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Category: Fitness, Health, Happiness

Things I Love Thursday: My Picks for Best Bikes of 2015

I was at the store recently and a shiny Schwinn caught my eye. I pointed it out, a sexy blue number; my husband made eyes at its neighbor in a glossy red. Jeff has a trike that he rides at the beach, and now that it’s springtime I couldn’t help but picture myself leisurely cruising along on a new bike of my very own.

Once I got home I fell down a rabbit hole window-shopping some of the most beautiful things on two wheels. When I was a kid we rode bikes all the time, but I stopped getting in the saddle once I was pregnant with Jacob. When my parents died someone broke into their house and stole all the bikes, and while the kids have their two-wheelers I’ve never replaced mine.

I miss biking. I miss whipping along entirely too fast, a speed of my own making. I miss riding along bumpy forest paths. I miss the clank of the gears changing and the sound made when coasting along a quiet road.

(I don’t miss jerk city drivers that don’t share the road.)

A few years ago I was in Boulder Colorado and tried out their bikeshare. It’s the only time I’ve been on a bike in 18 years and while it was tough— biking hills or in this case mountains was no joke— it was wonderful. It only took a few minutes to feel comfortable riding again and I felt so free.

Biking is, of course, one step we can take towards a healthier world. Biking doesn’t just save the fuel we’d use and the emissions we’d otherwise produce, though. The more people we get out there, the more involved they tend to become in the community and with protecting their local environment. More efforts are made to make roads bike friendly. Bikeable areas improve property values, increase the number of customers at smaller retail stores, lower crime rates (since more people are visible on the streets), and enhance the sense of community among neighbors— it’s a lot easier to get to know people when they’re on bikes, rather than zipping past in their cars.

Plus, riding a bike is just plain good for the body and good for the soul.

Here are the bicycles I’d most love to hop onto this year, but really any one I find will do!

Isn’t this beauty an Instagram moment waiting to happen? It just screams sunshine and sherbet. I feel like everyone needs to have one of these Schwinn Slik Chiks to ride at the beach at dawn; on one of those bright, cool mornings that precede a scorcher day in the ocean.

You could also ride it alongside a fiercely green field of corn, or to the market to buy berries and flowers, or to sit outside and have a latte at a cozy coffeehouse. Basically, this bike makes me want to do beautiful things and document them all for posterity.

The Schwinn Slik Chik is a cool $360.

Along the same lines, this pretty one speed is meant for just cruising around on flat terrain… a little more of an urban feel. The PUBLIC C1 is on sale right now for just $299.

With its curved, open, step-through frame design, it is often referred to as a Dutch bike. It’s a time-tested classic metropolitan cruiser bike design seen commonly throughout Europe for decades.

This genteel 3-speed bicycle is from Brilliant Bicycles. It’s the Mayfair and it looks perfect for easy breezy rides through city parks or from the library. It comes in a number of summery colors, but I’m smitten with this stately urban look.

Brilliant bikes are 100% handmade and shipped free directly to you (meaning no middleman). They start at $399 and are really just lovely— check ’em out.

Brilliant Bicycles are hand-crafted at a state-of-the-art, wind-powered manufacturing facility in Taiwan. We took great efforts to find manufacturing partners focused on ethical labor. All of our partners pay responsible wages with benefits in safe, clean working conditions.

The attention grabbing EcoForce 1 from Greenstar Bikes has a frame made of bamboo: sturdy as steel, lightweight, sustainable. A hybrid is available this summer, but there aren’t details about that one on the site yet. This conversation kickstarter goes for $499.

The EcoForce 1 is a single speed bamboo road bike with a reversible rear hub that easily converts it to a fixed-gear bicycle or “fixie”. This affordable bamboo bike is super light: the frame weighs less than 4 pounds thanks to bamboo and our recycled 6061 aluminum lugs. The entire bamboo bicycle only weighs about 20 pounds.

This bike is the most similar to the one I shared with my dad. It’s from Diamondback and suitable for both trail and road riding, but this one is designed for women. Calico Sport, $650.

If I had the budget, I’d opt for this sexy beast and start triathlon training in earnest. Isn’t it beautiful? The Trek Lexa is an 11-speed road bike suitable for tris and designed for women. It’s listed at $1650 so I would HAVE to get my miles’ worth out of it.

When was the last time you were on a bike?

Where do you ride?

April 2, 2015
Don’t Kick Your Christmas Tree to the Curb! Repurpose or Recycle It.

To dwellers in a wood, almost every species of tree has its voice
as well as its feature.

―Thomas Hardy, Under the Greenwood Tree

The ball has dropped, it’s after New Year’s and time to undeck the halls and untrim the trees. Every year I see tons of trees sitting curbside waiting to be picked up with the trash and taken to the landfill; it makes me sad that they had purpose for such a short time. While I do think real trees are better than fake (especially if you buy one from a local, family owned business!) we can do better, people.

Get more out of your Christmas tree: repurpose or recycle it by giving it back to nature.

Gimme shelter

Birds and other wildlife need shelter from the elements and any stray cats or other predators that may be lurking. Simply drag your tree out to the yard rather than the curb, or make a brush pile with the branches. A simple family family project if you’re feeling festive is to hang some pine cone “ornaments” rolled in peanut butter and rolled in sunflower seeds to decorate your gift to your feathered and furry neighbors. (More edible ornament ideas for wildlife here.)

Mulch much?

Insulate your flower beds against cold temps with your pine needles. They’ll also suppress weeds, help retain moisture without allowing the soil to become compacted and are especially good around acidic-favoring plants like roses. Pine needles are soft to walk over, and just look more natural and woodsy than your typical store bought mulches— you’re not going to get a ton out of your one tree, of course; consider asking your neighbors if you can have theirs too.

If you’re local (upper Delaware), you can drop your tree off at a DNREC site where they’re recycled with other yard waste and ground into mulch. I believe this mulch is available periodically for New Castle County residents for free.

Worm Food

If you’re a composter, pine needles will keep your pile nice and fluffy so it stays aerated and “hot.” They can take a while to break down though, so it’s recommended that you either run them over with a lawn mower before adding or use the needles that have already spent a season pulling mulch duty. Keep pine needles to about 10% of your total compost pile at any given time.

Donate

Check around for local restoration efforts or animal sanctuaries that are asking for tree donations. In Louisiana they use them to restore the wetlands; in other places leftover Christmas trees preserve sand dunes. Locally, the Tri-State Bird Rescue adds trees to the birds’ cages for “cover, perches and warmth” and to make them more natural, less stressful; you can take evergreens there from 9-5 seven days a week. Some zoos and animal sanctuaries will accept trees for animal enrichment (drop off to the main lot of the Plumpton Park Zoo in Maryland, locals).

I’ve also heard that people hang on to the pine needles, sealed tight in the freezer, and simmer on the stovetop or pack into sachets for natural air freshening. I’ve not tried this so I don’t know how effective it is, but it can’t hurt to try.

Any other ways to repurpose or recycle your Christmas tree? Let me know!

January 2, 2015
Love This: Lifefactory Glass Food Containers and Water Bottles
Now that’s what I call high quality H2O!

-Bobby Boucher, The Waterboy

Note: this post contains affiliate links, meaning if you click through to Amazon I get a small % of any resulting sales. If you’d prefer not to use those links, you can check out the full Lifefactory line on their site.

I work out 4-6 times a week. Maverick comes with me 3-4 of those times. Cassidy has soccer practice and games. We drink a LOT of water in this house: during workouts, and in between.

At home, we use the CamelBak Relay Pitcher I was sent on behalf of the Fitness Magazine FitBlog event to filter our hard well water (I should really write a separate post about that, we love it). But on the go, I have one true love and that is Lifefactory glass water bottles.

Why? There are a couple of reasons:
- I’m convinced stainless steel and reusable plastic water bottles retain some taste from the dishwasher or from dish soap. It can be helped by using special cleaning tabs (or you can use something like Efferdent) but I’d be using those all. the. time.
- I don’t like that I can’t see inside stainless steel bottles to make sure they’re not building up funk inside.
- Glass bottles, by contrast, can go into the dishwasher and come out clean— no extra step.
- There’s none of the “do they or don’t they?” concerns about chemicals leaching like you have with plastic bottles.
- Glass is infinitely recyclable.
- Lifefactory glass bottles are clothed in a silicone sleeve so they’re super sturdy (we’ve had ours for years now and trust me, they’ve taken some abuse), don’t leak even a little bit so I am comfortable tossing in my gymbag or a kids’ backpack, and come in a bunch of fun colors.
I scanned back through some of my Instagram and Facebook posts and easily came up with proof that my Lifefactory bottles rarely leave my side:

No joke, this pic used to be on some of my business cards

You get the idea. I prefer the flat cap that screws on & off easily; it’s widemouthed so I can add ice cubes or protein powder. But they also sell with a flipcap or a straw cap.

Well, I just discovered that Lifefactory now has food storage containers! We already use Pyrex glass containers for our leftovers, but I’ve never used them for packing lunches because I was afraid they’d get broken. These come in 1, 2, and 4 cup sizes and the smaller ones would be PERFECT for kid lunchboxes.

These may seem expensive out of the gate, but I know I’m forever replacing plastic tupperware, especially small ones. The lids fall onto the dishwasher bottom and get mangled, they crack, and pretty much the first time anyone uses it to hold onions or anything with red sauce it’s done for.

Lifefactory also has water or wine glasses (depending on the day you’ve had. With different color sleeves, you’ve never take someone else’s glass by accident again!) and baby bottles (4 and 9 oz), as well as silicone teethers. The baby bottles are made from thermal shock resistant borosilicate glass, so they can transition safely from freezer to boiling water. You can also buy sippy caps or flat caps for these bottles, so they’ll get years and years of use! Cass has a 9oz bottle with a flat cap and it fits into her lunchbox (it’s the only bottle Jeff will let me use to pack milk in his lunch on PB&J days).

Now, I’m really hoping that you don’t need to be sold on the idea of reusables in general. Plastic doesn’t go away, and reusables divert a ton of waste from landfills. They also alleviate a lot of concerns about chemicals released when plastics break down over time.

So any reusable is better than none. But IMHO, Lifefactory is the best. Who do you like?
September 1, 2014