Paris to Provide Rentable Bikes Every 900 Feet

By Robert Marquand, The Christian Science Monitor, July 6, 2007. "The French are turning Paris into a bicycle zone, pretty much overnight. Even now, astride small alleys and behind boulangeries, paving stones are being ripped to fit 750 bicycle rent 'stations.' On July 15, a day after the French Revolution anniversary, the city of lights will kick off a 'vélorution' with 10,648 rentable bikes, or vélos. By January, some 1,400 rent stations and 20,600 bikes are scheduled to be in place. In Paris proper, one will never be more than 900 feet from a set of cheap wheels. At least theoretically... The ambitious Paris project is titled Vélib' - wordplay for bicycle freedom... The program is financed by advertising behemoth JC Decaux - in exchange for 1,600 billboards around the city. The concept is computerized and credit card driven. Each station has a large ATM-sized panel that gives instructions in French, German, English, and Chinese. Riders buy in for a day, a week, or a year. The panel issues a card that can be swiped over a small locking pod to release the bike."

Next Leg: Abingdon to Mount Rainier, 56 miles

route

Arrived in Philly; Next leg to Abingdon, MD

Today's ride was nice for the most part. A beautiful day for it. Don't know how many miles I've done yet, but I started relatively early this morning after camping out behind a shopping plaza on Route 22. Route 22 was one of the bigger roads on my route, and for the most part was good because of a nice shoulder. But near the point where it went under interstate 287 and then when it intersected state highway 202, it got kinda hairy. I had to find a back route around the 22/202 intersection, cross over 22 down the road and meet up with 202 at a later point. At that point 202 was freshly paved and had a nice shoulder. 202 continued to be nice all the way to Pennsylvania. The 202 bridge into PA says no bikes, but traffic was thin and I passed with no problem. The man at the toll booth said, "You're not supposed to ride out there," but as I'd already crossed, it was a moot point. In PA, 202 became a 2-lane road with hardly a shoulder. It was manageable, though. Just north of where 202 merges with 263, I found a treasure of a treat: the Philly Pretzel Factory that sells three big, hot soft pretzels for a dollar! It's the best deal around, and a great snack for cyclists. I had spicy mustard and horseradish with it, and the pretzels are delicious.

The rest of the ride to Philly was pretty straight forward, except that my chain broke and I fixed it with some spare links I was carrying. It's been a fairly warm and sweaty day. I drank lots of water, rested a few times and had trail mix made by sweetheart Laina. Some kid at the Pizza joint I stopped at came in with a skinned knee from biking, and I gave him some neosporin and a bandaid.

In Philly, I came to the Crown Plaza Hotel, where I came last time, and my friends here put my bike in the storage while I snack and update my blog. Pics from the ride coming. Next I will ride to Abingdon, MD to meet up with Brazilian Tina who would like to go on a little bike ride around Bel Air with me and host me a night. Her husband is a serious biker, but she is just getting into it. She found my website when she was searching online for a riding group in Abingdon. Route to her house: click here

Working out my sleeping situation for tonight... Until next time, PJ

Next Leg, Nutley to Philly

route A beautiful route through new territory.

First leg of today's route: Manhattan to Nutley, NJ

I will ride from my friends' house in Manhattan to a Brazilian family's house in Nutley, NJ--folks who stopped to talk to me on the highway on the way up. route

Tim Harvey Profile

This is Tim Harvey, who made it around the planet without burning fossil fuels. He biked through some of the same territory we will bike through, and some of his perspective is similar to mine and has bearing on our trip. Particularly, how the world is not necessarily as scary as we are led to believe. What is really cool, also, is that it is possible to row or sail across the Atlantic Ocean.

Choice way of getting to work! The Bike Bus

Thanks to Anne Villacres of the Rainer Riders for posting this video about a cool, new way to get to work, socialize, reduce your carbon emissions, feel safe on the road, and save time and money all at the same time--it's called the Bike Bus. Watch video by clicking on the title of this post.:)

Four Principles for Successful Climate Policy

So, what am biking for most is the effective participation of the United States in the global effort to tackle global warming. Successful US Policy on Global Warming would meet four main criterial, found
here.

New York City, Zoo

My friends from Oberlin, living in Hamilton Heights, Manhattan, and our home-made pest0 pasta and salsa meal.
Bull sea lion at Bronx Zoo.






Peacock design on woman's shirt, at the zoo.

Polar Bear at the zoo--he isn't losing his footing and hunting ice like his fellow polar bears, due to global warming.

Bronx Zoo, Friends

Peacock at the Bronx Zoo.

Male tiger.
Female Tiger walking around.




Sea lions.


Fab from Thailand and Laina from Pleasantville, NY. Both went to Oberlin with me.
Piyush from Bombay, India in lower right; Manhattan cityscape. Piyush went to Oberlin College with me, too.

Solar Panels on your house for Free! This is incredible!

Free solar panels! A guy just emailed me after he read about my trip on the environmental defense blog, and he told me about the company he works for, Citizenre, which has created a method enabling them to put solar panels on the house of anyone who signs up--you just pay the exact same electric rates you would be paying normally, and they take care of the rest! Join the solution, and get your solar panels today! They will send a solar engineer to your house or business, assess the potential, and design the array to produce the greatest amount of power. Your panels will power some or all of your house's needs, and excess will be sold to the grid--all that is taken care of by the company--all you do is sign the paper (a contract with NO obligations), and pay the same rates as your current company offers you now and in the future. The normal working citizen is empowered to be part of the solution, undermining dirty, coal-fired power. Please contact Scott Pelham at seabiscuit@austin.rr.com to order your system or for more information.

Made it to NYC!

I completed the route I set out for myself, crossing the George Washington Bridge into Manhattan on late Monday afternoon. It took me five days to bike to NYC. The first day, I went 42 miles, the second day 33, the third day 86, the fourth day 40, and the last day 63. That totals 264 miles total, and an average of 53 miles/day. I passed through Balimore, Newark, DE, Philly, Trenton, Princeton, Elizabeth, Newark, NJ, Jersey City, Hoboken, and Manhattan.

Some recent photos:
Downtown Manhattan from Jersey City, with sailboat on Hudson River--this one's a keeper!

Entering Jersey City on Rt. 1.

Downtown Newark, NJ. I found a large neighborhood of Brazilians in Newark. I hope to stop there on the way back, hang out and practice my Portuguese.

Church in Newark, NJ.

Mural in NE Philly.

Mural in NE Philly.

Mural on Frankford Ave in NE Philly.

Church in Philly.

Peace mural in Philly.

Mural in Philly, north of downtown on Broad.

Mural in Philly, downtown.

Making the deal with Janne Nuorti.


The trip was awesome. The ride's last two days were beautiful riding from Philly to Princeton, and Princeton to Manhattan. Heading out of Philly, I absorbed the culture along Frankford Ave/13. I stopped at a Chinese restaurant, practiced a little of the little Chinese I know, and the teenage siblings working there asked me all kinds of questions about my trip. We ate together and exchanged card tricks. They are from southern China, and have lived in northern Philly for ten years. I asked them if they were excited about China's recent economic growth, and the sixteen-year-old boy said that living here in the states, the growth doesn't really affect him personally. I asked him if he plans on going back, and he said he would like to go back to live for a while, but not permanently.

The ride through northern Philly and into NJ was flat and calm along the roads I traveled. It helped that it was Father's Day. At dusk, I arrived at a battlefield historical park just South of Princeton and pulled in to camp. The next morning, I rode through Princeton and ate a bagel breakfast in Kingston. The owners of the Kingston Deli and Cafe are of Korean origin, though one of them knew some Spanish from her middle and high school courses here in the US. She made use of the knowledge she had with the many Mexican and Central American immigrant workers who came in to buy some breakfast. "Quieres una bolsa?" she would say. "Eres bonita," they would say, and she would reply, "O, gracias." They would say, "Cuanto cuesta?" and she would say, "Cinco pesos." They would say, "Pesos o dolares?" "Dolares." Hahaha. I spoke with some folks from Oaxaca who worked in dry cleaning in Trenton. They were happy to hear about my trip to Chiapas.

Later on down the road, just outside of New Brunswick, I felt like a city from Mexico had been transplanted in New Jersey. The name of every business establishment was in Spanish, and Mexicans and other Latinos sat in the parks and along the sidewalks hanging out and congregating just as is common in Mexico. Nearly everyone I saw was Latino.

Once I got to the Hudson River in Jersey City, the influence of New York City was clear. Big, beautiful buildings sprung up, and as I biked along the Hudson, up towards the George Washington Bridge, I could look across the river at Manhattan. It seemed that the entire island was full of high rises.

I am going to visit friends and explore The City.

Proposed Route for today, half completed (I'm in Elizabeth as I write)

Princeton to New York bicycle route

Bike Route: Philly to Princeton (completed)

Bike Route, Philly to Princeton