Six hours of riding

Damn I'm tired, busted out six hours on the bike today. I haven't put in that much time in probably a year and half. To make the ride even tougher I spent the whole time on the mountain bike. I figure if the FireCracker 50 is on the mountain bike I'd better get the body use to time on that bike.

I rode most of the time on the road today, but had two major off-road sections, climbing from Morrison to the top of Mt. Falcon (and back down) then a loop of Green Mountain, maybe a total of 2:00 hours off-road. Putting in those kind of miles makes me have some solid confidence for Breckenridge and other upcoming races. While I'm tired after riding I don't feel completely wasted, overall a good sign.

Long Week

It was a long week for me with little time to ride. I went to New York on Tuesday and Wednesday then headed up to Springfield, MA on Thursday for work. Between all the travel, trying to catch up at work and spending time with the family I didn't get a lot of riding in. Oh well, I'm taking tomorrow off and going for a 6 hour ride.

I did get a change to write my April newsletter, for those not on my email list let me know if you'd like me to send one.

Better get to sleep soon if I'm really going to ride that long tomorrow.

BIG TIME

I've hit the big time, made Sly Fox's blog role. As crazy as Cris is he sure gets a lot of hits. I've met Cris many times over the years, and been beaten by him at least once last year at Deer Valley. For all the new Utah readers I'm the slow brother in law of climb um as Cris calls him. Catch me at Deer Valley in June for an in person meeting, until then enjoy.

Education not Legislation

I’m off to New York this morning, flying of course, global warming be damned. Sometimes you need to fly; at least I guess you do, to get from point A to point B. But the time on a plane has some great benefits, like a few hours where communication is completely cut-off and I can work on whatever I want. I’ve been mulling over this entry/writing for a few days and just not had time to write it down, so I’ll take the time on the plane to get it written.

Part of the problem with trying to write is the issue of when do I have time to write? I tend to do most of my thinking while I’m out riding which very much limits my ability to write anything down at the same time. When I’m not out riding I tend to be working, which although in front of a computer hasn’t allowed much free time for composing recently or with Shay and Ade. Time with Shay and Ade may allow a few free moments here and there to write, but not a prolonged period of time to think. Maybe I’ll have to invent some sort of computer interface that will allow me to telepathically transpose my thoughts while riding.

But onwards, as Earth Day this past weekend, teaching Shay’s class about how they can protect the environment and meeting with Diana DeGette’s office the previous week have gotten me thinking about what we need to do to really make changes to the way we live in an effort to protect the environment. When I went to DeGette’s office there was a great deal of talk about legislating and requiring people to use electric cars etc. And while legislation may (and probably will) play a role in protecting the earth it is not what is needed at this time.

Legislation without education will lead to extreme opposition to the efforts being made and will ultimately fail. However, legislation coupled with (or proceeded by) education will lead to real change. When I was in front of a group of five and six year olds talking about recycling and how to help the earth not get sick I really felt that the kids were listening and wanting to help. Since that time, Seamus has been picking up liter on the streets, trying to recycle, and drawing on both sides of paper. Admittedly all small steps, but the little things we can all do to help the environment. In fifteen or twenty years (with continued reinforcement) will Seamus buy into and agree with legislation to protect the environment? Hell yes, not only will he buy into it he will require stringent legislation. He will require companies, the products he buys, to take environmental stewardship seriously.

The only problem with this is Seamus is just one kid, or at a max his class is only 20 kids, and it will take 20 years before they are in a position to effect change and we must act now. So we must accelerate education, not just for children but for adults. When I first started this effort I undertook a huge effort to read and educate myself. In a small way I hope to be teaching people through this effort, though I know my posts are limited at best for education content, but even if I can’t educate hopefully each of you will start thinking about the environment and take the time to educate yourselves. Since I concocted this idea in November I’ve learned what greenhouse gases our, Ade has learned what fossil fuels are, Seamus has learned that he can help make the earth not die. I’ve bought into the information I’ve read, I believe that at least in part humans are causing harm to the environment and that with our own efforts we can help to make changes, educate our friends and most importantly educate our elected officials about the importance of environmental issues so that the legislation they create is supported, strong and most importantly helpful to the environment.
I wish I had more time to help educate, and I will try throughout the course of this season, but each of you must make the effort on your own. I can recommend reading, starting with Al Gore’s An Inconevient Truth (or if you are lazy watch it). Other books include A Field Guide to Catastrophe, Bush Versus the Environment. Web sites from Environmental Defense, League of Conservation Voters, Natural Resource Defense Council, FightGlobalWarming.com, earthjustic.com and the Sierra Club all offer huge amounts of information. Take time to read and review, take time to learn and educate yourself and educate others. Then start making the small steps like Seamus has to protect the environment. Start to ride your bike, use canvas bags for grocery trips, next time a clerk offers you a bag turn it down, use a manual lawn mower, bring your own mug to the coffee shop, pick up the trash on the street, force your schools and offices to implement recycling programs. Finally once you feel comfortable with the changes that need to be made write your elected officials, harass presidential candidates, make environmental issues front and center in politics, but base the issues on facts and legislation on efforts that will work and help. Legislation will play a critical role in the end to protect the environment, but unfounded legislation (legislation that has no broad based support or understanding) will not work. So, what have you done to protect the environment today?

Earth Day

Tomorrow is Earth Day, so what does that mean? Not really sure, seems as if the event was started in 1970 by Senator Gaylord Nelson as a method to shake up the political establishment and make people aware of issues surrounding our environment (http://www.earthday.net/resources/history.aspx). Earlier this week I went to Seamus' school and talked to his class about the environment and what they can do to help protect the earth. His teacher is really into environmental protection and was happy to have a parent come in to build on her lessons related to Earth Day. She even has brought her own recycling bin in to school since the school doesn't "participate" in a recycling program.

I tried to keep my talk interesting and fun. Showing the kids every day things they can do to help, such as recycling, how they can reuse items, and what reducing means. I have to admit I was surprised and happy with how much a group of five and six year olds new. It was also a lot of fun to just be in class with Seamus, maybe just a little way to show him how much we care about school and the environment.

I think my big action for the upcoming week will be harassing Shay's school to get with it and start a recycling program. I know how much paper he goes through coloring, seems a waste to not provide recycling in all the classrooms. The way I see it is start them young and taking care of the environment will be second nature by the time these kids are adults.

Soccer

Seamus finally got in a real soccer game this weekend. It was pretty funny, the kids were pretty interested at the start, but as the game progressed things kind of fell apart. Kids would walk off the field mid-shift, start playing with the net, tackle each other, basically anything but play soccer. It was fun to watch though and Seamus seemed to have some fun.

Here is Seamus and his buddy Ethan mid game. Seamus had to come off the field and put his sweatshirt on under his jersey cause he thought it was cold. Don't know why he thought that, I got a sunburn on my head.

Here's Seamus doing some sort of soccer thing early in the game. Sorry but no pictures of the blue shoes really turned out, I'll need to take a close-up next time.

I put in a 14 hour week of training, which for me is pretty big. I'm trying for another this week, but it may be harder given that a few people are out at work (means more hours for me) and Ade is going out on Thursday. Hopefully if the weather is good I can go big on the weekend again. I rode my favorite ride today, Lookout (twice) and felt pretty good. I decided next time I'll ride the mountain bike to Golden then ride the Chimney Gulch trail (which pretty much follows the road) up and down. It will make a 3.5 hour ride about 5 I think so it should help get me going.

Taking it to the streets

So today I went to the meeting at Congresswoman DeGette’s office on behalf of the LCV. Met with my neighbor Chris and the district manager (forgot his name) on behalf of DeGette. I wouldn’t say we were overly organized or influential in our meeting, but it was great to have an opportunity to express interests and concerns as constituents. Although the LCV is a huge, politically active group that allowed us to get our feet in the door, clearly this was a meeting of concerned citizens and not big money.

There were a lot of differing views, even within a group of people who theoretically have the same interest in the environment. A few people were very (overly perhaps) passionate, single minded and from my perspective not very realistic in their views. Most others were concerned and just want to express support for legislation and efforts to improve the environment. Issues ranged from alternative fuels to solar, to education (my topic/interest), to the economics needed to really move us forward. At the end of the day it was a good meeting, though the reality is given DeGette’s very favorable environmental record, though nothing earth-breaking in terms of legislation or action will evolve from the meeting.

So if I feel this way am I glad I went? Hell yes. I made a commitment to raise awareness on global warming and if I can let my congresswoman know I’m concerned then I’m making another small effort to raise the awareness. If I’m not involved and expressing concerns then can I really bitch about how our government is dealing with environmental issues? No. Will I go again, given an opportunity? Yes. Take the time this weekend to email your congressional representative and let them know you support current legislation entitled the Safe Climate Act and you expect them to pass the legislation. If you can’t ask the question what have you done today, then give an honest answer.

Riding

I’m trying to get in two big weeks on the bike this week and next, trying for about 15 hours per week. Given that the weather isn’t scheduled to be great this might be a little tough, but I really want to get in some long hour weeks prior to May when the racing season really starts. Once I start racing training a lot of hours becomes more difficult because so much time is spent recovering from the hard race efforts. Between the recovering from races and still needing to get in long rides in May and June to be ready for the FireCracker 50 this stretch is most likely my last block of consistent high mile and intensity work for awhile.

In an effort to get in the extra time I want I’m trying to etch out any riding I can. Both yesterday and today I put in 1.5 hours on the trainer before work (4:30-6:00), helped get everything/one ready for the day (making lunches for all of us, helping get Shay ready etc.) then ride into the office and ride home. This is getting me about an extra ½ hour of riding each day. If I’m lucky (and the weather holds out) I’ll do this tomorrow, and try to do a longer ride home maybe an hour or so, before a recovery day Thursday. This morning was pretty damn rough as the trainer didn’t seem like much fun when the alarm went off, but I managed to force my way downstairs and put in the miles. Then the ride in was a bit cold and wet due to rain last night. I guess this is the time to prove it if I want to race well this season.

Getting Ready

On the Global Warming front I’m getting ready to take it up a level and take on two new (short term) commitments. The first is meeting with a local politician (DeGette) with others from the LCV next Friday. This should be a good way to express concerns from real people not a PAC. Meeting will be really friendly, especially since my next door neighbor works for DeGette and will be at the meeting.

The second task I’m doing is teaching a session on environmental impact to Seamus’ class on the week of Earth Day. This should be fun as it is always cool to go into his school and see him and work with the kids. I’m going to go over ways the kids can recycle, teach them about how bike riding helps the environment and give some safety tips on riding, and an interactive session of planting organic veggies to explain how choices on food etc. impact the environment. I know it will be fun and his teacher is down with it, but who knows about other parents. You certainly put yourself out there when talking about issues that for some unknown reason (Bush) have become political. I really want to bring awareness to people on the environment, not piss them off; however, in this day and age all issues become political so I’m bound to piss a few people off. At least they get some free tomato plants out of the deal.

Today was cold and snowy at times, but I’ve hit my limit with riding the trainer so I spent 2+ hours outside on the road bike. Felt pretty good considering I’ve had a slight cold all week and was way to busy at work. I’m going to try to sneak in another ride tomorrow (Easter) to make up for the easy week, but if the weather is still shitty I may just skip the day. Although I need the training as it seems like I will be going to India again, probably in early June, which will really kill last minute training for the FireCracker 50. By that point I’d better have my endurance anyway so hopefully I’ll be able to ride an exercise bike some during the time I’m there to not lose to much fitness, then have about 2 weeks to fine tune everything. We’ll see though, I could just slack at work and not finish anything that is needed to go to India until after the 4th and then go, but that may not be the best idea to stay employed.

April Fools

Sometimes the blogging gets slowed down by life, sometime it picks up when there is more free time. Right now there really isn’t a lot of free time so infrequent posts are the current state. Saturday’s soccer game for Seamus was cancelled because of the snow last Thursday. I think the game could have been played, as it was warm and dry by Saturday morning, but I’m not in charge.

Just wait till you see pictures of him though, I bought him some sweet bright blue soccer shoes. One thing is certain he’ll be easy to pick out on the field.

I did a road race on Sunday, up near Boulder. I raced with the old slow guys (Cat 4 35+) and had a good race. Not really sure if slow is a great term for the race though as we did 22 miles on a rolling course (with about ½ of it on dirt roads) in less than an hour. I don’t have a cyclo-computer any more but my calculations have us at about 23 miles an hour. There were really no breakaways in the race, just guys coming off the back because of the constant pressure. I was in the lead group until about a mile from the end when I couldn’t respond anymore. I ended up in 13th place and was the first finisher outside the lead group. The race gave me a good indication that my fitness is progressing well and that I really need to work on the anaerobic side of things (short efforts of less than 3 minutes). While I often think these efforts aren’t key in mountain biking I’ve learned that I’m probably wrong. The start of the race, hard pushes at the top of climbs, trying to catch other racers all require this effort. In the past few years I haven’t spent much time working in this area, but I’m going to start adding some of this work in over the next few weeks.

Looking at my schedule I think the first mountain bike race will be May 6 up near Buffalo Creek. This is a location fairly near Denver that hasn’t had many races held in it although there are a lot of trails. One of the main reasons is the fires and floods in the area of the past 10 years. It should be pretty cool to race and see what is happening after all the disasters.

My company of the week (not really weekly) is Fed Ex, for what they are doing to help the environment. As I was leaving work the other day I noticed a Fed Ex truck on the loading dock that mentioned it was Hybrid powered, then I saw a sticker for environmental defense. FedEx is working with the Environmental Defense organization to develop trucks that are “50 percent more fuel-efficient (yielding a 33-percent decrease in greenhouse gas emissions) and produces 90 percent less air emissions of soot and smog.”

FedEx has also worked to redesign packaging materials, reduce emissions from planes and use more environmentally friendly printing methods on packages etc. All these efforts combined show a company that seems to realize that they do have an impact on the environment and can help keep it healthy.

Slacker

Well I've been slacking with posts recently, mostly because of too much work and very little free time. After a hard few days training at the end of last week I took two days off the bike (Mon and Tues) and rode an hour easy today. Commuting home (which really makes for 1.5 hours of riding) my legs still felt like hell, not a quick recovery. I hate to say it but this is the first year I can feel being older. I don't seem to recover from hard work as quick and to fully recover takes work (things like stretching and sleeping). Unfortunately for me those two extra items are harder to come by than they are to think about. I did get in a good stretch tonight and have another easy day scheduled for tomorrow so hopefully the legs will come around for the weekend.

I'm planning on racing a road race on Sunday, it will be a good test to see how the last block of training went. If the legs recover I should be alright, if they feel as bad as today it will be a waste of $30 for the entry fee.

Seamus has decided to try soccer again this season. We had his first practice last night, I must say I was impressed with his effort. Last spring he hated it and never participated. Yesterday he was following the ball and laughing. He even (accidentally) kicked the ball a few times. I hope he has better luck with it this year. If nothing else it is good to get him out and doing something active. I hope he actually gets more into it as he plays a little more, maybe even try to really kick the ball. His first game is Saturday and the season goes until mid-May, which means no Saturday racing till after that, but I'd much rather watch him play soccer any day. It is fun to see, especially when he is having fun and gaining confidence. Even in an hour practice yesterday I could see him feeling better about his soccer playing skills. I'm going to try to get pictures at Saturday's game to post.

Gotta get to bed so I can get up early to ride before work.

Going Green

So one of the most common questions I've been asked recently is "how do you go green?". Clearly there is the effort to reduce product usage, recycle, reuse, alternative commuting, but what else can you do? So I'm going to start to track down companies that are "green". This week I'm starting with Clif Bar (http://www.clifbar.com/), mostly because it is a cycling/sports related product so it seems to make sense.

Gary, the guy who started and owns Clif Bars is very environmentally friendly. A huge part of the company goals/mission is to create a sustainable environment. This goes from using organic produce, to sponsoring teams that are green focused, to buying wind energy credits. The best sample of Clif's dedication I've seen in practice was their cyclo-cross team at race last fall. These guys are elite (pro) racers, who spent time at races digging through trash cans to pull out recyclable materials that had been thrown away. Clearly the Clif sponsorship helped to dictate that and I'm sure increased awareness at races. Because of Clif's environmental focus I've switched all my riding energy products to Clif. I had been a Powerbar user for many years, but because of Clif Bars concern for more than just profit I've switched brands.

Speaking of Clif Bars, the management book Gary Erickson wrote (Raising the Bar) is a solid business read. If you're looking for a good management style book check it out. If you want a recycled version let me know and I'll send you mine.

I got in my first actual mountain bike ride in a long time yesterday. Rode for about 2 hours at Green Mountain. For those of you in the know GM isn't the greatest spot for riding as it is fairly nontechnical, but given the weather I was just glad to be on the dirt. Hopefully I'll be racing in the dirt in a couple of weeks, we'll see how things pan out, but I felt good and the training seems to be going well.

I'm tired

Another long day on the bike today, busted out a ride to Lookout, two climbs up and on the bad side two flats. The first happened about 15 minutes into the ride, the second at about 3 hours. All I can say about that is, good thing I have some new tires on the way. I’ve had a few flats recently and that is always the sign new tires are needed.

I’ve been trying to sneak in some reading on the scientific background on global warming, which given a day spent in LA waiting for one meeting, was provided in plenty. I actually damn near finished two books that day (Monday) as there was a lot of travel time with minimal meeting time. So what did I learn? The facts seem to show that no matter how you slice it the current increase in CO2 (and other gases) can’t (at least historically) be explained as a “natural” happening. What is showing to happen is an acceleration of environmental change caused by humans adding in greenhouses gases to the atmosphere by the ton. Back to a topic from a few weeks ago, recycling seems to be a simple way to help reduce our waste. But the question is what can be recycled? I don’t have the definitive answers here as many locations vary what is acceptable but here is a list of “standards”: newspaper, office paper, aluminum cans, plastics (1 or 2 on the bottom), canned food cans, junk mail, cardboard, cereal box (and the like) containers including toilet paper/paper towel rolls. What isn’t recyclable in most places includes plastic other than 1 or 2 (such as cottage cheese/cream cheese containers), cardboard milk/juice containers. Some times it may take a little extra effort to recycle items but in the long run it is worth the time/effort. One area I’ve been concentrating on is pop cans at work (far less convenient than the trash can at my desk) and paper napkins (only taking one). Hopefully these help, especially since I’ve been flying a lot recently which isn’t good for anything.

We’ve also tried to take care of a few things at home with waste/recycling, such as using clothe napkins every night, using reusable water bottles instead of “bottled” water and changing some cleaning supplies. I’m still waiting for a “big” change, but beginning to think that a lot of small changes may be better. So what have you done today?

Racing in March?

Since this blog is suppose to be about bike racing and global warming I'm going to highlight the bike racing thing today. Why? Well, mostly cause the season has kicked-off here in Colorado and I actually raced. Today was the first race of the year, part of an early season series of road races (crits, which are multi lap races on a short course) up in Boulder.

I decided to race yesterday after putting in some hard efforts and feeling not terrible. I figured since the week would be light in terms of riding hours anyway I might as well get in hard work. Now one thing to keep in mind with this racing in March thing is, I'm a mountain biker not a road racer and today's kind of race is fast, not particularly suited for an endurance guy like me. I knew the hard work would be/will be good later in the year though. The strange thing with the first race of the year is not having any idea what you'll do. I came in to today with low expectations since I haven't done any intervals until this week, I had just come off 6 days off, and while in Mexico I gained a lot of weight (10 lbs). All these things had me expecting to get beat good, no chance of staying with the leaders, which on a course like this (in the past) has been a miracle. Somehow today though I rode good. Stayed with the lead group the entire time, attacked once just to test the field and was in the sprint for the win at the end. Now road racers and mountain bikers have different strengths and one area mountain bikers are weak is the sprint, so needless to say I didn't do good in the sprint, but man was it fun. Far more important than the results was the information I gained today: yes the work this winter is paying off, yes there is room to go (no intervals yet) and finally that racing is still fun ( I knew this though).

The first race is also good on a social level, a few of my mountain biking brethren were at the race, Steve and Rob racing and Och hanging out cheering. It was good to catch up for a few minutes after the race, knowing I'll be seeing these guys all summer.

Next stop, LA tomorrow for the day then back to Denver late tomorrow night. I'll try to write some on Global Warming as I've been reading a lot about issues recently, but until then, what have you done today?

Mexico

I was a slacker in Mexico, didn't post because I didn't feel like hanging out in the hotel lobby to get wireless. We spent most of our time on the beach, but did go to Tulum for a day (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulum) to check out the ruins. Over the past 1.5 years I've been to Germany, India and now Mexico and have taken time to see some historical sites in all places. It is pretty cool to see the unique designs in each area and to see the skills of the craftsmen thousands of years ago.

Lent

So most of you know I'm not an overly religious guy, but don't forget four years of catholic high school taught me a thing or two that I still remember. Tomorrow is the beginning of Lent, which if I remember correctly (and according to the Internet) is a time to reflect, do good work, abstain from unnecessary pleasures etc. So, I'm challenging everyone to a global warming lent. I can't tell you what to give up but for my Catholic family the whole meat thing is a starting place. Many people contend eating organic, vegetarian diets helps reduce global warming. Other "easy sacrifices" to try over the next 40 days include recycling grocery bags, try to use the same bags each time you go shopping between now and Easter. Give up one car trip a week and walk to the corner store (do we really have corner stores anymore? Mine is 2 miles away, but I'll ride my bike).

I'm not really sure where I'm trying to take this, just asking each of you to make a minimal sacrifice now to better the environment, just until Easter and if it isn't too painful keep it up after. If any of you take me up on this challenge let me know, the most unique idea will win a prize (not sure what but in line with the uniqueness of the sacrifice).

Cheers, I'm starting to think of Mexico. Maybe I'll give up snow?

Hopefully a few of you are catching up on my blog since I sent out my last mass email. For those of you not on my email list, as part of my effort to raise awareness on global warming I've created a newsletter to keep folks updated. Since my technical skills are bad at best I haven't figured out how to post a link to a pdf online, so if you are interested in a copy send me an email (dmccune7@hotmail.com) and I'll send it out to you. This blog is intended to be a mixture of random rants on cycling, global warming and keeping family current on life. Over the past month or so it has been mostly global warming and riding if there are topics you'd like to see more about let me know and I'll try. Later this week the site shifts over to family focus as we are headed to Mexico for a week on the beach. For those of you in Colorado or Utah I'll post pictures from my beach chair, most pictures will have Seamus playing in the sand as I'm not planning on moving. The weather is expected to be in the 80's and after the winter we've had in Denver it is just what I need. I did a long road ride again on Sunday, 4 hours including a climb up Lookout. I rode Lookout 11 days ago after about a month + with no climbing and felt pretty stale. This time, even though I haven't done any additional climbing I felt a lot better, probably because I've done a few hard efforts in the mean time, trying to get my body in shape. I knocked a minute off my time on the climb from a week ago and posted my best time up Lookout ever (by 4 seconds). Hopefully this is a good sign that as I work towards race fitness for the summer I won't get worked over as hard in the Expert field. When I upgraded to Expert middle of last season it was a tough transition with a lot of back of the field finishes. I've been working hard to improve my conditioning so I can finish middle of the pack. Only time will tell, but I think improvements are at hand.

Just read an interesting article on US policy related to global warming (article), it is nice to see that the issue is finally becoming apolitical which seems to rarely happen. While policy change is important, personal habits can cause change/improvement at a quicker rate than waiting for legislation to be written, passed and implemented. So, what have you done today?

Saturday Morning Ride

Most of my riding comes pretty early in the day, either a 4:30 am trainer session during the week or long rides on the weekend where I hit the door about 7:00. Today I was a little later than that as a short ride was on tap, 2.5 hours. I set off to Cherry Creek resovior which is one of my usual haunts for rides, nice rolling terrain, limited cars and multiple loop options.

Besides being cold the ride was good, hardly any traffic, roads clear of ice and snow and a special treat at the rez, a pack of deer. Given that the resovior is really in the middle of the city I'm always a little surprised by the number of deer out there at times. This morning coming around a cornor there were 10 deer crossing the road. Pretty cool way to start the day.

Recycling

I’ve been thinking about recycling a lot recently as to me it seems counter-productive to helping the environment. I mean think about it, I throw a bunch of random stuff in my recycling bin (cans, bottles, paper etc.) with no concern. Someone comes, takes it away and has to sort through it, break the materials down to a raw state and reengineer into a new product. All of these steps along the way take energy which in most cases causes carbon or methane to be released into the atmosphere, which helps promote global warming. Damn, maybe we’ve been duped on this whole recycling thing. So I had to look into the benefits of recycling, and the good news is there are many benefits.

First recycling reduces the amount of garbage in landfills producing two benefits, less land used for industrial purposes and less methane being released into the atmosphere. The land is good as it allows (potential) for more plants, trees, farming etc. which all help offset greenhouse gases. However more important is that landfills create a huge amount of methane gas as the trash decomposes and breaks down. Therefore the less we put in landfills the less methane that is created.

Additional benefits of recycling include not having to use virgin materials to create products. Even if a new tree is planted for each tree cut down to make paper, cardboard, tissue etc. the amount of carbon removed from the environment is less than that of an older and larger plant. Using virgin materials dramatically reduces the benefits vegetation provides to the environment (learn some more about plants). The manufacturing of materials, either raw or recycled is fairly similar so the energy utilized is equal, therefore a net zero result from how much gas is emitted from using recycled materials.

So what does this mean? It means that recycling really does help the environment, by reusing materials and reducing landfill space and gas emissions. So, what have you done today?

Five hour rides and what is global warming

Well it’s been a hell of a week, thus the lack of updates. Two birthdays, lots of work, and finally a solid week of riding on the bike. I took a ½ day on Wednesday to celebrate (my birthday) and proceeded to bust out a 5 hour ride. The roads are still wet in a lot of places from all of our snow, but Lookout Mountain has been plowed and was mostly dry. I rode the climb three times and was definitely feeling it the last climb. It’s been about 2 months since I hit Lookout so it was nice to get in the ride, as Lookout is my favorite place to ride the road bike. I’ll need to get in a lot more rides like that to be ready for the FireCracker 50. I guess taking time off work makes for a busier week, but when there is already too much to do a long ride is worth it. Saturday was another busy day with my mom’s b-day, shopping for glasses for Ade and a 3 hour ride, but I must say those two long rides in one week felt good.

Now, on to Global Warming and what exactly is global warming? This question has been brought up a lot recently, I think due to the IPCC report released last week. To put it simply global warming is caused by greenhouse gases (carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, methane and others) being emitted. Greenhouse gases let light/heat from the sun in, which is nice, but then trap the heat in the atmosphere, not allowing it to escape back to space. Some heat trapping is good as it keeps the temperature livable on Earth, but too much is bad causing temperatures to rise and effecting Earth’s ecosystems (how we live with each other and other animals etc on Earth).

The problem with global warming is that we are helping to accelerate the emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases for numerous reasons. Some reasons are somewhat beyond our control, for example a larger human population on Earth now than at any other time. However, and most importantly, some are very controllable for example emissions of CO2 because of fossil fuel usage (think gas, oil, natural gas etc.). Now I’m not sitting here saying I don’t like having a nice warm house or a car to get to bike races in, but what I am saying is that we can each individually and collectively do a lot to reduce our CO2 emissions and reduce the greenhouse effect that is causing global warming. Now it is important to keep in mind that all these gases/causes of the greenhouse effect occur naturally, always have, always will. What is just as important, if not more so, is to know that the emissions of these gases have been accelerated by our actions.

So in layman’s terms greenhouse gases have always existed and no matter what we do will exist. This truth helps naysayer's with their argument that global warming is a myth. But the facts point to a very accelerated level of emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases since the Industrial Revolution (I know thinking back to high school history is painful so here is a link). Gas emissions have accelerated even more dramatically since the popularization of the car. But the good news is there is a significant amount that can be done to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions, such as driving less, recycling, planting trees/flowers, using less energy (turn off lights, keep temperature lower in the winter, higher in the summer). So, what have you done today?