The Bike Ferry and Bike Camping

This past weekend Clint and I took our baby to Salt Spring Island to partake in a bicycle festival called Velo-Village. Part of the celebration was a BIKE ONLY FERRY!

It never occurred to me before how much room all the cars take up on the ferries, that extra space got used as a dance floor on the Bike Ferry!

 A nice crowd of 400 cyclists, not taking up too much space on an epic boat ride!

 We go to see many cool bikes, including this Bullit Cargo bike, it has a battery which makes it really heavy, but it can also help motor you up the hills. Fun, I like that it is all white too. I guess the owner (who lives in Victoria) always gets mistaken as an ice cream vendor. Hee hee, the could be worse things.

This was the bike parking lot in down town Ganges, all of those 400 cyclists rode a long ride from Fulford Bay to Ganges city. It involved slowly climbing a mountain, and then riding down into town. Challenging but a lot of fun.

Ganges and the Fulford Ganges Road was decorated in bikes. This Tandem on display at one of the bigger intersections caught our eye.

 This was the decor-bike outside of a cool gift shop. I love the plush red wheels.

 The Fire hall

 My two year olds favourite, outside of an Art Gallery!

And my favourite, a bubble-wrapped bike, decorating a soap store.

 The camping was nice. The hardest part being riding there, which was actually tons of fun. We have a 3 person tent that only weighs 4lbs, here I am using the bikes to tie down the fly so I wouldn't have to hammer in too many pegs.

 This is a picture of all our gear packed up and ready to go home. I think its funny to compare how messy the homeward bound bike looks like to the neat and compact out ward bound bike in the picture below.

You can actually see the kid in this photo.

Altogether a really nice time. We are so please with our Cetma cargo bike. We have a margo. Keep an eye out for the very friendly review we will be writing for the builder soon. I will post it here too.

Take care and Ride on!

Maybe We Should Let The Computer Drive...

It's come to my mind lately that we, as a species, are too immature to handle the power of the automobile.

Maybe its a little extreme, but hang in there with me.

We speed, and talk on cellphones while controlling them, never fully understanding the potential consequences those actions can have on ourselves, or on others.

We imagine them to be an extension of our bodies, and a symbol to our fellow humans of how wealthy and powerful we are, while ignoring the obvious fact that using them too much is neglecting our bodies and keeping us apart and partitioned from the humans we pass by, sometimes everyday.

We justify wars to keep their fuel supply affordable and teach our children of the mortal danger they face every time they cross the road. And we accept without a second thought how much of our urban environment is built just for cars.

Worst still, we buy into the dream advertisers weave that a car equals freedom, while we waste our precious and limited time in this life, stuck in traffic.

Maturity comes with realizing the consequences of the actions we choose. From there we can move on to finding balance, not needing to fully reject a good tool, as we can learn to use it appropriately.

Let's grow up already.