Organized Charity Bike Rides

This will probably be a bit of rambling here, but I am rethinking my perception of organized/charity bike rides after participating on one this weekend. I rode in the Fallbrook Avenue of the Oaks Metric Century charity ride Saturday. As for the ride itself, it was challenging. There were many, many hills. In a way, I was glad it was over. I have ridden a few organized rides over the last few years, but this was my first in over a year. In that time, I think my attitude towards rides like this has changed somewhat. I used to get psyched up for these types of rides. Although they are not races, it was still fun to see how many riders you could pass, see how quickly you could finish. This time, I did not really care about who I passed. I passed several, and several passed me, too. I was not concerned about how quickly I could finish. I was also more aware of the types of riders among the group. Most seemed to be men ranging from their late 20's to mid 50's or so, most had nice, fairly new, sleek, expensive road bikes. I might be wrong, but I would guess that most of these men (and a few ladies) only ride in group rides or training rides. They probably do not do much, if any, cycling with a destination as a purpose (such as commuting or shopping), or just simply cruising around by bike for fun. I guess I might classify them as "wanna be racers". I'm not really knocking that, it can be a lot of fun. For many people, organized rides are the closest they will get to riding a race, kinda like riding in the Tour de France if you will. There is a certain thrill in that. I guess where I am coming from is that my take on riding has morphed from riding for the thrill of riding in a big loop as fast as you can to riding with a purpose (as in a destination), or just to get out and cruise around a bit, preferably with the family when possible. I do still like to get out by myself on long training rides when I can, since those types of rides do help build endurance and give me a chance to unwind in a way. However, I try to makes these rides not an act of punishment, but as a way to see some of the local sites in a way that you cannot by any other method. Bikes do not only need to be recreational, they can be everyday transportation vehicles as well. If every one of the riders in this last organized ride were to commute by bike or run errands once in a while by bike, wow what a difference that would make. There is definitely not a lack of cyclists in this country, it is just their purpose for cycling that, if modified to include practical uses, could really make a huge difference in the world.

Biofuels are NOT the answer.

The full Time/CNN story here:
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1725975,00.html
March 27, 2008
-by Michael Grunwald

A few quotes from the article:

..."several new studies show the biofuel boom is doing exactly the opposite of what its proponents intended: it's dramatically accelerating global warming, imperiling the planet in the name of saving it. Corn ethanol, always environmentally suspect, turns out to be environmentally disastrous. Even cellulosic ethanol made from switchgrass, which has been promoted by eco-activists and eco-investors as well as by President Bush as the fuel of the future, looks less green than oil-derived gasoline."

"Meanwhile, by diverting grain and oilseed crops from dinner plates to fuel tanks, biofuels are jacking up world food prices and endangering the hungry. The grain it takes to fill an SUV tank with ethanol could feed a person for a year."

..."using land to grow fuel leads to the destruction of forests, wetlands and grasslands that store enormous amounts of carbon."

"The environmental cost of this cropland creep is now becoming apparent. One groundbreaking new study in Science concluded that when this deforestation effect is taken into account, corn ethanol and soy biodiesel produce about twice the emissions of gasoline."

"People don't want to believe renewable fuels could be bad," says the lead author, Tim Searchinger, a Princeton scholar and former Environmental Defense attorney. "But when you realize we're tearing down rain forests that store loads of carbon to grow crops that store much less carbon, it becomes obvious."

"Why is so much money still being poured into such a misguided enterprise? Like the scientists and environmentalists, many politicians genuinely believe biofuels can help decrease global warming. It makes intuitive sense: cars emit carbon no matter what fuel they burn, but the process of growing plants for fuel sucks some of that carbon out of the atmosphere."

"There was just one flaw in the calculation: the studies all credited fuel crops for sequestering carbon, but no one checked whether the crops would ultimately replace vegetation and soils that sucked up even more carbon. It was as if the science world assumed biofuels would be grown in parking lots. The deforestation of Indonesia has shown that's not the case. It turns out that the carbon lost when wilderness is razed overwhelms the gains from cleaner-burning fuels."

..."the market drives behavior, so without incentives to prevent deforestation, the Amazon is doomed. It's unfair to ask developing countries not to develop natural areas without compensation."

My guess is that there will not be a magic solution to the eventual decline of oil production to allow us to continue consuming the extraordinary amounts of energy that we have become accustomed to. There is always going to be an ugly side-effect of any energy source that allows us to do the amount of work that we are able to with cheap oil.

As far as I am concerned, biofuel should be the burrito that you eat after your bike ride.