Grab a Wheel
Grab-a-Wheel Joined: July 30th 2009
Logged in: May 24th 2010
Logged in: May 24th 2010
"Grab a Wheel" is used by cyclists when one cyclist offers to help another by cycling in front thus cutting down on the wind resistance the rear cyclist faces. What's so wonderful about the idea of 'grab a wheel" is that one cyclist is able to 'pull' another without expending any more energy than if they were traveling by themselves.
Likewise, when people are in need of inspiration, motivation, desire to take steps towards sustainable lifestyles, we feel that they simply need to 'grab a wheel'- to get pulled along by the wonderful and creative approaches to sustainability that others call their everyday life.
Click here to go back to www.grab-a-wheel.org
Our email address is: contact.grabawheel@gmail.com
Travel Blog Posts
Bridge of the Americas
Hello there to our loyal blog followes.. oh yes, I’m talking to the 3 of you. We HAVE MADE IT TO PANAMA! We crossed our 10,000km mark a few days ago and we celebrated our arrival in stlye at a swanky resort courtsy of the panamanian board of tourism. A true story. The room was for Finn and Alex, but that didn’t stop us from lounging by their pool, and drinking beers while watching movies atop 1000 thread count cotton sheets.. Yeah baby. But, as you can imagine, the 5 star treatment only lasted for about 36 hours, and now we are back to reality in a hostal. Anyhoo, we have big, mindblowing and possibly sad news. We are splitting our trip in two parts (the big news) and heading home to work for a ... read more
Oh the beach...
Nicholas bought himself a cute little netbook for his birthday in Mexico City so that we could do more creative writing, organise our videos and ofcourse, blog more. Unfortunately, not much of that has happened, although we ARE more caught up on Scrubs episodes. And though I’d like this blog entry to be witty and clever to make up for the fact that we haven’t written in so long, I fear this is going to simply a regurgitation of our latest adventures. Let us begin where we last left off… Lago Atitlan. Famed for it’s picturesque setting in the midst of volcanoes, we fully enjoyed the lazy lake-side way of life and the international culinary treats (pesto on ciabatta, green curry, friend rice… mmmmm). But with the addition of an ever so ambitious Swiss Stephan, we ... read more
The roads of Guatemala....
We had cycled less than 5 km in Guatemala when I found myself in a ditch with my bicycle on top of me- my pedal had gotten stuck on an extremely steep speed bump and the result was my doing a sideways summersault off the road. I suffered from a bruised ego and a couple minor cuts and scrapes, but as five Guatemalan gentlemen jumped off of mini buses and ran over to pull me and my bike up off the ground, I was more overwhelmed by the kindness of these fast talking strangers than the physical pain I found myself in. Indeed this contrast between physical pain and breathtaking beauty was a re-occurring theme throughout our 3 day 100km journey from the Mexican border to Quetzaltenango. With our chains straining in our lowest gear, we ... read more
It's immigratin' time
As we prepared ourselves for our 3rd border crossing of the trip, we once again asked many questions but took many of the answers with a grain of salt. It’s hard to believe, but just 3 months ago we were preparing ourselves to cross the Mexican border through Tijuana, and the advice that we got came in the form of strict warnings. Even the immigration guy who stamped our passports and issued our visas (who was Mexican by the way) told us that ¨the pavement gets so hot in Baja that bike tires just explode.¨ Needless to say, the guy wasn’t a cyclist. And definitely wasn’t getting a job working for the Mexican board of tourism any time soon. Others warned for us to proceed with extreme caution: ¨the roads in baja are shoulderless, and the ... read more
Teotihuacan!
It's been a while since we last blogged. I blame it on not being on the bike... It seems we've been doing a lot of 'resting' these days, though we've definitely earned our padded bike shorts on the few days where we have been on our saddles. Since San Miguel we traveled through Guanajuato, Queretaro, Puebla, Tlaxcala, Hidalgo states to arrive at S'mac's in Huajuapan de Leon, Oaxaca. (S'mac is Sarah M, a hilarious energy filled friend of Nicholas' from his time in Fukui. Huajuapan is a town of 80,000 very religious people in Northern Oaxaca state). We took a side bus trip to Mexico City (we don't bike NORTH) and spent our first real days as a legitimate tourist in the big city. As always, pictures say it better than words, and so I'll end ... read more
Our San Miguel Family
So here we are in San Miguel, exactly a week after we first packed our bags to leave this city. We've made so many wonderful friends here, and every day has presented yet another reason for us to stay a little while longer... We've had so many memories from our extended stay here: from learning how to make mozarella to Unitarian Universalism philosophy, from participating in a drum circle to butchering a 180kg pig... Throughout it all, we've had huge smiles on our faces and plenty of good food in our bellies. There is a wonderful newspaper here called the 'Atencion'. After being encouraged by several people to write an article about our trip, we finally managed to put our creative brains together.... The following is the article we submitted: Two days before our departure we ... read more
Bye Baja!
The pretty mountains lay as a beautiful backdrop as we set off from Mazatlan (our first stop on mainland Mexico), but came rushing to the forefront much faster than we anticipated. Before we knew it, we were back to the oh-so-familiar granny gear, cranking away with all our might, at the blistering pace of 6km/h (as a reference, most people jog at that speed). But slowly we made it through Tecuala, Tepic, Jala (Holla!), Tequila (yes, like the drink) and finally arrived in the far shoulder of a 6 lane highway, in Guadalajara. ... read more
watch out dogs!
Like oil and water.. Bare feet and dog pooh, like ice cream and pickles, like hippies and deodorant.... It's like that.. It's like cyclist and dogs. Some things just don't go together.. Is it the wheels? the bright colored shirts? Maybe dogs dislike the tight spandex shorts (let's face it, they aren't for everyone). Faster than a pedestrian but slower than a car, maybe we just confuse the dogs. And with limited options for expressing themselves dogs choose barking and chasing as their standard reaction. So while squeezing into the narrow shoulder of a Mexican road with a truck on one side and an angry dog on the other. What do you do? Well, obviously you start throwing fake rocks!! Because throwing real rocks is mean: after all its not their fault, dogs will be dogs.. ... read more
San Ignacio river
It's been 9 days since we last blooged and it's hard to think of how to begin recounting the adventures. We've made it to La Paz- our final stop along the Baja Peninsula before we trek it over to the mainland. The city with it's quaint cobblestone Malecon (boardwalk) and abundance of palapas on the beach is the perfect place to recharge our batteries (both electronic and human), and catch our breath. Our time in Baja California Sur has been quite different from our initial Mexican introduction in el Norte. The Southern desert, having been hit by hurricane Jimana just two months ago, is a vibrant green highlighted by pink, yellow and purple (allergy inducing) flowers. We've crossed the Sierra Gigante mountain range (complete with almost 340 degree switchbacks), sun bathed on pristine beaches (though flanked ... read more
