on a daily basis such as Denmark and The Netherlands, cycling infrastructure tends to be very good and often separates cyclists from fast moving traffic. The US has a long way to go in this regard.

That said, I think this quote from Dr. Harry Rutter, lead author of a report by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence in the UK, is worth keeping in mind:

All activities carry a risk. For some reason there seems to be strong focus on the risk of injury associated with cycling. Clearly, when deaths do takes place that’s tragic, and we need to do all we can to avoid them. But I think there is a perception that cycling is much more dangerous than it really is. This focus on the dangers of cycling is something to do with the visibility of them, and the attention it’s given. What we don’t notice is that if you were to spend an hour a day riding a bike rather than being sedentary and driving a car there’s a cost to that sedentary time. It’s silent, it doesn’t get noticed. What we’re talking about here is shifting the balance from that invisible danger of sitting still towards the positive health benefits of cycling.

The far more serious danger, from a public health perspective, is clearly inactivity. Dr. Rutter’s report describes the ‘invisible burden’ of inactivity and obesity as harmful as smoking. Story in The Guardian here.

We appear to have a political system that is incapable of confronting looming crises that stretch beyond the current news or election cycle. But it’s worth noting that compared to the money we as a nation will be spending on diabetes and obesity over the next generation, an investment in better cycling infrastructure would pay for itself many times over.

Worth watching if you are a runner or long-distance cyclist:

A few critical reactions here and here.

I’m not an ultra endurance athlete, though my brief foray into double centuries helped to illustrate for me some of the differences between fitness and health. While I probably also bike way more than Dr. O’Keefe is advocating, I don’t pretend much of it is necessary for health. To me, much of it is about getting out in nature and the joy of movement on two wheels.

That said, with some of the research coming out about nature therapy, I really like O’Keefe’s point about slowing down a bit to take in a view, ponder a flower, and just chill for a bit in the middle of a ride/run. It seems like half the bikers I know are always “training” for some event that never seems to come. We could all take a few riding tips from Pondero.

I’m guessing that cycling that becomes as much about meditation and appreciating nature as any training or fitness goals would be the most healthy cycling of all. But does this mean I need to give up my ipod and strava?

As seen from the Bootleg Canyon trails in Boulder City: