Bike-America.org

Hi friends, one of our loyal supporters, a writer for vegetariansupplements.org, has  contributed an article about vegetarians and the environment, which I am posting below.

Her site is very informative. She’s not selling vitamin supplements, these are articles with useful links and information on choosing maintaining a vegetarian diet.

After giving my life to bike-america.org, I have tremendous admiration for grassroots movements. These reflect pure, genuine passion for a given issue and take tremendous amounts of work.

For these two reasons, I strongly recommend you read this contribution and check out the site in the future.

Enjoy:

UN experts present us one basic approach to reduce our impact on the environment

In a recent article published in July 2010 by the Guardian.co.uk, leading journalist John Vidal reported how vegetarianism can aid save our world by eating less meat.

Behind most of the joints of beef or chicken on our plates is a phenomenally wasteful, land and electricity hungry process of farming that devastates forests, pollutes oceans, rivers, seas and air.

We mostly breed four species (chickens, cows, sheep and pigs) which need vast amounts of water and food, emit methane and other greenhouse gases and produce mountains of physical waste products.

In ’09, the United nations calculated that the combined climate change emissions of animals bred for their meat were about 18% of the global total – greater than cars, planes and all other forms of transport put together.

A Bangladeshi family living off rice, beans, vegetables and fruit may live on an acre of land or less, while the average American, who consumes around 270 pounds of meat a year, needs 20 times that.

Academics have calculated that if the grain fed to animals in western countries were consumed directly by people rather than animals, we could feed at least two times as many people – and possibly a lot more – as we do now.

Eating a steak or a chicken will point to an abnormal water consumption, that the animal has required to live and grow. Vegetarian author John Robbins calculates one pound of beef needs around 20,000lbs of water.

Farming, which uses 70% of water accessible to humans, is already in direct competition for water with cities.

Industrial scale agriculture now dominates the western livestock and poultry industries, and a single farm is now able to generate as much waste as a city.

Farming animals generate manure and urine which is funnelled into massive waste lagoons sometimes holding as many as 40m gallons. These cesspools often break, leak or overflow, polluting underground water supplies and rivers with nitrogen, phosphorus and nitrates.

A meat diet is generally considered twice as expensive as a vegetarian one. According to the Vegetarian Society, meat eaters get increased chances of obesity, cancer, heart diseases and other illnesses as well as a hole in the pocket.

So what now? How can we start contribute save our world?

Here a quick and simple recipe to find a good meat substitute, the Tofu and Green Onion Veggie Hamburger

This healthy tofu based veggie burger receive an additional nutritional boost from wheat germ. This recipe is both vegetarian and vegan.

Ingredients:

* 1/2 container firm or extra firm tofu, mashed

* 1 onion, diced

* 3 green onions, diced

* 2 tbs wheat germ

* 2 tbls flour

* 2 tbls garlic powder

* 2 tablespoons soy sauce

* dash pepper

* oil for frying

Preparation:

Mix all ingredients in a large bowl. Form into patties.

Fry patties in oil in a large skillet until brown and crisp, about 10 minutes.

Now it’s all to up you…

Martha Volz writes for the vegetarian supplements web-site, her personal hobby blog related to vegetarian healthy eating ideas.

D.C. is just over the horizon

So we’re in DC. Nothing quite describes the feeling of riding those final 5 miles…seeing the Washington Monument peeking over the horizon. After months of hard and dedication…we made it!

We have nine planned appointments (that I know of…there may be a few more). Our group will be meeting with congressman Oberstar and Blumenauer and representatives from California, Minnesota, Missouri, Oregon, and Michigan. I have five appointments and plan to speak at every office that will take me in the next three days.

I have not spoken with the rest of the group about their experiences, so this blog will be based entirely upon my own.

A) The “ask”

Unfortunately the climate bills recent failure took the wind out of our sails a little bit. But we’re not just going to pack our bags and go home.

+invest in clean energy

We made it

B) Making a case

+I am not a professional lobbyist, but I’m not a regular guy. I have an amazing story, one that demonstrates… one that proves the viability of bicycles as a means of transportation.

+Words cannot do justice to the devastation caused by coal. Especially when it’s passed on to a senator through a senator. I have color pictures, printed out and ready for the desk of every representative I meet. I plan to ask staffers to pass these on to my representatives, when I can’t meet them personally.

C) Results: A mixed bag

Congressman Ellison is great.

+What do you say when a staffer or representative says “hey…I completely agree with you, bikes are great…coal is terrible…and clean energy is really important” This was the response I got from most of my meetings. Am I just getting put off here? It would be hard to prefer coal to windmills, but who is making this a priority…who is fighting for these issues. I didn’t have the political saavy to know the difference . Nevertheless I am encouraged that all the people I met with seemed to think progressively.

+ Everyone I met with was interested and excited about the trip. I always imagine that meeting someone who’s biked across the country is a unique experience. This was a great opportunity to show that I’m not some hippie on the fringe of society but a genuine, thoughtful person who cares passionately about these issues.

+My last meeting was with Congresswoman Jackie Speier, my rep. From San Bruno, and it was a great experience. She showed so much enthusiasm in meeting me personally, but that was just the beginning. She bought me a great lunch, talked to me genuinly, and left me with a gift: A official house of representatives picture frame (for the picture she took with me) and a $100 bill—that’s food for 10 days on a bike trip! Finally she set me up with an assisstant who’s going to help me share my story with media back home.

This was my final “bike-america” event and I knew it going in…a wonderful culmination to a great experience.

Eating in a sustainable way is a very important issue these days.

1 natural, organic apple; $1.25...what else can we get for this price???

That importance is magnified on a bike tour where one consumes up to six or seven thousand calories per day. We can ride our bikes and preach clean energy all we want. If we sustain this biking with food driven here from 1,300 miles away, with meat that produces incredible CO2 emisions…what good are we doing?

This is why I practiced a vegan diet on this trip. It would be hypocritical not to. With it all said and done, here are some reflections:

$1 for a box of cookies? Enriched white flour is VERY cheap.

+Whole Foods makes it very easy to be vegan. I live for those. The reason people see this diet as “extreme” and “impossible” is because there simply aren’t enough alternatives.

+ Veganism is not my religion. If I eat bread with butter listed as the 50^th ingredient, I’m not going to freak out (most people think I would).

It is a tool by which I protect the environment, maintain my health, and support sustainable food production.

$1 for two liters of soda...sorry, two liters of high fructose corn syrup

+A diet doesn’t mean being perfect: this notion is what burns many people out. It’s okay to indulge once in a while if it helps you maintain what your doing long-term. Here’s an analogy: being a

biker doesn’t mean never riding in a car…ever, it simply means choosing to bike as often as possible.

+Going vegan is not the most sustainable diet. This is because meat and diary production is not the only food system damaging our environment.

How is this even possible?

Close your wallet’s to the meat industry all you want, if your alternative is food with harmful pesticides, from the other side of the planet, with an insane amount of packaging…what’s the use?

For this reason, I’m suggesting an alternative diet for the environmentally conscious. Again, it doesn’t require perfection, only that we honestly strive for this to the extent that we can.

"Value" menu

+Eat meat, diary, and eggs in moderation (choose free range, cage free) or not at all. (meat is full of hormones and antibiotics, it is a huge source of pollution)

+Buy organic (prevent soil depletion and pesticide contamination)

+Buy fair trade (chocalate…bananas…coffee…tea…these are infamous for terrible environmental and social abuses)

+Buy in bulk (packaging requires lots of energy to produce and ends up in landfills )

+Buy local, seasonal (trucks drive thousands of miles to bring most food to your plate)

The surivers to DC (Abby and Joel also made it)

Hey! I’ve had more than one cute girl tell me that “I loves mountains too!”. That Larry Gibson bumper sticker on my bike is getting me places.

This is the culmination to our trip…the last challenge before we hit DC. Since we have been biking these mountains for nearly a week, surely the experience is worth blogging about. I think it’s hard to imagine biking over mountains without having done it. Until I went touring, biking up the hill to my house was the only mountain I knew of.

Elevation

After biking through the Sierras, Rockies, and Ozarks, these mountains seemed like little more than foothills to me. Perhaps it was just the route we took, because so many bikes have told us horror stories about Appalachian biking, but the highest peak we hit was 4000 feet. That’s not even 1/3 of what we hit in the Rockies.

Temperature

Our schedule coincided with record heat on the east coast. Fortunately the Appalachians are a bit cooler and less humid. They also have plenty of shade.

Scenery

Beautiful, absolutely beautiful.

Drawbacks

There is no shoulder and coal trucks careen down the moutain every few minutes. It’s really dangerous. Although most people we’re friendly, quite a few people were rude to us.

This is all too common in Appalachia

One rider had a full beer bottle thrown at him. I personally was given the finger, honked at, blasted with exhaust… I had more verbal abuse from by-passers than in any other state.

We’re not doing anything wrong.

It seems that our appearance/lifestyle is threatening to some. Those who don

Reunion with close friend and "veggie bus" (biodiesel) driver Joe Gormon

‘t understand us.

This is where it’s all the more important to remain respectful and polite. We may be the only bikers these folks see for a long long time, so we will make a lasting impression.

Mountain Drama/Difficulty

One rider, who recently joined us, had a very difficult time adapting to sixty mile days in the mountains and it led to a rather dramatic confrontation. This is nothing new. Conflict is inevitable when living closely with others under physical and emotional duress. Conflict resolution is an important part of being a successful team.

Great decents make the Appalachians unique

In the end we worked through it but I learned a valuable lesson that I’d like to pass on to my fellow bikers and bike-tour organizers:

Do not recommend for new riders to start in the mountains.

It’s deceptive because physically anyone can do it.

So much for a "flat-free" ride. Oh... Hung was so close

Last year we had girls as young as 16 completing the same route. However, they had been on tour for weeks to build up to that. It’s one thing to say “hey, we may have 70 mile days in the mountains, do you feel ready?” (which I did). But I’ve come to realize that unless one has lived in a mountainous area there’s no way to articulate the challenge. Even strong bikers are overwhelmed when starting with mountains immediately. We faced this same challenge with a rider joining us in the Rockies.

Movin’ on…

Randomly stumbled upon Monticello. This is one thing that makes bike touring great.

Let me start with a question: Do you know where your electricity comes from? These days have changed my perspective on energy, and I will be lobbying for Racine in Washington DC.

-Joel and I (Kevin) split off for the day to take a different route to Athens. We were invited  to participate in the “Steve Barbour Memorial Tour” by Consider Biking. This was an organized 1 day ride from 32-124 miles in honor of a man killed by a drunk driver.

Since the ride ended in the same place it started, Joel and I were the only bikers with saddlebags. Everyone was biking close to twenty miles per hour at a conversational pace and we struggled to keep up. Still, our luggage lead to some great conversations and new friends.

________________________

At Athens we spent the night with a guy named Badger. He is the head of Ohio University’s leading environmental organization, working to hold get the university off Coal power. Athens happened to be in the last day of it’s “Brew-Fest” and the streets we’re lined with youthful energy. But alas, it was a humid day and Joel and I put on way too many miles to do much exploring.

____________________

We visited Elisa Young in Racine, OH  for the 2nd year in a row. I knew what to expect, but it was still disturbing. Racine is a town downstream from 4 coal power plants, 2 aluminum factories, and a Manganese factory.

Elisa began advocating for environmental justice when her neighbors started dieing…of cancer…all of them. Even her dog died of cancer. High rates of children have developed asthma and learning disabilities. It’s hard to imagine why.

That is Coal plant smog...and that is a school

Not long after beginning the fight for clean energy she was fired from the local hospital under very specious circumstances. They happen to be friends of coal and why wouldn’t they? Coal brings them customers.

Elisa feels alienated from the community…even from family members. Speaking out against the coal industry is not a way to make friends. In such impoverished areas, it is seen only as a source of jobs.

Elisa took us down to a coal mine.  All the license plates were from out of town. Coal mining does not generate local jobs, is migrant work. As soon as a mine runs out or is shut down, miners are moved to a new area. This is easier than training new employees over and over.

There are regulations against the dumping of coal ash, however there are none against “beneficial use”,  i.e. putting the toxic waste in household appliances, in roads, and even our precious rails to trails bike paths.

That is a mountain of toxic coal ash, (or) what's left of a mountain top in Appalachia

I could go one about this all day, but I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves. What Elisa is doing it is truly inspiring. She is battling a billion dollar industry, with no funding, little community support, with so many organizations compromised or complicit. She fights on and her efforts helped prevent the building of a fifth coal plant in her area. An amazing victory to be sure.

If every American could have the experience that we had, the world would go green very quickly…

We go onward, to West Virginia...so close!

Where to start…where to start. So we entered Columbus with nothing planned. The magic of bike touring is that if you open yourself up, talk to everyone you can, amazing things will happen.

-10 miles out, on a famous rails2trails route, we met Wayne and Gene. These two men had organized the trails construction! When they heard what we were doing, they spread the word to all their bike friends and advocates in the area.

-We met with Jerry Rampelt, the exectuvie director of the Ohio to Erie trail. This is a bike path which goes from Cincinatti to Columbus to Cleveland. The trail is 75% completed and the organization owns 90% of the necessary land. We spoke about the stubbornness of some to sell their land, either wanting a kings ransom or refusing outright. This seems to be the biggest holdup in designing bike path across a state. This path is exciting. It could be the next KATY. Something that attracts tourists from all over, and inspires those living nearby to try touring for the first time. What a great contribution to posterity.

-Columbus is a Vegan friendly area. I personally frequented a Whole Foods, Whole World Natural Restaurant, and my personal favorite, Patticake Bakery (unfortunately I missed the Vegan hot dog stand, the farmers market, and a few other interesting places). Patticake Bakery isn’t just vegan, their muffins are the best I’ve had…ever…without a doubt.

2 by 2012: working for 2% of commutes made by bike by the end of next year

-At Patticake, we were lucky to meet Bryan Saums, who works for Consider Biking, a Columbus bike advocacy group. After graciously buying us all that we could eat (!?!?!?!) he invited us over to the office. There his staff profiled us in their newsletter. We met executive director Jeff Stephens (who has ridden RAAM). Jeff set us up for an evening bike ride with the mayor “bikin’ Mike Coleman”.

Critical Mass!

Mayor Coleman is soooo passionate about biking and we had a great talk with him.Hundreds of people showed up to ride and we took over the streets of Columbus. At the end we were given the stage to share our project and we had lots of meaningful conversations afterward.

A biker who was fined for "taking the lane", he took it to court and won!

-So to summarize: University town, great advocacy group, committed political leadership, centralized downtown: I believe the mayor when he says: Columbus will become the most bike friendly city in the country.

Special thanks to David for hosting us for three days. Good luck on your ride to Portland!

This post will be completed sometime in the near future. Please excuse our business, we’re setting up lobbying appointments in DC!

-We left St. Louis through the arch, crossed the Mississippi river, Illinois and Indiana. Following “historic” route 40: the Lincoln trail, we frequently passed historical markers and locals were quick to boast about their towns past.

-Three days of humidity, mosquitoes, and never ending cornfields. Southern Illinois has a great bike route system and when we weren’t on a trail the roads were very quiet. We had an 80 mile day finished the ride by 4pm. It’s really easy to drift away and cruise.

-Only two days to cross Illinois and into the eastern time-zone. Whereas the western states took up to a week to cross, we now have to keep alert, those “welcome to” signs are coming quickly

Here are two bike advocacy projects that we’ve encountered this week:

1. People for bikes: A Boulder based group aiming for one-million signatures in support of biking. This is a national movement as we have seen these petitions even in rural Illinois.

SIGN THE PLEDGE!

http://www.peopleforbikes.org/

2. Ride Planet Earth: They generously profiled us in a recent blog entry! This is very similar to Bike-America, a grassroots group seeking to combat climate change with conversation, investigation, and (bike) demonstration in local communities on a bike tour to Cancun, Mexico for COP-16.

Interested in riding? They’re looking for bikers!

http://rideplanetearth.org/

A "St. Louis" fourth of July

This fourth of July, as we celebrate independence, take time to consider that perhaps we aren’t as free as we think.  Although not all four freedoms listed below apply to you, I have found they affect the lives of  many whom we’ve met across the country.

1. Freedom to drink uncontaminated tap water.

2. Freedom to eat food that is free of pesticides, hormones, antibiotics, genetic modifications, high fructose corn syrup, and unnatural preservatives, purchased from the producer at a fair and just rate (to choose organic at a local grocery)

3. Freedom to breath air that is uncontaminated by cigarette smoke, car exhaust, or coal smog.

4. Freedom to bike around town safely

Is it asking too much that these be afforded to all Americans?

Solo riding on the Katy trail.

-The Katy Trail (220 miles from KC to STL) is shady and beautiful. It sure beats the rolling hills, humidity, and dirty wire/glass filled shoulder (if there is one at all) of highway 50. We did a little bit of both, and it made us appreciate the KATY much more.

Getting ready to depart for another day of biking

-We are in Wal Mart land and boycotting them at all costs. To my great satisfaction, we found a WHOLE FOODS in St. Louis, whose business plan is: to be the exact opposite of Wal mart in every way: Selling local, organic foods, with vegan options, recognized as a great employer, serving and donating to the community (instead of driving it out of business), compensating farmers/producers fairly, and trying to be sustainable in every way possible.

Paul, Scott, Hung and Kevin sneak down to the arch before we head out. Wishing the rest could have made it down with us

Whole Foods is only more expensive on the surface…Wal Mart simply passes the costs onto our environment, long term health, and underpaid farmers.