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We've Moved!!

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NBG Mayors' Ride Manuscript Complete!!

This is the introduction to my new book, "How America Can Bike and Grow Rich" (HBGR). The manuscript is complete. What remains is all  the formatting work (appendices, pagination, front matter such as this, etc) of turning it into an attractive publication. Do stay tuned for a soon release!

 

"How America Can Bike and Grow Rich"  Introduction

How America Can Bike and Grow Rich" (HBGR) is an in depth visualization of the ninth annual national Mayors' Ride  that will run from San Jose and San Francisco  to Washington DC during the spring and summer of 2012.  When that ride is complete, it will have served as yet another milestone along the path I made for myself when I dedicated my rehabilitation from paralysis and death  to the nonprofit organization I got people to help me form called the National Bicycle Greenway (NBG). After committing  my publishing company, Cycle America,  to the goal of connecting the coasts with a bicycle highway' when my autobiography "Awake Again" then came out in 1994, instead of letting a very interested Hollywood sweep it in a different direction, I used it to open even more doors for the NBG.  

As the long awaited sequel to my true comeback story, then, HBGR  is  my love offering to the planet for a tool that has rebuilt my body, mind and spirit. It draws on my decades long career in the bike industry and as a bike activist, two and one-third bike rides across America and well over a thousand hours of research. In getting away from cars, I watched the people around me give their life force to those things which all too soon, simply ended up in the land fill  With the objectivity my being Car Free has engendered, HBGR is allowing me to give voice to kids and the childhood we lost when we yielded the free feeling that cycling gave us for the rules, laws and government oversight  that  governs the time we think we save when we drive. This as along the way, my bike centric way of living, coupled with the deprivation/humility training I ultimately had to endure to get this book finalized have given me a working understanding of what true wealth really is. 

As the bicycle helped me to overcome paralysis, spasticity, atrophy and a mind that did not have a structured way of thinking, it ultimately became apparent to me that without my full optimal health I have nothing. In developing this awareness, I found myself in close proximity to all the conversations those of us with a bike based lifestyle take for granted. As  my car wreck forced me to detach, I have watched  the car driving public's preoccupation with reaching their destinations in the fastest way possible destroy our collective  well  being. This as using a bike to get places has helped me keep faith with our real purpose for being here, to grow spiritually. 

HBGR is a story that uses our decade of national Mayors' Ride campaigns to portray the real world visualization I have painted for my National Bicycle Greenway business plan viewers for years. Hopefully by reading my book, you will go away seeing the heaven our world could become if the bicycle were the preferred travel option. If you choose to think big thoughts with me you will realize that we have finally reached that day in age where the technology we now have at our disposal can finally make the dreams i present here real.  We  feel, for example, that once the powerful Google based mapping system I took a year off to devise gets funded, we will no longer be so dependent on thousands of pounds of steel and old dinosaur remains to move about.

HBGR also shows you how many of  America's  cities came about and  how beautiful they can be when not roared through at freeway speeds  As my book also shows you the old highway and transportation systems that once used to connect us to our brothers and sisters, hopefully it will be planting even more seeds  for you that see an America that can rebuild itself as a wonderland around the National Bicycle Greenway. 

Thanks in advance for your having an open mind as you read the words ahead  I look forward  to the day when how we move about in our lives stops taking from the planet and instead improves the world for our children and all those who follow in our footsteps with the National Bicycle Greenway.

--

          

Wedding Bells for NBG Martin & Virginia

Virginia and I used the slow time of the holidays to show our commitment to one another and the world with a  wedding ceremony. Fortunately for us the honeymoon that followed occurred in nearby Spain, where there was sun. We escaped an Ireland that was paralyzed by a freak cold snap from Shannon, the only airport in the Irish nation or England that was in service at the time. 

Besides running "How America Can Bike and Grow Rich"  through a final editing pass, on the iPhone no less, I got to spend quality time with a woman who transcends the normal on countless levels. Toward that end, for example, as Virginia helped me with our  upcoming ride and helped me power through getting my book completed, we got word while we were away that she scored an 'A' on the complicated and demanding  optical exam she had just taken  at a Cambridge based university. Indeed great things are ahead of us, my  books, our ride and the NBG.  Big power. Big excitement.

THX for all of U and especially those who have sent their good wishes!!

May 24 Cincinnati NBG Day Firing Up!! Micro Schedule Here!!

The below is excerpted from our 2011 Mayors' Ride schedule. As such, we will be at Reser Bicycle with the 15-person Busycle on  Tuesday May 24. Note also that we have logo placed Queen City Bike, a cutting edge bicycle activist organization that is moving lots of energy out Cincinnati way. And  we look forward to getting the powerful Cincinnati Cycle Club involved again (there were scores of them in the picture you see below at Cincinnati City Hall during one of our campaigns)!!

This is going to be a w e s o m e !!

In addition, our 2011 micro schedule is now here. Bookmark

            http://hiwheel.posterous.com/2011-san-jose-to-washington-dc-mayors-ride-sc

 THX 4 all of U!!
-- 

2011 San Jose to Washington, DC Mayors' Ride Schedule

San Jose  Fri, 4/8

Palo Alto  Fri, 4/8

San Francisco Sat, 4/9

Oakland Sun, 4/10

Berkeley Sun, 4/10

Napa Sun, 4/10

Davis Mon, 4/11

Sacramento Tue, 4/12

Rancho Cordova Tue, 4/12

Folsom Tue,  4/12

Carson Sat, 4/16

Reno Sat, 4/16

Salt Lake Mon, 4/25

Boulder Th, 5/5

Denver Th, 5/5

Omaha Fri, 5/13

Des Moines Sun, 5/15

Chicago Fri, 5/20

Indianapolis Sun, 5/22

Cincinnati Tu, 5/24

Columbus Th, 5/26

Pittsburgh Sun, 5/29

Washington DC Sun, 6/5 

2011 SF to DC Honor Roll Logo Art Arrives & ..

We just received the graphic we will be running on our bus for those individuals who are supporting our ride with a donation. The list that follows it will be regularly updated: 

Virginia Krieg | Jim Spillane | John E Cabrera | Frank Flynn | Gerry Gras | Dana St James | John Oleary | Ron Bishop | Cathy & Wayne Douglass | David Erskine | John Dohner | Lori Yung | Don Looomis | Grey Lowell | Shawn Raymond | Don Armstrong | David Bajot | Rob Benson | Kitsten Flynn | Jim Thompson | Matt Criste | John Hartin | Manny Garcia | John & Elma Krieg

We also approved the blue line for the final "How America Can Bike and Grow Rich" cover!

            THX 4 all of U!! 

Cincinnati's Giants to Receive NBG & Busycle with their Firepower

Cincinnati promises to be the new hot spot in bicycle activism as our San Jose to Washington, DC, 9th annual National Mayors' Ride will soon be showing the Nation. For starters, the  voice of Cincinnati, Rob Currans, will do what he can to help us once again connect with one of his good friends, Cincinnati Mayor Mark Mallory.

And since Rob is switching careers, he thinks he can help us connect with some of his new  friends, in, of all places, the bicycle industry where he is now a manufacturer's rep!! Long a high level cyclist, he yearly cycles from the Ohio River to the Great Lakes at an average speed of just under 20 mph, Rob will be using his skills as a composer in a whole new way. 

http://www.tirediscounters.com/sounds.php

A man who has scored a number of films and done the  voice overs for countless well know national and regional commercials, with the shrinking economy, he is winding down a business that has been a decades long success in Cincinnati. Along the way, as he brought sales and an upleveled image to countless marketing concerns in the region, he rubbed elbows with innumerable shakers and movers. It will be this good will that will be sure to help him get his changed set of needs met. As he says good bye to the last of his employees, he is ramping up to bring to the cycling community what once was prized by the regional business community. 

It was the passion and  creativity that he translated into fun with his voice over skills that he now looks forward to bringing to the bicycle industry. Toward that end, as he  helps them buy something that has always filled a lot of his waking moments - bicycle goods, he also has another service he may offer them. If he can make it cost effective, he has designed a brilliant  phone call hold message service that he'd like to see bike shops take advantage of.

To hear a true master at work, click on the cartoon above to listen to to the character he long has entertained the Ohio metro with. 

The man Rob will be helping Cincinnati celebrate the Busycle  and our National Bicycle Greenway with in June is another man who lives his passion. From a very young age, Reser Bicycle Outfitters owner, Jason Reser has been consumed with bicycles. The former Ohio and Kentucky state mountain biking champion, Jason has always been a huge voice  in local bicycle advocacy.  So much so that he has been one of the main driving forces behind  Queen City Bike (QCB), a nonprofit bicycle advocacy organization that is building a huge fireball of support in his region.  

An organization committed to making the city Sir Winston Churchill called "America's most beautiful inland city", a fully bike friendly one, Jason wants QCB to rally their exploding membership together to receive us and the Busycle when we come through next June.  He even wants them to start doing fund raisers soon so they can host our Busycle demonstration rides in the highest of style. 

Go Cincinnati!!

While Cincy is already to starting to build the buzz for our arrival, and I haven't even talked about the booksinging events we foresee, other sponsors are getting in the  queue for the Busycle demonstration rides we will soon be making available for their cities.  Already we have opened negotiations in Napa, Oakland, Des Moines and Chicago..

         THX 4 all of U!! 

btw: Look soon for a Mayors' Ride schedule that is tentatively set to end in Washington DC  if we can satisfactorily firm up what we need from that changed endpoint....

btw2: In case you missed it, HERE is our 2011 Blog where this and all of this season's past news can be found.