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.

Something strange

Winter wonderland

Hey, its nearly officially spring... Saturday we were having a birthday party in the garden in T-shirts. Today a foot of snow, this is strange weather for these parts.
It snowed all morning and our cooking gas ran out so I thought
"I'll pop out and pick up a gas bottle on the Yuba Mundo." - Afterall in these southern climes the snow is never much for a northern lad like myself. Famous last words.

Empty roads ! Good progress...

Great a chance to test the Yuba Mundo in the snow for 2km, he thinks. I grabbed a hat and headed on out. The roads were empty in our neighbourhood and the flakes fell gently.

Mayhem
(notice how the fire truck is going around the round about the wrong way),
and yes those are palm trees.

What made things interesting was the slush made by the morning rush hour traffic that was covered over in snow. It was semi frozen and the Yuba's back wheel with the gas bottle's weight squished off to the side every now and again. A foot to the floor and low speed was enough to keep any Yuba slides under control. Not too hard going. I can't help wondering what it would have been like with a set of knobbly mtb tires...
When I left the neighbourhood and reached the main road where the filling station that sells the cooking gas is I was greeted with fire dept 4x4 car sirens and an endless line of stuck cars.
All commerce was closed of course and I headed back home under what turned out to be a snow storm.

Snow is not fun he decides.

I had popped out of a side road and gone over to the station to see if it was open and my big green bike had obviously not gone unnoticed... as when I headed off I was followed into my sideroad by a stream of desperate drivers who had been stuck in a line for some time and obviously thought if an idiot on a big green bike could cycle on that road they must be able to get out of their mess that way too. These kind people with very little control of their sliding cars then proceeded to try and overtake me as obviously I was holding them up... Each time I had to jump off the Yuba and drag it off the road to avoid being crushed by sliding cars. Happily eventually they got stuck and I could leave them behind with their superior transport. No, I don't get sarcastic at all when I am angry...

When I got home there was about a foot of snow and I decided to go and pull the kids out of school. (Across the road). The teachers who all live out in the cosy suburbs were talking of sleeping in their classrooms... there are powercut warnings.... my wife's collegues who also live miles away may end up sleeping here at our home too. Some have been stuck in their cars all morning... what fun...

We hit the beach

A man with a mission.

Sun was out, kids off school on holiday, we had breakfast and then off we went to the beach. The two girls were on their own bikes and my 3 year old had the luxury of the back of the Yuba to himself, and his little blue bike roped down. He managed about 2 km on his own before asking to climb back on board...

They wanted to jump into the waves, but this is february I explained so we played in the sand all afternoon in the sun. I think they realised how cold the water was when they saw a young couple enter and then exit the water rather rapidly at one point.

A sandwich stop and drink top up at a new organic supermarket (no bike rack though !) by the side of the cycle path and off we went back home.

I now have an escort of two little girls up front on the cycle path, talk about VIP transport ! This was also the first time Lucie rode by herself to the beach and back, 36 km... not too long ago she was a pedestrian ! Now the first thing she asks me in the morning is if we can cycle to the beach.

At home in time for tea...

Clamp seat, new bridge, horses and poverty camps..

Schools out ! Time to test the new child seat that clamps with a vice action onto the back of the Yuba Mundo. Initially not a sure bet because the rear rack is 18 cm wide, which is wide, but I measured it all before buying and it fits great. There is also a strap to tie it down to the rack.


The bike is now a three seater, rather than a four previously, but the girls are now increasingly mobile.


Above is a stretch of road that had a cycle path that we use running along side it, which has now been blocked off to cars. This is because they have built a bridge across it and over the river. We are now free to pedal car free where the road was pretty dangerous before, which is really cool. Cyclists have a special tunnel under the start of the bridge to the cycle path on the other side that goes all the way to the sea. There are even cycle lanes on the bridge leading into town.

Brand spanking new, we are spoilt...


Traditional get your fingers bitten stop off...

At two points on our route down by the waterline we came across what I initially thought were dumps put upon closer inspection turned out to be habitations made out of cardboard and garbage. Three families live here.


This is something that I have never seen in my region or country before. Last autumn in the capital I had been shocked to see the same thing but on a grander scale by the side of the highway, way out on the way into the city. I thought it was people picking through a dump, but they were living there...


Here, before, the unemployed, the poor, the old, the sick, hapless immigrants, mental patients and missfits were looked after by the state. We pay the same taxes, but for more and more people in need this is not happening anymore. The priority contrast between the new multimillion bridge (and cycle tunnel) to relieve traffic congestion for business/tourism and the people leaving in cardboard huts with children (we had close to freezing for days last week) is new and to my eyes unacceptable.

Winter fun

Older picture from the summer, but you get the idea.

School is out and we have got back into the habit of being 4 people on the Yuba Mundo. (Me and the 3 kids) The kids (3, 6 and 8 years old) have grown a bit and we are running out of space on the flatbed, although it is still totally doable and we still get the smiles.


For Christmas morning I took Mrs Yuba for a ride to the local Patisserie to get the traditional French "log" Christmas cake. We thought we were pretty chic on our carbon free transport, although we did stick out a bit amongst the 4x4's and Mercs. We had 18°C Christmas eve ( thats 64 degrees Fahrenheit for the americans out there) and the sun has been omnipresent, which is nice but strange. Normally it should be cooler and certainly not 18°C in the evening. Friends in the Northern climes have been sending me photos of frost and snow... here the battle is to keep the kids from going out in T shirts...

Happy new year everybody !

Yubaboy

Must.... resist.....

The 3rd generation of the Yuba Mundo is out. I don't know how I managed to miss this... probably spending too much time on my bike !

They come with more gears, disc brake tabs, loops for hooking stuff on the frame, and it would appear more accessories... and they are even available as a frame set. Argh.

Must resist.

1000 visits

During my travels today on the Yuba Mundo I had my 1000 th visiter. When I started this blog I never imagined that there would be that much intrest, and I hope that I have helped to prove and promote the Yuba Mundo concept, or even bike based transport in any form.
Anyway I got some milage in, a trip on my Trek hack to the local police station to report some stolen license plates missing from my wife's car, a trip to the recycling bins to empty the weeks cardboard, glass and plastics from the orange shopping caddy, then a trip to fill the shopping caddy and bag at the local supermarket. Had an old man stop in the street and gape open mouthed at me on the way back. I was quite loaded I suppose.


And as it was fantastically warm, sunny and I had my day, I hit the hills on my MTB. A great day. I often read in the cycling press about various states of beatitude reached during and post ride, and I often say to myself "over doing it a bit there.." but swooping along singletrack this afternoon got me up there and living the dream. (Well nearly.)