Making bikes more green?

[Viper]

“Water, greenery, and a beautiful face.” Three important things according to Muhammad. An entire religion now admires the color, the Libyan flag is one solid color, green.

I'm going to try Phil Wood Bio-Lube in 2009 to work with Pedro's Bio Cleaner. I don't use carbon fiber parts (which don't seem very green). I may get a leather saddle (although vegetarians prefer faux leather) my tires will be Veloflex (supporting Italy is always green) and of course my eyes. :)

What are some things we can do to make bicycles more green?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green

Phil BIO-LUBE contains no petroleum or synthetics. It is a completely biodegradable and was expressly created to protect the environment. It offers a high level of lubrication. Phil BIO-LUBE is a thoroughly tested blend of various extracts that are either derived from naturally occurring or recycled plant sources. The lube penetrates and lubricates contacting metal surfaces, while providing a protective film against corrosion. It repels moisture, while dispersing the contaminants in the lubricated area.

[keevon]

What are some things we can do to make bicycles more green?
Walk?

[markie]

http://www.ernestolube.com/

I like it!

[Bill Bove]

Krylon



You'd be very surprised at how ungreen the bicycle industry is. Every bike is trucked to the shop in it's own individual cardboard box, inside the each bike is wrapped in cardboard and plastic. Each bike onthe showroom floor represents a small mountain of cardboard. I try to recycle as much of it as possible. The city charges me to recycle it so I'm always looking for someone to load it up into the back of their truck and bring it to my house where the city doesn't charge me to recycle. Maybe Ishould offer a discount on new bikes if the new owner disposes of all the waste his new bike has generated.

[Ti Designs]

This is kinda like eating a whole Uno's deep dish pizza (check the calorie count on one of those babies!) and chasing it with a pint of Ben & Jerry's, but it's all OK 'cause you're having a diet Coke with that. If you don't expect your bike to look like the creature from the black lagoon, that bottle of Phil Bio lube is going to last half a decade. So, the real difference between that and the old green goo isn't going to make the 11:00 news. By comparison, every car on the road is disposing of 4 quarts of dirty oil and a filter every 5,000 miles and more than just a few are disposing of much of that oil along the way. You would be being more green by offering to torque down the oil pan bolts of the people on your street.

I don't get this idea of ignoring the big problems and focusing on the small ones. If everyone who needed to get short distances by themselves without anything large to transport rode a bicycle, things would get much better. That's not going to happen 'cause people don't want to change. The sale of SUVs went up as the price of gas came down - yeh, that's going to last forever... They're calling for cars that get 50 MPG by 2012. That's great if they can do it, but pointless if those don't sell or nobody drives them. So, lets take one thing that would decrease health care spending, decrease fuel consumption and greenhouse gasses, and ask how we can make it greener.

Wear green tinted glasses...

[Viper]

I don't get this idea of ignoring the big problems and focusing on the small ones.

I do.

"How many people does it take to make a group, an organization?" asked Professor Hoff way back, in the first minute of the first day of Communications class. "If you answer the question and get it right, you get an A for the semester, regardless of what you do, if you're wrong, you get a C no matter what you do. Anyone willing to answer the question?" he concluded.

The question is, bikes, nouns, how can we make them more green? :confused: Already we have a suggestion to use Ernesto Oil, 100% bio and the company is pushing the consumer to re-use the same empty bottle (send it back to Ernesto and they will re-fill it). Wow. That's something there. A start and you can't begin what you don't start.

Another gentleman points out the massive waste in cardboard within the entire industry. Would you like to take the point on this, tackle the issue within the industry? Who can? Who will?

It's responbsible, accountable and simply smart to pose the question, "How can bikes be more green?" We have a few ideas in here already, add to them with sugar, not salt. Another person might write in saying, "Wear more wool clothing on the bike, it's very green." And that person would sound like they ate their smart-bagel this morning.

I'm not here to tackle the auto industry, the thread and question pertains to bikes. And sitting there saying, "Welp it's cars, they're evil, all of em', so why should I do anything to my little ol' bike" is the precise and exact sentiment which the auto industry looks at the coal industry and the coal industry yaps about nuclear and and and. It comes down to one's own lap. Big things start with small ideas and nothing good comes from pundits and naysayers offering salt.

"That bottle of Phil Bio lube is going to last half a decade" you said and yes, that's the point. My 2003 E39 and the fact you can eat waffles off it's exhaust manifold isn't going to make my bike more green.

I raised my hand in class that day, Professor Hoff asked me into the hallway. "You're sure about this?" he asked.

"The answer is one. It takes one person to make a group, a company, an organization. One" I replied. We both smiled and walked inside. I didn't hand him salt, I handed him the answer.

The guy riding around wearing plastic-related skinsuits, synthetic lube, carbon fiber frame, parts made of plastic, can he/she/they improve? And if so Ti, how? If this was lawnmowerforum.com, I'd ask the question about mowers.

[rphetteplace]

your powdercoated bike is much more green than wet paint fyi

[Viper]

your powdercoated bike is much more green than wet paint fyi

Thank you!!! You ate a smart-poppy bagel, toasted with cream cheese and sliced tomato this am, didn't you. :beer:


"In this context, powder coating allows us to apply coatings that are in general very similar to paint but without the need for any solvents. These solvents (depending on which ones are used) can be bad for health, can cause smog, and a few of them can (in the opinion of many) harm the ozone layer. Powder coating is an increasingly popular finish and one of the major reasons is that, because it is free of solvents, it is very good for the environment indeed. But it requires heating the powder to melt it and allow it to flow together, and that requires energy, most of which comes from burning fossil fuels."

http://www.finishing.com/423/72.shtml

[cpg]

I don't know if I'd argue powder is MUCH more green than wet paint. Perhaps a little but the plastics used in powder coating are hardly green. Wet paint most notably solvent based paints are going to be replaced with water based paints in the future. These water based paints are truly much more green than powder. The only stumbling block to water based paints is the lack of water based clear coats. So even the manufacturers currently using water based paints still have to use solvent based clears. I'm not trying to start a wet paint vs. powder coat debate. I just think the "green" attribute of powder is exaggerated by many people.

[Ti Designs]

I'm not here to tackle the auto industry, the thread and question pertains to bikes. And sitting there saying, "Welp it's cars, they're evil, all of em', so why should I do anything to my little ol' bike" is the precise and exact sentiment which the auto industry looks at the coal industry and the coal industry yaps about nuclear and and and.


If you're trapped in an air-tight container with limited oxygen, there's just two of you and you know that nobody is getting you out of there for a while, and the other guy is running around in circles and doing jumping jacks, what do you do. You could sit there quietly, trying to lower your heart rate and your use of air, or you can stop the other idiot from using so much - which solution works best?

It comes down to a math problem. It's the green factor X the percentage of the whole. You can make your bike's green twice what it is, but the percentage of the whole is still nothing.

But just to go with this "green" bike thing (my road bike is silver, my fixed gear is brown, my tandem is red and my mountain bike is black), I would be willing to bet that the least green part of any bike is in making the bike and the components. This is my third year on my Serotta. I'm still on 9-speed which is a 6 year old kit. I change my chain more often than most, but I clean the old chains and use them to support materials in my machine shop. I keep bikes until they just don't work any more, then I get another season or two. The sheer number of miles combined with my low standards for equipment (by Serotta forum standards), make mine one of the greenest vehicles on the road.

My car is a 1988 Honda CRX Si which while getting over 30 MPG is not the most green thing out there (it's yellow). It leaks oil, just replacing the tires last year created more waste than my bike could in 20 years. I still find myself doing short trips in it when I could take the bike instead. It's really hard to have that thing parked out front and ask how I can make my bike greener...

[Smiley]

Ride a Brooks saddle and keep those cheap plastic ones out of the land fills.

[Viper]

If you're trapped in an air-tight container with limited oxygen, there's just two of you and you know that nobody is getting you out of there for a while, and the other guy is running around in circles and doing jumping jacks, what do you do. You could sit there quietly, trying to lower your heart rate and your use of air, or you can stop the other idiot from using so much - which solution works best?

Both. A left hand to the base of their medulla, lights out. Then I sit and focus on lowering my pulse. But this is part of Jedi Knight training, not germane to green bikes.

It comes down to a math problem. It's the green factor X the percentage of the whole. You can make your bike's green twice what it is, but the percentage of the whole is still nothing.

Anything more than zero is larger than nothing. It's logical and logic is The Law. Should your same theory pertain to fitness? Your clients, they can't cut their time trial race-time in half, therefore they shouldn't train at all. :rolleyes: If ALL cyclists in America switched to Bio-Lube and Bio-Cleaners wouldn't that be something? And it starts with one. One is the loneliest number, said Three Dog Night. If the cycling industry switched to recycled cardboard only, wouldn't that be something? If one of your fat, chubby clients learns how to pedal a stationary bike for 15 minutes, isn't that something? Heck, why cross the Atlantic or go to the moon, it could be nothing out there. Why should any one person change the lightbulbs in their home to more efficient ones?

But just to go with this "green" bike thing (my road bike is silver, my fixed gear is brown, my tandem is red and my mountain bike is black), I would be willing to bet that the least green part of any bike is in making the bike and the components. This is my third year on my Serotta. I'm still on 9-speed which is a 6 year old kit.

I change my chain more often than most, but I clean the old chains and use them to support materials in my machine shop.

How pertinent and appropriate. Recycling chains. Sounds green!

I keep bikes until they just don't work any more, then I get another season or two. The sheer number of miles combined with my low standards for equipment (by Serotta forum standards), make mine one of the greenest vehicles on the road.

My car is a 1988 Honda CRX Si which while getting over 30 MPG is not the most green thing out there (it's yellow). It leaks oil, just replacing the tires last year created more waste than my bike could in 20 years. I still find myself doing short trips in it when I could take the bike instead. It's really hard to have that thing parked out front and ask how I can make my bike greener...

Go green!

[fiamme red]

Green Hummer Project (http://greenhummerproject.org/)

[Viper]

Green Hummer Project (http://greenhummerproject.org/)

Green is going to win. Humans are slow to change, we resist it and there's lots of naysayers. Skeletor lost, Kahn lost, Vader lost, JAWS lost, I think Boba Fett is still alive, but even Scrooge lost (but he really won).