Barbara Kingsolver: Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life
McKibben Bill: Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future
Eliot Coleman: Four-Season Harvest: Organic Vegetables from Your Home Garden All Year Long
Kathrine Switzer: Running and Walking for Women Over 40 : The Road to Sanity and Vanity
Michael Pollan: The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals
Here is Chris on a wooden bike from Rwanda. Find out more about these bikes, coffee and human resourcefulness by visiting Project Rwanda. This is one of the bike activist groups that met up at Interbike this year, and we will be posting more about them in the near future.
Chicago Critical Mass, April 2007
It has been literally years since I participated in a Critical Mass Ride.
We decided to come for the first time as a family. Chris and Peter rode on our family tandem, and I pulled Nadia on the trail-a-bike. The kids were wide-eyed at the spectacle. Believe it or not, they have never witnessed grown-ups behaving this way: shouting en masse, blaring loud music, dancing in the street, wearing silly constumes, sporting body piercings, taking off their shirts and spraying their bodies with paint, wearing clown make-up even though it's not Halloween, and on, and on...
Actually, the CM was an eye-opening experience for me as well. Aside from the sheer spectacle and party aspect of it all, I was simply not prepared for the diversity of people that would participate. While I was expecting to see a large contingent of young people riding everything from fixed-gear to tall bikes to contraptions, I didn't think I would see a lot of other families, older folks, or just ordinary people who like riding bikes. Well, they were all there in droves. We saw al least six other families, some with very small kids pulled in trailers, some with kids on tandems, and some kids riding their own bikes. Older folks, well, that was eye-opening too. I recognized people I've known for years from being in the business, both customers, and fellow bike shop owners, who look, well, older. And that's probably how I look to them too.
Although the ride has its regulars, and I am guessing that they are the most vocal, and sometimes outrageous group, it was heartening to see regular people on their hybrids, and three-speeds, and cruisers just riding along. The drivers and pedestrains were by and large amused, or at least they appeared to accept the proceedings in good spirit. The El train driver tooted and waved at form an overpass. The wild party-goers in the Humvee stretch limo (?!?!) waved at us. We witnessed a couple of potential confrontations, but they didn't amount to anything more than an exchange of words. After all, how angry can you be, when someone wishes you a "Happy Friday!", and goes on his merry way?
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