July July

Despite the fact that July is not a fall month, it happens to be one of my favorites.

This July I'm going to be closing up the shop for a couple of weekends to take care of some bikey stuff. For example:

Hub will be closed July 3, 4 and 5. I will be celebrating the birth of this nation by riding my bike to Portland ME. I'm going to shoot for getting there in one day. I'll let you know how that goes...

Hub will be closed at 5pm on Friday July 9, and closed on July 10. I'm going to go lend a wrench to the New England Classic. Super epic.

Independence

My first memory of feeling truly independent came courtesy of a bicycle. I was sent out to pick up some lunch while hanging out at my dad's office for the day (i.e.- get out of his hair so he could get some work done...). I was probably 10, and while I was cruising the mean streets (or, sidewalks) of Pinardville, NH it occurred to me that 'I don't need anybody to go get lunch'. I DON'T NEED ANYBODY! I'M GETTING MY OWN LUNCH! I CAN GO ANYWHERE! A very cool realization to have. I rode my bike a bunch as a kid, mostly for fun, but when I lived close enough I'd ride it to school. There was always something extra awesome about biking with a purpose- getting lunch, going to school or the post office- it made me aware of my status as an independent human being exercising her freewill (or at least as much freewill as you can exercise as a kid).

So fast forward to last weekend. I had a few bike parts to bring from home to the shop, and a quick stop at the farmer's market. As I was carting parts and groceries on my bike I thought I DON'T NEED ANYBODY! I'M RIDING MY BIKE TO WORK! I CAN GO ANYWHERE! I'm legitimately an adult so, I really can go anywhere. I even have a motor vehicle that I could drive to work or the farmer's market or any number of places. But I never feel like an independent human being when I do that- I just feel like an adult running errands.

What Hub is doing to not hate on Mother Nature

Green is the new black. It's pretty trendy right now, right? Unlike other trends, not burning up the planet is actually important. Bicycles have always been ahead of the curve on this trend. I mean, it's the most efficient way to get around! And as we all know 'efficient' means, "adj. 1. performing or functioning in the best possible manner with the least waste" So there you go- a bicycle shop is inherently more ecologically responsible than, say oil drilling or drag car racing, but there's always room for improvement. Maybe you're sick of hearing about what companies are doing (or at least what they say they're doing...) to improve their greeny-ness, but I want to tell you about some stuff going on here at the shop.

Recycling (obvi)

Paper. plastic, your totally hosed chain and cassette (and other metal parts), tubes!, tires all get recycled here, natch.

Reducing

I'll admit, I'm very excited and this news was the motivation for this post- Hub now has tubes in bulk! Flat tires are one of the most common bike problems, so at the end of the day the ol' recycling bin looks like this:

And while recycling is great- not creating the waste in the first place is even better. You can now get tubes they way hippies get their granola and nutritional yeast. They're the very same tubes you know and love, but without the packaging. The most common road and mountain sizes are available in bulk, and if you want your tube to come in a package you still can. I won't judge.


Cleaners/solvents/grease/etc.

There's a bunch of this stuff that goes into tuning a bicycle. It gets a little tricky here, because it's hard to find straight forward information about all of this stuff, as most of what I can find comes from the companies themselves. I'm not a chemist, so I have to take the company's word for it. So far, I've been pretty happy with Pedro's and Finishline. They seem to have a good balance of effectiveness and biodegradability. If any one has suggestions on how I can find more (objective) information on this, I'm all ears.

Other little things

Compact fluorescent bulbs. Check. Choosing 'Ground' for shipping product. Check. Choosing products packaged in paper/cardboard over PVC clamshell packaging. Check (that was the deciding factor between two great options for bike multi-tools). Fans over A/C. Check. Printing work orders on scrap paper before recycling. Check.

Thanks for reading. If you have any suggestions or recommendations on how Hub can be even eco-friendlier drop a note to: info@hubbicycle.com (I promise I won't print out the email...)