Most Energy-Efficient Form of Travel Ever Devised

This writer and his computer have both been sick, one with the flu, the other a wonky hard drive, so we apologise for the lack of bicycle posts.

Let’s get back up to speed with this quick bike primer from the very fine Sightline Institute, (previously known as the Northwest Environment Watch, who once published great works like Stuff: The Secret Lives of Everyday Things.)

We particularly love an early para: “The bicycle—the most energy-efficient form of travel ever devised—deserves better. Pound for pound, a person on a bicycle expends less energy than any creature or machine covering the same distance. (A human walking spends about three times as much energy per pound; even a salmon swimming spends about twice as much.)”

And how could we go past these closing remarks: “Other nations have already made bicycling a priority: the Netherlands, for example, spends 10 percent of its roads budget to support bicycle facilities. British author H. G. Wells may have summed it up best more than a half century ago: ‘When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race.’” ::Sightline Institute.