Dreaming on 2 wheels

Prague

2009-09-23T06:57:00.000-07:00

Most of my notes on Jess and my cycling through Germany and the Czech republic are in my first notebook so I'm going to write about Prague here, the final destinatino for our pedal powered progression through the former GDR.

Prague is a city that hums with change and the laid back progress of its inhabitants.

Pragues history, told through exhibitions, brochures and information plaques scattered throughout its precincts tells a story of ongoing almost-greatness. It feels now, still stuck in the post communist hangover, that its potential and international recognition are just moments away.

It presents itself as a mix of other cities with an overtone of Czechishness. The long boulevards framed by elegant , multistorey, three hundred year old apartment buildings gives prague a suggestion of comfortable parisian elegance. The recent architecturally forwardadditions smack of Berlin's bold approach to the future. The quiet, twisting, cobblestoned streets could lead you to either a boulangerie or a bierhall.

There also seems to be an acceptance and absorption into the tapestry of the city of its communist 'episode'. From a distance the smoggy haze over prague convinces the eye that the tall, angular, ridgetop apartment blocks are the ramparts of an acient fortress.

Prague's two main castles, Vysehrad and the city's namesake castle, are themselves a tribute to Prague's almost success. For hundred of years a tension the tension between rival merchant familes and rival wanna-be royals divided the valley. This fighting across the river has ensured that modern Prague seems quite inward looking and may be why it has kept such a low international profile for so long.

The Czech people are so laid back though that it seems that they feel no pressure to conform ro outside standards. While Americans and Australians order soft drinks or coffee as a morning quencher, the Czech's order a Staropramen and sip quietly on a 10:30am brew. Where in western european capitals road works make headlines and cause horn and shouting delirium, in prague work proceeds without note and drivers patiently queue across intersections. This relaxed attitude seems to have moulded, or it is moulding, the city.

Historic squares may have a Baroque cathedral on one side and a flashy shopping mall on the other. Luois Vitton stores are packed full of eager shoppers where outside, horses poo on the street while waiting to pull their tourist laden carriages.

Like hors deurves for your eyes the different facets of Prague are laid out before you as you sip a beer at the lookout bar on Letna Gardens. Spires and domes dominate the skyline in the city valley; high rise offices provide an angular frame. The smog, resting heavily between the wooded valley sides, hides distant Prague while the immediate view reflect the real Prague - Pragie at street level. Hordes of tourists surge ofver Charles Bridge. Scaffolding seemsto be a feature of every second city block and imposing, rectangular buildings built in the days of communism are now luxury hotels.

The laid back friendliness of the people means that negotiating this initially haphazard and dauntingly confusing city becomes a series of pidgeon Czech-English encounters. This alone could get you safely to the end of sightseeing or even grocery shopping day satisfied with your own blossoming cultural enlightenmentand with a sense of hope for the future of the city.

I have to agree with what a Dutch woman in a German campground told me before my visit to Prague. At the time it seemed vague but in retrospect it is spot on... Prague is like Paris but more authentic. The surreal and fantastical parts of the city are balanced by the real people living there and the obvious transition the city is going through. It is an exciting city to visit, not just for what it is now or what it has been but what you come away feeling that it will be in the near future - a city humming on the world stage.

wrapping up france

2009-07-18T09:22:00.000-07:00

Ive now cycled from Lourdes in the pyrenees to Rouen in the north of France. Have gone through mountain valleys, sand dune forests, Loire chateau landscapes and rolling brittanian farmland. I am now sitting in a friends house in paris after having a day of louvre'ing.

on the whole i would class the french as weird and starey. a large number of people are super friendly when they see that you are a cyclist but ignore you if you are a pedestrian and they are drivers. If you stop for too long in the one place you are guranteed to have an audience of one person with a friend nearby who they can holler for to stare at you also. public urinating seems to be acceptable and even if a town has no other shops it will almost always have a florist.

The bread, cheese and cider are top class and suprisingly the stone fruit is equal to if not superior to our aussie home grown stuff. the weather has varied to dry and 35 degrees to rainy and 15 and pretty much everything in between - sometimes in the one day.

If I had to recommend one location for a visit I would say le mont saint michel as you get french friendliness and arrogance as well as history and landscape with the opportunity for some proper french food along the way. the only downside is that it sounds like you are in america.

If I was going to come back for more of 'the best of france' for a few days I would defintely bring my bike again and either go along the loire river between tours and nantes or through the pyrenees. both have great chateaus and views; both have great, small tres francais villages and both have fantastic places to get 'fully' french food. the people are much more friendly in rural areas also.

right now i'm looking forward to chillin' in paris for a week and gettin' some culture 'n' that. on the 27th jess and i jump on a train to berlin and begin our german adventure, cycling from berlin to prague.

I will try to get some photos from my camera on to this blog during the next week.

Cud from my Franfurt Experience

2009-05-11T12:48:00.000-07:00

Frankfurt apperas to be a city of contrasts.

The clean trains deliver you to your destination precisely when they promised they would. Once in the station, directional signs and any form of assistance are merely wished for luxuries. Clinically clean trams drop you at the most choice of squalid locations around the city.

The city's sense of history seems to have been decimated along with its more beautiful buildings during the second world war. The small remaining patches of centuries old buildings are dwarfed by the neighbouring glass homages to the fiscal obsession Franfurt is now most famous for.

The river boats seem to want to prove how different they are to other working boats - pushing upstream on the River Main accompanied by huge bow waves with the snowmelt rushing past.

Frankfurt is renowned worldwide as a great city for cycling and the local councils appear to promote this healthy activity by providing many cycleways and secure lock up areas on almost every second intersection. But walk into a supermarket and you will be overwhelmed by the choice of processed, fried and packaged meats as well as mountains of various cheeses. The city inhabitants are not as healthy as they appear to be.

The people of franfurt leave you guessing about who the main inhabitants are. Dealers flog off their gear amid crowds of commuters during the peak hour exodus from the main train station. twenty minutes by train from the city the nouveau riche are surrounded by flok who look like they inherited the family hostel from their grandparents some time during the last depression.

Perhaps the greatest contrast is between the city centre, Europe's only skyscraper skyline, and the fringes of the satellite suburbs. The one thing nobody seems to mention about frankfurt is that there are semi-slums. Small patches of grass or vegetables with a little shack squeezed in. There are acres and acres of these wherever there is countryside. Europe's financial capital is also home to some of Europe's poorest residents.

Some bicycles from around the world

2009-04-20T08:21:00.000-07:00

The Beijing tradie's choice of transport:

A Frankfurt postie's delivery van:

A very British bicycle:

Beijing through the wall

2009-03-28T10:34:00.000-07:00

My overall feeling about Beijing is that it is a sad city. It has small pockets of beautiful hope but all you need to do is peak through a doorway for sadness to return.

Despite efforts to make it glisten, Beijing remains grey. Splashes of red and gold line most entranceways, even in the most squalid of conditions. While walking on the road that leads to the Pearl Markets and the Temple of Heaven, Future-Mrs Dreaming on 2 Wheels and I followed a plain but servicable wall. Glancing through a gate in the wall we spied an old lady sitting on her own in a wheelchair. That alone was not surprising, we had seen this before and were sure her family was just inside the nearby house. What shocked us was the state of her home and those surrounding it.

Small brick huts jammed together is the most plain way to describe them. Painted a uniform grey, they trailed off for as far as we could see into the dense smog we we tasting. Bricks lay in pilesbeside crumbling walls and the roofs were a hodge podge of whatever material lay at hand when the orginal red clay tiles either broke or were stolen. Some creative soul had borrowed some of the bricks from his neighbour's wall to hold down his canvas roof. Almost all the houses had glass windows but all were some smothered with fallout from the suffocating pollution that not a face was to be seen despite noises indicating occupants.

Separating these hovels was a street lined with gravel, cardboard, rubber and an assortment of other bits and pieces to supress the dust.

And that is where the old lady sat. In her soot covered clothes, in a browning wheelchair, on a folded cardboard box outside the tiny hut that may or may not have held her family. It looked for all the world like she had been there all her life. That image, of the old lady in squalor, framed by the shiny new wall summed up for me what Beijing is. A beautiful but uncared for city, hidden by a shiny new exterior.

A new idea, a new approach

2009-03-13T05:22:00.000-07:00

I have arrived in Beijing. I was instantly smitten by the chaotic traffic and the huge number of bicyclists. My new travel resolution is now to keep a diary of bicycles from around the world. I may fill my memory stick before I leave Beijing. It is a bicycle varietists paradise.

Once my batteries are charged, this blog will be a running world bicycle journal in addition to being a filling and entirely appropriate addition to any brunch.

A couple of touring pics

2009-01-12T02:48:00.000-08:00

Here are a couple of pictures from my most recent tour. A leisurely 250kms over 4 days but through some nice rural Australian scenery. Trip story to follow.

don't fret

2009-01-07T15:17:00.000-08:00

Just so you don't feel like I have abandoned you, allow me to make excuses for not writing here and rest assured that within the near future there will be at least two more posts on this blog. one about bicycling and one about the permaculture garden. I hope that they will include pictures of a complete garden and a new touring bike. I'll also be using this blog from March 09 until January 10 to give a running commentary on the sights, sounds and bicycle tolerance of Europe and the rest of the world. Stay tuned!

Tips from a first time tourer

2008-11-11T03:38:00.000-08:00

I have been on my first tour - a bit of a shake down for some of my gear and a test of myself to see how I am going to handle touring for weeks on end. It went well. I had a ball, gained confidence in my own ability and am keen to go again. Here are some reflections from my first ever bicycle tour. May it not be the last.

- Pack a week and a half before the trip. Check it 2 days later and do a cull – repeat.
- Do a short trip
- Plan to end at a friends house
- Plan to catch a train home
- Allow yourself to walk up hills
- Aim to go somewhere interesting
- Set yourself some challenges – if you don’t challenge yourself intentionally how will you cope if you have to do it without planning
- Enjoy the downhills ‘cause riding a fully loaded bike up hill is hard.
- Alternate – shoot straight downhill sometimes, stop and savour the victory at others.
- Make sue you look behind every now and again – great views of where you have come from.
- Pack your food for each day separately – you don’t want to have to think about food at the end of the day.
- Take a variety of snacks – I wasn’t able eat dried fruit for a couple of months after my trip.
- Be flexible with your plans – aim to be somewhere but accept that it may not work out and that you might have to find somewhere else to stay. .
- Talk to strangers – we avoided a road to nowhere by chatting with Cheryl and Jim at the Tallong café. Very friendly people who restored my faith in humanity.
- Accept that people are going to want to chat with you and that every middle aged man apparently knows someone who did a trip that was the same if not better than the one you are on.
- Pack enough food for each day as an emergency but aim to go through towns where you can get fresh groceries and perishables every day

I will be posting a short article about the trip with some photos on this blog soon.

values, work and fun

2008-11-04T15:07:00.000-08:00

Please allow a momentary digression from the main themes of this blog. I promise it will be back on track by the end of this post.

I have recently been toying with the question ‘At what point should having fun, getting satisfaction and going to work meet’? They certainly don’t at the moment and I wonder if they ever do for the majority of the population. If they don’t I will happily strive to be in the minority for the rest of my working days.

I am going to assume for a moment that everyone enjoys various things in their life to varying degrees. Everyone has a select few things they enjoy doing when they are not working.

Also, everyone has a set of values that determines what they believe is worthwhile and beneficial to themselves or others.

How then do you combine what you enjoy doing and what your values instruct you to do at work? My current theory is that you need to have a job that satisfies your values while letting you do your second most favourite thing.

MY reason – if you do something for work that gives you satisfaction you are more likely to want to get up and do it every day. Plus, by doing your second most favourite thing, you are still able to do your single most favourite thing in your own time and never feel pressured to do it, thus reducing the likelihood of it becoming one of your least favourite things.

So, bringing this post back on track with this blog, in my situation I think I am going to keep working in the field of the environment, but move from working in a beaurucratic, office based system to searching for opportunities and training myself up to be a permaculturalist – designing, building and enjoying permaculture landscapes. It matches beautifully with my value system and lets me do my second favourite thing – working outdoors. Despite serious consideration of getting a job in a bike shop in recent months, I am going to leave the cycling and bike tinkering as a hobby so that it will remain my most favourite thing to do when I have ‘free-time’.

The first stones have been laid

2008-09-11T22:27:00.001-07:00

before and.....

after 2 days work

The design drawings, reproduced in all their poor image quality in an earlier post, have begun their transformation into a backyard reality.

Last weekend my Dad, brother and I spent the day digging, paving, wood carting and garden bed marking and ended up with a construction site. The beds are about halfway made.

The paved area was made out of recycled brick. Half of the garden beds were made from recycled timber from the backyard woodpile and the other half from old railway sleepers. the hole for the bathtub pond (2m long, 70cm wide and 50cm deep) is dug ready and waiting (here's a tip - get the best shovel you can afford if you're going to be digging clay).

The soil from the pond hole has gone straight into the garden beds. We'll also be emptying out all the compost from the current bin to get some more growing medium. It's going to take a fair few bales of hay and a few bags of manure to get some good quality, level beds happening though.

The next step is to finish building the raised garden beds. Once this is done we can fill them in and start planting.

The final installment will be the small pergola over the paved area. This will have grape vines growing over it and provide a secluded place to sit a read. It will need some more solid materials than we currently have to hand and will probably be a project that gets completed sometime over summer.

Derailed

2008-08-18T21:18:00.001-07:00

There are days where you become utterly convinced that you are onto a good thing.

Today, sitting on the train platform, after waiting for my train for five minutes, I looked up and noted that the number of minutes before a train was due to arrive hadn't changed in the time that I had been sitting there. The train was late. No reasons, no apologies. Just late.

I am an advocate of public transport, using it whenever I can and generally getting to places in a much less stressed state than had I driven. I like the freedom to read or admire the view without the stress of having to deal with commuting drivers in my own motorised bubble. It also makes for an occasional nice change to the bike as I feel like I am indulging myself in warmth and the luxury of having a two person seat all to myself. However, having made the decision today to catch the train based on the lateness of my waking rather than to cycle as planned, I was dissapointed in the good folks at Cityrail for getting me to work later than if I had ridden.

It is the first time a train has been late since I have been riding this route but that is enough to re-convince me of the merits of two wheeled, self directed, human powered transport.

I'll be back on the bike tomorrow.

A place to start from

2008-08-06T17:40:00.000-07:00

Here is my first permaculture design. I drew it by hand so the images are (very poor) photos.

Post Permaculture course review

2008-08-04T16:16:00.000-07:00

My first ever permaculture design is complete. It isn’t digitalized yet but should be blog-ready in the next couple of days and will be posted post-haste. So, now for a post “Introduction to Permaculture” course review.

Lets start with the facts. 9 weeks, 4 hours class time a week and probably the same amount of time reading and designing at home. $500 gets you text books, classes and ongoing support from the highly knowledgeable and passionate permaculture teacher, Penny Pyett..

Personally, I can’t think of a better way to spend five hundred bucks. The knowledge I have gained through the course will save me at least that much money in the next 6 months as I set up my parents backyard to produce food. It will also save them money in the future as their grocery bills reduce significantly.

The course was also a great opportunity to meet other people with similar interests and build an informal group of friends with the skills and interest in helping each other to build permaculture gardens. Most people in the group are planning to build a garden in the near future and we will all develop our skills by helping at each others places.

Finally, permaculture is a field in which design, society and environmental considerations are all part of the mix. It is a way in which we can improve our lifestyles and health cheaply while still doing good things for the environment. The most successful permaculture gardens are places that provide food, improve the local environment and become a space for relaxation and social gatherings.

As the cost of living goes up and people become more focussed on living inexpensively, it will be a natural process for them to start looking in their local area for ways to do things better. Permaculture has a huge potential to be the key tool that allows people to do this. The introduction to permaculture course, at a very small cost, gives everyday people the ability to improve their lives dramatically.

So what has been happening on the other topic of this blog – cycling? After extensive e-research I have decided to either buy a Surly Long Haul Trucker in Australia before I go or to get a Thorn Sherpa in the UK. The Thorn would work out to be cheaper as the Surly would need to be packed up and put on the plane and incur excess baggage costs or be posted over separately. Both have fantastic reputations as tough tourers so I will be choosing one or the other in the next month or so. I will review them both with info from the web on this blog soon.

Pushing the pedal and pencil

2008-07-15T21:06:00.000-07:00

As "le Tour" rolls through the countryside of France, I sit at my desk through draft and redraft of my first permaculture design.

It is due in four days. The contour map is complete, an ideal situation has been drawn but now I am down to the detail. The garden beds need to be just right - do they catch the sun, do they run on countour and will their layout encourage people with little inclination for maintenance to spend time wandering between them? I believe I have overcome these questions but now the really hard work begins - what species to plant?

The theory says the site should tell you what to plant. Practice agrees... to an extent. To know what the site is saying you have to know what species like what conditions and at what time of the year they grow. Time and again I have written, erased and rewritten a plant name down. My pile of resource books is growing and slowly, draft by draft, the species are being decided.

Will I have it done by Saturday so that I can pass my course? I hope so.
Is permaculture a valuable tool for living sustainably? Without a doubt.

Will this knowledge help me as I roll through the French countryside talking with permaculturalists next year? Definitely.

P.S. I will post photos of my design here next week once it is complete.

Inspiration

2008-07-03T05:33:00.000-07:00

Watch it for the race, watch it for the excitement. Most of all dear reader, watch it for the magnificent, phenonemal, helicoptered televisual experience of the French countryside. Insipration for becoming a Velo Touriste doesn't come in any more powerful form than a shot of a chalet with a pyreneean backdrop in sweet, sweet HD.

If for some arcane reason (and only arcane are acceptable) you have no access to a TV for this most glorious of annual fortnights, at least do yourself the priveledge of perusing the tdf yellow website below.

http://tdf.sbs.com.au/tdf2008/

I have done by best to minimise your regrets. The rest, as they say, is up to you.

An engineered environment

2008-06-30T15:59:00.000-07:00

I was at a party the other day and heard a conversation a group of engineers were having. They were debating the merits of renewable energy in light of the fact that there is no good way to store power once it is generated. They reached agreement on the fact that some renewables require large amounts of energy to run themselves and only a small amount is left over to be fed back into the grid during peak usage times. During off peak times almost all the energy that these plants produce can be fed into the grid but no-one is there to use it and there is no way to store it. All well and good, no arguments here.

After they had reached this revolutionary conclusion, the engineers went right ahead and patted themselves on the back for being so smart. Anecdotes about people they knew who had said something similar were thrown around the room with joyous abandon. The next turn in the conversation was what had me interested.

The solution, as proposed by these engineers was of course to discourage people from turning off lights, making sure things are on standby and generally burning as much energy as possible. I mean c'mon, it makes sense (to an engineer). If we are going to build more renewable energy sources we need more people to drive the market for renewable energy. The best way to do this is to encourage energy use. I had to butt in at this point.

"Surely we could encourage people just as easily to make a few small changes so we don't have to have as many energy generating plants" was my suggestion. "I mean, if people can save money as well as reducing their energy consumption then they can spend more on luxury items while still getting to help the environment in a small way" I continued. The response? A few moments silence while my words sunk in and they realised they had a 'greeny' sitting in their midst. A few people grunted in agreement while looking decidedly non-commital. The most enterprising of the bunch decided it may be a wise time to start a conversation about the fact that the Wallabies beating France in the international rubgy test that had ended a half hour beforehand.

What is the point of me relating this story to you? More than anything it is to share the fact that within the wide group of people working to do good things for the environment there is inconsistency in the messages we are sending out. I

t is great that there are people working in a range of fields to protect the environment but lets talk with each so we get the best results possible!

Himalayan happiness on 2 wheels

2008-06-01T15:01:00.000-07:00

I haven't been on the first trip yet and already I am planning a second.

Bhutan is tempting me. Limited tourist numbers, untouched natural areas and the impression of a contented population in a region with so much turmoil are just a few things that are causing Bhutan to give me itchy feet.

Plus, any country that has Gross National Happiness as their main measure for national success sounds ideal to me. This article has a bit more info http://www.globalideasbank.org/site/bank/idea.php?ideaId=3257

If all this wasn't enough, Bhutan is located in the Eastern Himalayas so there is the promise of spectacular scenery and serious hills.

Get me away from this desk!

Smart People Consumed by Consumption

2008-05-20T15:35:00.000-07:00

I came across a really strong motivator for the trip while watching Foreign Correspondent last night. Jan Wong, a Chinese-Canadian award winning journalist and writer, was interviewed by the host and said "I like going shopping, I like having stuff". She also talked about another woman who has three houses, 2 cars and lots of "stuff" who she was very happy for. Having lived under and been a passionate supporter of Mao Zedong she had lived simply but also seen a lot of oppression. It made me wonder if some people associate sustainability and not having more than you need with hardship and unequal distribution of power in society. If one person who thinks like this at the moment hears about my trip and changes their mind then I will be happy.

The more I learn, the more I think that western society needs to make a move back toward everyone growing at least some proportion of their own food. A bit of time in the garden would reduce stress (http://www.nhs.uk/news/2008/04April/Pages/Physicalactivityreducesstress.aspx), give people the chance to rest their minds from day-to-day worries and reduce their impact on the planet. How people do this in their everyday life in other countries will be one of the things I would like to really learn about during the trip.

Sampling velo decisions

2008-05-07T15:43:00.000-07:00

The last few weeks have been full of temptations. I have managed to convince myself that I need to get a new bike for the trip. I have been reading a lot about touring bikes and sussing out my options.

I was seriously tempted by the Dahon Speed TR (http://www.dahon.com/us/speedtr.htm), a bike made from steel and built for touring that folds up into a suitcase - surely the perfect international tourer. So I found a shop that had one on hand and took it for a short test ride last weekend. The Schwalbe Big Apple tyres felt really solid and gave the bike a sure-footed feel, the seat height seemed almost infinitely adjustable and the racks gave me confidence that it could haul the necessary gear - the only down side... As far as I can tell it wasn't made for people over 6ft. At 6'2" I felt cramped and even with the 5 minute ride I could tell that I would get sore shoulders and tight muscles in the lower back from hunching over. It felt like a BMX with altitude. I was very dissapointed as pre-ride I thought it was the perfect answer to difficulties (cost, assembly, packaging) I am going to encounter when transporting my bike to the start and from the end of the tour.

So with my hopes of flying to france with a folder shattered I sought solace in internet searching for other ways I could do the tour in comfort. Many sites and hours later I stumbled on this site... http://www.flyingfurniture.com.au/trikes.html. Despite the many pages written by people about tours they have done on standard bikes, it seemed that my mind had convinced itself that I should be different. Surely a trike was the was to go. Imagine cruising for miles on a couch with pedals. Nice! Suddenly, unexpectedly, I was sent an email from a friend. "Look at this" it said. Submissively I complied. My compliance was my downfall. It lead me to this site... http://www.vwvagabonds.com/Bike/BikeHome.html. 99 cents was the cry! If a couple could cruise asia for three years as a result of a 99c ebay sale then surely I could tour Europe for two months on the same.

So what was the result of all this e-xploration? I have decided to sell my current touring bike before I go as it has suspension and an aluminium frame. Although perfect for communting the suspension makes hills harder and the aluminium is more difficult to get fixed than steel if it breaks. The fact that it weighs almost 18 kilo's was also a deciding factor as paying to take it one a plane could add significantly to the costs of the tour.

I am going to find a bike in England just before the trip with a traditional steel frame and fixed forks but with flat bars and bar ends or euro style handlebars. This will save me transport costs and allow me to choose from the bigger market that seems to exist in the UK.

I have also listed a rear rack for a bicycle on ebay (http://cgi.ebay.com.au/Trek-bicycle-rear-luggage-rack_W0QQitemZ250245419243QQihZ015QQcategoryZ56189QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem) and it will be followed soon by my Shimano 105 equiped road bike.

Tour courtesy of ebay, here I come.

"There were 10 green months sitting on the wall..."

2008-04-30T15:35:00.000-07:00

I have started making contact with a few people in France and Spain to work out which places I should visit along the way. It sounds like I could see quite a cross section of the different cultures within these countries. From the wealthy and influential folk in the south of France, to the largely industrial towns in Northern Spain. The rural existence in the less travelled regions through to the full on antics of the crowded cities.

It should be a great cultural experience as well as a journey for sustainability education. Hopefully I will be able to capture this through images and words as I go along.

P.S. tell your friends.

2008-04-22T23:54:00.001-07:00

chinese whispers... pass it on

Choose your own adventure!

2008-04-22T23:37:00.000-07:00

As the trip will have a big focus on education and communication I am interested in sharing the stories of the people I meet with a wide audience as well as telling the story of the journey from my perspective.

The way these stories are put together will be targeted at young professionals in England and Australia. The reason for this focus is that this group of people are going to be the decision makers in our community in 10, 20 and 30 years into the future. They are also cashed up right now with no kids or long term debts hanging over their heads. They have the ability to contribute to change in the immediate future and create change over the next 3 or 4 decades. I am also one of them and people relate best to people the same as themselves.

So with that in mind you have a chance to guide this journey! How do you want to hear about what goes on in the world? In what form do you like your stories to come? When you get inspiration what brings it on?

Choose your own future adventure through France and Spain by either voting in the Dreaming on 2 Wheels Poll or make a comment on this post.

Spinning for Sustainability

2008-04-20T16:46:00.000-07:00

One of the main aims of the journey will be to experience how people in other countries are tackling the issues of sustainability and growing organic foods. I’ll be making stops along the way to visit schools, organic farms, community groups, government agencies and people acting to reduce their impact on the environment.

As well as listening to these people and experiencing their approaches, I’ll be sharing stories about what I have learnt from my experience working and studying in the fields of environment, conservation, education and sustainability over the past six years.

Sharing ideas between countries and cultures is one of the best ways we can learn to change so our environment has the best chance of survival.

Depending on the success of the tour through France and Spain, a month long tour of England may follow with the same goals of experiencing the country’s culture, natural environment and sustainability initiatives.

The countdown begins

2008-04-13T19:21:00.000-07:00

It is a little over twelve months until I begin a two month cycle tour of France and Spain.

Maps need to be bought, routes planned, planes flown in and channel's crossed.

The dream of days on end with tyres rolling over the roads in foreign lands that I have only seen in books and on TV is what is driving me. Summery nights in a tent in the Alps, rolling through villages that have existed for hundreds of years, amazing local foods and natural environments completely at odds with what I have grown up with. This list could go on but I am sure you can think of a thousand reasons on your own why this would be a good way to spend two months.