BC is such a beautiful province! On this tour I have performed eight Trials of Life presentations in Smithers, Houston, Burns Lake, Vanderhoof, Fort St. James, and Prince George; I have one more tomorrow in Kamloops before I have to start heading down south to California for the Sea Otter Classic mountain bike event in Monteray. 

I had a six hour drive today, and was listening to my ipod on random, and thought I’d bring up a certain phenomenon both my wife Caryn and I experience. We’re both convinced it does not perform a true random; if a certain artist is played, it seems to more often than not ‘randomly’ select the song that we most often play from that artist.  Anyone else notice this?!

Judging by their youtube views, you may have seen the Flight of the Conchords, if not, check this vid out for a laugh.

 

 

 

I have officially been added to the David Suzuki Foundations Play it Cool campaign.

I am completely responsible for the large amount of CO2 being emitted in to the atmosphere because of my travel schedule. Buying carbon offsets is a way to neutralize this CO2 by preventing the same amount from being emitted elsewhere. Reducing is always the first priority, but after that offsetting has emerged as an invaluable step we all can take for a healthier planet.

Last year I offset over 30 tonns of CO2, and for the 2008 season I have pre offset 25 tonns. This essentially makes my travel emissions neutral.

I wrote a blog post recently exploring the responsibility of traveling for work, called “is the footprint of my career justified”. 

In 2000, Carey Hart put it out there when he attempted the holey grail of FMX, the back flip; now it’s in every pro’s trickbook. Just a few short years ago Darren Berrecloth put it out there with some huge 360 drops; now it’s standard practice in any slopestyle comp. Audacious individuals are often the ones responsible for progression in alternative sport. Another example of this same concept would be Al Gore and his environmental activism; all the scientific data was there, but he put it out there that action must to be taken; David Suzuki in Canada is doing the same thing.

People like this start a trickle of action, then maybe a small stream depending on the importance or demand; and if the idea or trend is worthy, a raging river. Now of course we could get by with just a small trickle of people doing 360 drops, the hospitals couldn’t handle much more, but we do need a raging river of people being environmentally responsible. I guess my motive for this new series of articles on bicycle ecology is to help divert a few more of those random trickles of water in to a desperately needed raging river.

To get a little more scientific, Everett Rogers from Stanford did some extensive research on the diffusion of innovation (trends). First are the innovators, as mentioned above, then come the early adopters, which make up 15% of the population, they seek the new and have a higher tolerance for experimentation; this might be where you find the competitors of Hart and Barrecloth, or those following the recommendations of Gore or Suzuki. Then all of a sudden a bright idea will metastasize and spread rapidly through the next group called the early majority (35%). All those young groms sessioning the dirt jumps after school in hopes of being the next big name may be in this group. The next batch according to Rogers research, which spanned some 50 years and targeted over 500 major trends, is called the late adopters (35%). The remaining 15% are the laggards, they are off the back and tend to be on their own program. So just as good tricks spread rapidly through the population of capable riders, so will environmental responsibility for everyone, but I don’t think it has quite hit home for most people.

When I’m learning a new trick or technique, I have to practice it over and over and over. When I need to update or modify a technique, it takes even more effort and dedication. Is the reward worth it? The satisfaction of nailing a new move clean is amazing, totally worth all those failed attempts and practice. A large part of the solution to global warming will be like modifying an old trick, in other words we have to change our habits! Will the reward be worth the effort?

The mountain bike world seems full of coffee drinkers, am I right? Now I’m more of a tea guy although I do love a good java here and there, but anyway, I personally drink two cups of tea a day. One of my recent road trips lasted 75 days, so that’s about 150 cups that didn’t end up in a landfill because I managed to create a habit of bringing my re-usable mug with me. To help solidify this habit, I would often punish myself from caffeine if I forgot my to-go mug. A bit crazy yes, but it worked, caffeine is a strong motivator!

There seems to be disconnect between understanding a problem like global warming and actually acting on that knowledge, in future articles, I’ll explore this further. But for now,  consider this, it is said that if insects disappeared from our planet life would cease in five years, but if humans disappeared from this planet life would flourish in five years. Yes, we have some work to do. So can we put in the effort toward this critical goal of a sustainable world? Can we change our habits and inspire others to do the same? Can we put it out there? Well I have to agree with the charismatic words of Barack Obama, “Yes We Can!”

Stay tuned for future BikEcology articles on all sorts of green topics. Check out my blog at ryanleech.com for more.

If you haven’t read Yvon Chouinard’s “Let My People go Surfing”, perhaps after watching the speech below (about 60 minutes long), it might leave you wanting more. It is one of my favorites reads, click through on the link from my book list if you’re interested, and enjoy the words from this wise man.

A few days ago I stopped in Williams Lake, BC while on tour and got chatting with a mountain biker who works for the Boys and Girls Club. Through the last decade or so he has been taking kids on mountain bike rides and getting them hooked on the sport. He invests his time with these kids, he hangs out with them, teaches them, and is real with them. He gets them in to the mountains on camping/bike trips so they can experience Nature. He has fun with them.

He was telling me that he has now been doing this for long enough to see kids that have gone from stealing cars as young lads to being hooked on riding, then on to making decent lives for themselves in the ‘real world’. How cool is that.

Another story the local bike shop owner in Smithers told me was of the ski coach in town; he had run an ski club for years and coached so many young athletes through the years. His title was perhaps ski coach, but in reality, his most important contribution was as a role model. Tragically he passed away from health issues, and at his funeral, they opened the floor up, and 30+ of his former club members came up and gave accounts on how much of a positive difference this man made in their lives.

These two examples are of people who invested their time with youth, and built relationships with them; they are incredible role models even if they don’t think themselves to be.

I endeavor to be a positive role model for the younger generation too, but my method is quite different from above. I tent to interact with large numbers of youth for a very short time. The interaction is often one way (me talking to them) whether it be at a 15 minutes long show, or an hour long school presentation; sometimes I get to know a student or two that help me set up, and again, that is very short lived. Or maybe I go on a mountain bike ride with a school group, and hang out with them for a bit, again, very brief. I am hopeful these brief interactions are inspirational in some way , otherwise I wouldn’t be doing what I’m doing; but I’m curious as to whether speaking to large groups of students for shorter periods is as beneficial compared to spending a longer time with just a few individual students. I know the circumstances and values of each approach are unique and both offer positives, but nonetheless I’m curious. I’d love to hear your thoughts.

 

I am sitting here in the McBike Shop in Smithers, BC, catching up on some e-mail after presenting at two schools today, one high school and one elementary.

So depending on the age of the students, I change some of my speech and the tone in which I present. But for the younger grades, I imagine much of what I say goes right over their heads. That doesn’t worry me too much though, I think it’s my actions, and the way I present myself that does translate through for them. It is much like parenting I guess, no matter how often and firmly you tell your children something that you don’t do yourself; they won’t adopt the lesson.  The ‘ol ‘do as I say, not as I do’ adage.

On a totally different note, Caryn and I just finished renovating our bathroom, so we were without a shower in the house for about a month, so it wasn’t so convenient to have a quick shower whenever we wanted. During this time I think I averaged about 3 showers a week! As far as I know I’m not offending anybody with terrible body odor, nor do I all of a sudden appear scruffy to those I interact with during the day (except when I don’t shave), so I started thinking about the necessity of showering…..can’t believe I’m blogging about showers…

Most people I know shower once a day, and I know plenty of people that actually have to shower to wake up in the morning, then again later on to wash the days grime away. Whew! Back 50 years ago or more, the story was different, the odd bath here and there was all that was needed. For active people like you and myself, we have to be careful; a hard day of working out or a messy mountain bike ride, and a quick shower is a good thing. But it seems we have become a shower-crazed society, so I thought I’d come up with just a few reasons to perhaps skip a shower or two:

-an average shower uses 160 Liters of water

-it takes a lot of energy to heat all that water

- it takes a lot of commercial product to wash skin and hair that probably doesn’t need washing day in and day out

-your body has to work overtime to produce oils for the skin only to be washed off over and over again, skin can get rather dry this way….but of course you can buy product to solve that problem…

-all that product goes down the drain

-that extra half hour you save can be used to work on your wheelies outside the front door

That concludes my shower blurb….more from my BC road trip soon.

I live in a neighborhood that has loads of young children (none are my own, but I do have two nephews across the street). On any typical day, if I go out my front door I am greeted by grinning kids riding around bikes, how awesome is that! So I took my camera out and filmed them just to give you an idea of what it’s like.