Entries from October 2007
photo – http://www.flickr.com/photos/tellumo/83083404/
I have been advocating the ditching for a couple of years now. There’s something about that place. We go in there and something takes hold of us. We want to buy everything. Mostly things we don’t need. We don’t actually buy a bunch of stuff we don’t need, but we always feel the pull towards those non-needed items. I’m sure that’s part of their strategy – they probably have a team of psychologists working for them. Yeah some things are a good deal. But every time I go there I feel cheap. In fact I feel pretty dirty. And manipulated. And ashamed. It represents every thing we are not.
The only reason we kept our membership last fall when the renewal came up is Tim is addicted to Grape Nuts. And Grape Nuts are really cheap at Costco. One time my daughter and I bought five of the HUGE boxes of Grape Nuts and put them under Tim’s pillow. (yeah – he loves them) Anyway, it was more difficult for Tim to let go than me. We agree that Costco doesn’t fit our lifestyle. But it was still a little hard to completely give it up. But as of Halloween we did it. We let our membership expire and this year we are finally Costco free (Full Disclosure: we still know people who we might con into picking up a few boxes of Grape Nuts for Tim on occasion ).
So as of now we are doing all of our shopping for stuff we need on a regular basis by bike or on foot and near our house. And it feels pretty good. We still shop for other stuff (say bike parts) on the internet and know the carbon emissions of shipping etc. leaves something to be desired – but we never said we were perfect.
- Anne
Categories: consumerism · seattle · shopping · shops · sustainability
Tagged: , consumerism, costco, grape nuts, seattle, shopping, what's wrong with america
This is part of an ongoing series of posts (ok, it’s the first–we’ll see how it goes) on the building of our Xtracycles. We get lots of questions about putting them together so I thought I better start documenting. Normal people would do it in order, starting with the actual kit, but me, I gotta start with the stoker bars. Maybe I just like saying Stoker….
Interested in the build? Read on, then see the blurb at the bottom and watch the “Buildin’…” category.
For our stoker bar setups we used some cheap ebay tandem stems and beer-can shims to mount bars for our passengers. I’ll get to the stems in another post but for now, here’s the scoop on these sylish Nitto “Swept-Back” bars.
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Categories: bikes · buildin' the xtracycle · wrenchin' · xtracycle
Tagged: bikes, build, cork, diy, grips, howto, parts, passengers, seattle, stoker, wrenchin', xtracycle
SDOT Photo
As we ride more (and more and more) around our fair city, I’m struck by how little the city does to accommodate the parking of our two-wheeled steeds. Racks are few and far between, but cars are welcomed on nearly every curb. It used to be, back in the day, this didn’t matter much because you could count on a nearby, sturdy, parking meter…
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Categories: Rack that Bike · alternative transportation · bikes · neighborhoods · seattle · sustainability · xtracycle
Tagged: bikeracks, bikes, governement, local, racks, seattle, transportation, xtracycle
October 24, 2007 · 1 Comment
My son had a friend over to play the other day. Usually when a parent drops their kid off to play, they leave a car seat so you can take the kid home in your car. This time, the mom brought a helmet. I didn’t ask her to. I didn’t even tell her I was going to bring her son home on the bike (in fact, I was planning to walk since we hadn’t talked about it in advance). She just assumed we would ride. And that is a beautiful thing. Maybe our bike lifestyle is catching on….
(BTW – the little boy loved it. I had a hard time getting him off the back of the Xtracycle. He wanted more. I bet he can’t stop talking about it at home – he’s probably begging his parents to get one right now…. A girl can dream.)
– Anne
Categories: bikes
Tagged: alternative transportation, bikes, friends
Nothing says cycling like a big fat burger, right? (uh, yeah…right, Tim)
So it follows that nothing says riding in the rain like a big Costco-sized bottle of ketchup-turned buddy flap (mud flap)!
I had big plans to make some fancy Rivendell-style tweed/leather mudflaps, but I went back to my reuse roots. Once I saw the flap-goodness embodied in that giant old ketchup bottle, I don’t know, I just couldn’t sit idly as it was sentenced to the big recycling tub.
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Categories: bikes · sustainability · weather · wrenchin'
Tagged: bikes, buddyflaps, commuting, fenders, gear, rain, tips
Sure, it’s not enough that they’ve got the coolest city-bike shop anywhere, or that they’ve managed to double the size of the shop in five or so months. No, they have to give away free beer, too.
It’s just not fair, I tell ya! Seattle needs some of this two-wheeled excess!
Seriously, if you get the chance, check out Clever Cycles, right across the street from the Lucky Lab in PDX …
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Categories: Blogroll · PDX · bikes · longbikes · shops · xtracycle
Tagged: beer, bikes, bikeshops, citybikes, clevercycles, portland, retail, stokemonkey, xtracycle
