Green fun down town

Electric /diesel bus & pedal taxis

From a municipality usually not too concerned with the greener side of things came an amazing ecology fest this Easter weekend. We didn't even see all of it, there were stands all over the historical centre. We wandered into town to do some shoping on Saturday to find this mini revolution going on. I wonder if it had anything to do with the "Europe Ecologie" Party surge in the recent nationwide polls, or are the times achanging ? Mind blowing in such a usually conservative town...

Somebody brave at townhall had got their chequebook out !

We saw quite a few confused citizens, sadly alot of people are openley anti-ecology here (like much of Europe 15-20% of the vote is fascist) and will not have liked/understood this... Perhaps minds are evolving and people are realising/seeing that climate change will/is effecting them too, and not just poor people on the other side of the planet ?
A guy from town hall was doing his best with a megaphone to get people intrested and even gave away three new bikes at one point in a free prize draw. (We didn't win... my wife said just as well, with all the bikes we have...) And for once we did not look out of place !

There was a great Dutch guy Marc who has set up a courier business with an alloy box bike that comes in at 22 kg (48 pounds) he said, I wish him the best of luck. The kids climbed on bord and compared it to the Yuba. A very flash bike, capable, comfortable, really high end, and a thing of beauty in itself. Perfect for his activity... but his mouth did drop open when I told him the price of the Yuba...

:°)

There were also 2 electric assisted trike bubble taxi bikes subsidized by a local bank that puts its name on the trikes and supplies free rides around town to shoppers. As far as I can see this is a new form of advertising (for "green" bank loans ?!?) and a fun idea. The guy said they come in at 150 kg ! (330 pounds)

The kids went for a free ride and got some free sweets too !

Bye bye kiddies !

Old faithful !

Fun outing, a refreshing breath of air and quite a surprise. If it can happen here it can happen anywhere ! The kids also had fun on a free pedal car stand too, not easy to tear them away...

The pedal powered ecology theme continues !

The theme of the stand was recycling. There was a race where you had to grab some recyclable packaging (plastic bottle etc) put it in the little straw basket on the side of your pedal car, rush down the track as fast as your little ecowarrior legs can pedal and slam dunk the trash into a recycling bin. Great idea. Obligatory household recycling with truck pickup has not yet made it to our neighbourhood. Although we do haul as a family all our recyclables by Yuba to volontary collection points each week, I think we are a minority example here.

I hope this isn't another one day wonder aimed at pacifying unhappy voters with no follow through, but rather truely a sign that people in power are waking up to green issues.

We will see...

More pics of the day here http://www.bicicolis.com/actualites.html - on Marc's new boxbike courier website.