Ride of My Life: The Story of the Bicycle

This one hour documentary funded by the BBC is probably one of the best bicycle related documentary I have ever seen.  It follows the journey of Rob Penn, a writer who once rode around the world for three years pedaling 40,000 kilometers, in the quest to build his dream bike going from continent to continent picking up components for his bike build.  Along the way, he tells the story of the bicycle from its humble beginnings to where it is now.  

Rob Penn on his 40,000Km journey around the planet

Ride of My Life:  The Story of the Bicycle, can be seen on Youtube in its entirety here;

A better quality of the movie may be available for download on the internet and I would highly recommend it as the Youtube version is quite degraded.

So if you are a cyclist and simply love bicycles, this is a documentary that you can not miss.  If you are new to cycling, this is a great way to learn about the social history of the bicycle, one of mankind's greatest inventions.

Video Embedding

I have just been made aware that there are some of you who follow my blogs via email subscription that you do not see the videos that are embedded in my posts through email.  I guess this is how blogger.com works, and unfortunately, I do not have control over this.  So, to those who are reading my blogs in your email programs and think my blogs seem incomplete or simply don't make sense, click on the direct link of the posts and view them using a browser, there you will see all the embedded videos and the blogs won't look 'weird' anymore.
Happy reading!

Riding the Tallbike

I have something to admit to...  I am a dork.  A bike dork.  In the short period of time that I have been a 'born-again cyclist', I have collected and built 5 bicycles.  5 that I am willing to admit to that is.  I have bicycles ranging from full suspension XC bikes, to touring bikes and to a beautiful 65 year old vintage English roadster.  But having said that, I am truly not in the class of true Bicycle Dorks until I have acquired/built my very own Tallbike.  The 'dorkdom' is magnified compoundly with a tallbike!
Well, my friend has one and I am truly jealous.  I think my next bicycle project will be building my own tallbike this coming spring when it starts warming up.

I have never been on a bike ride where everyone has stared at us, honking and giving us thumbs ups and being cheered on by total strangers.  How cool is that?!

ps. This is a tallbike T-shirt that another friend of mine has.  He picked it up at The Gap in Calgary.  Now, we've searched through our local Old Navy and Gap stores here in the Greater Vancouver area and we could not find this shirt anywhere!  If you know of any places where we can pick this shirt up, or something similar, please leave me a note!

Cheers and ride on!