Overview

What if you could spend hours and hours doing what you love and then get all those used-up hours returned to you at the end of your life? In other words, spend an hour and get another hour for free?! It sounds like a new-age delusion or a financial scam. Romance languages don't even have a word for saving time. The whole notion of time is that you cannot stash it away and save it for a rainy day, or a dying day. Time slips away, and there's nothing we can do about it. But 2015 research from Holland published in The American Journal of Public Health tells us that Cycling prevents about 6500 deaths each year, and Dutch people have half-a-year-longer life expectancy because of cycling. About an hour of extended life, per hour of cycling! By the time this Dutch research made the headlines, Mark had been commuting and vacationing by bicycle for nearly two decades. Without imagining or caring that it might be life-extending, these commutes and excursions invigorate at the moment they occur. But cycling is not just invigoration and rejuvenation, it's also liberation... As you will come to appreciate in the subsequent pages, it's not a simple question of dumping the car, getting on a bike, and achieving long-term liberation. Mark confronts formidable obstacles: manufactured, geographic, societal, logistical, biological, meteorological, psychological, and chronological, all of which are part of his story. Along the way, he made more than a few mistakes, whose lessons may help save you from falling into similar traps. Mark also makes the case that no amount of technological advancement will stop pollution or curtail global warming without a central role for self-serving human energy. Mark began writing Old Man on a Green Bike 19 years ago when he first set out to do all his commuting and much of his vacationing on a bicycle. A bicyclist for decades, along the way, Mark Cramer fell in love with the journey. Realizing the manifold benefits of choosing two-wheeled transportation (for utility or recreation), Old Man on a Green Bike is Mark's invitation to you. From the politics to the practicalities of conscious bicycling, Mark inspires us to take to two wheels for our own sake, and maybe also the good of the planet.

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9781950255030

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Reviews

Riding a bike isn't rocket science. Cycling should be fun and inclusive for people of all ages and abilities, and from all backgrounds. Old Man on a Green Bike provides a fresh and engaging way of thinking about cycling. From commuter cycling in Paris to debunking the myth that it's not OK to get off and push, Mark Cramer uses his love of the bike to help us engage with cycling in all its wonderful forms. -Lynette Eyb, Editor of freewheelingfrance.com, a leading authority on 'velotourisme' in France. --- Mark Cramer is a master storyteller. His vast experience and research enables him to create descriptions of places and events that come to life in the mind of the reader, often creating laugh-out-loud humor. Even if you've never thought about cycling along Paris streets, or through the countryside outside Bruges, or up Tour de France level gradients in La Paz, this book will show you how and inspire you to do so - or at least to explore your own neighborhood on a bicycle. The book exhibits a deep understanding of the causes of (and solutions to) the world's and our own personal challenges. Old Man on a Green Bike will make a great gift for anyone searching for adventure, or an engaging, motivating and thought-provoking read. - Dr Paul Tranter, School of Physical, Environmental and Mathematical Sciences, UNSW Canberra, Australian Defense Force Academy, author of Active Travel: A Cure for the Hurry Virus --- In facing the huge global crisis, which is not only environmental but economic and cultural, it seems we need at least two things: a deep philosophy and a buoyant sense of humor. Mark Cramer enjoys a gift for both, so well-communicated in Old Man on a Green Bike, his latest book, in which he shows us with warmth and great skill how the joy of life, together with the profound understanding of personal commitment to sustainability, can offer us key resources in disruptive times. - Elizabeth Peredo Beltran, Internationally-acclaimed environmental writer and activist. Author of the essay: Climate Change and Cognitive Dissonance: Why are we so complacent in the face of the danger of climate disaster? and books on climate, water rights, feminism, and politics.

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