Cecil:Nowtopia: How Pirate Programmers, Outlaw Bicyclists, and Vacant-Lot Gardeners are Inventing the Future Today!
by Chris Carlsson (one of the original instigators of Critical Mass)

Sarah Goodyear wrote: It's a freewheeling and fun tour of the surprisingly powerful effect bicycles had on a women's position in society in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Take a look at a few of the images from the book.

markphilips:Linus shares his wisdom

wpstoll:That's a good one. I photocopied several route slips from the book and brought them along on my tours of the West Coast. Suggested routes keep tourists on the low road instead of sending them over awful climbs like the Adventure Cycling maps often do.

The average English cyclist, I discovered, is scrupulously observant of the law. One night I was riding home through the blackout in Oxford when a fellow cyclist, coming from the opposite direction, stopped to inform me that my light was not sufficiently screened. The card behind the glass was an inch too short. Another time, near Derby, I was reminded by a passing cyclist that the white stripe on my back fender was not of the required length. It should be six inches, not five. Still another time, on a deserted road near Birmingham, I overtook a cyclist on the wrong side. The aggrieved party caught up with me, put his hand on my shoulder, and proceeded to give me a lecture. All this in dead seriousness.

CAR - FREE IN LOS ANGELES,CA

I live in Los Angeles, CA where I'm director of online sales for a small company. I've been completely car-free for five years. I made the choice foremost because owning a car is increasingly costly and frustrating -- traffic congestion, taxes and fees, smog, parking. Plus, time spent in cars is of very low quality -- because of social isolation separation from the environment, and the low sensual quality of most road and highway infrastructure.

In stark contrast to that, living car-free is liberating, exhilarating, helps you meet more people, and creates a greater social interaction. Life without a car is more varied, rich, and intense. And you have more sensory, intellectual, and social, stimulation. You also stay thinner, look better, have a lower heart rate and higher endurance. I also eat better, fresher food because I shop at local farmers' market. I find I can get 95 percent of everything I need within a short bicycle ride. If I wanted to, I could rent a car every weekend and still come out way ahead.
I
have all the friends I did when I had a car, and new ones too. But unlike my friends who drive, I go to more places and do more stuff than anyone else I know because I never worry about parking problems.

Advice: just commit yourself to it and it becomes easy.
--Richard Risemberg, 52, director of online sales

With good weather, it is the best ride in the world. From San Diego to Palomar Mountain is 60 miles with a 6000-foot climb. The scenery is typical southern California: orange groves at the lower altitudes, pine forest at the higher. At the top of the mountain, Mother Bailey's makes a fine overnight. All the makings of a nifty weekend. We started on a beautiful morning in the spring of 1948.

Of the five of us, Joe was the oldest and the most remarkable. Already in his fifties, he was a physical marvel with legs of steel and the lungs of a distance runner. Joe learned to ride a bike at the turn of the century. Perhaps that is why his favorite machine was so odd. It had wooden rims, an ultra-short wheelbase, and a fixed gear of 84 inches. Nobody but Joe could ride it. But Joe always looked very comfortable on it.

In spite of its unconventional design, Joe's bike was capable of astounding feats. I remember riding with him on a day when the sun broke through and made us go into a sweat. Joe announced that he was going to take his shirt off. I prepared to stop. Not Joe. Without slackening speed or swerving an inch, he let go of the handlebar, raised his arm over his head, pulled off his shirt, folded it, and tucked it under his saddle. Before I could recover from my amazement, he reached into a back pocket, pulled out a pipe, cleaned it, filled it, and lighted it. And me, huffing and puffing.

Grades did not faze Joe, even on his 84-inch gear. "Funny how you can take the sting out of a climb by thinking of something totally different," he once said to me. "When I was a young fellow, I always used to look at the top of the rise and ask myself how long it would take to get there. But now I look at my front wheel and start on a mathematical problem. The longer the grade, the more complicated the problem. I have solved some toughies that way."

"Don't you ever run out of problems?"

"Why, no. Of course, it isn't always a mathematical problem. It could be some other kind of problem. Like a problem at home. Sometimes I struggle for days trying to figure things out, and the answer comes to me in a flash while I am riding my bike."

In his attitudes to bikes, Joe was a purist. Derailleurs he regarded with suspicion. Not that he ever said an unkind word about them. But you could tell that he disapproved. Derailleurs were for fuddyduddies. At that time I had an old Cyclo, and it made quite a noise. Joe could imitate this noise to perfection. "Rrrrrrr - shift" Joe was always one second ahead of me. Everybody would start laughing.