Super Eco

Photo credit: kamshots, flickr

In an ideal world, we'd all live near enough to work and shopping that two wheels and two feet would get us just about anywhere where we need to go. Alas, even the well-intentioned among us who are lucky enough to find themselves in those circumstances find themselves locked into old habits. Hopping into the car for a quick trip to the corner 7-11 (for a stainless steel Transformer straw, maybe?) is the American way.

Across the pond, Britains' Skyride media campaign is seizing that attitude by the handlebars. Skyride's ambitious a five-year mission aims to get 1 million more Britons pedaling regularly during the next five years. Supermodel and London resident Elle McPherson is lending her face to the campaign, saying, "There’s going to be this huge community, this surge of people riding their bikes and hopefully rediscovering a very simple pleasure. You don’t have to be an Olympic champion to cycle.”

Once Elle's got you sold on the idea, what are you going to pedal? How about "the greenest bike ever made"? The biodegradable, bamboo Calfee is brought to you by another familiar face, actor Colin Firth and his store Eco. The bamboo bike is appropriate for everyday use or racing, with the frame's vibration-dampening qualities being a real blessing on longer rides. Bamboo tubes are selected for the weight of the rider, then smoked and heat treated to prevent splitting. Lugs are made of hemp fiber. The bike's shipped, not flown, between manufacturing points. Yeah, this bamboo bike's the real deal.

But it doesn't get any more real than this: The Bamboo Bike Project by scientists and engineers at The Earth Institute at Columbia University is putting bamboo bikes on the roads in Africa as a sustainable form of transportation. The project is now lining up manufacturer training and supply chains. How's that for putting it all back into perspective? Time to tune up and pedal out!