Photo: TheLizardQueen

We're inside the 2 week runup to our trip to Ireland. This is a trip that we originally wanted to take 10 years ago when we got married. At that time, we didn't have the money, so we told ourselves we'd go 5 years later. Of course, by that time, we were busy and, while we could have charged the trip and paid it off, we couldn't afford to pay for it outright, so we postponed it 5 more years.

A little over a year ago, we set up a savings plan and started siphoning money off for this trip. After a significant amount had piled up a few months ago, we started booking portions of the trip and paying for them from that account. The flights ($2500 total), hotels (another $1400), car rental (more than a rental car should cost), etc. were all checked off the list with absolutely no debt incurred.

We're going to be doing the kind of travel that we've come to realize really matches how we like to do things. We book hotels smack in the middle of relatively large cities and then see and do things nearby, working out for day trips as it makes sense.

For this trip, we're actually going to spend time headquartered in 3 different cities: Cork, Limerick and Dublin.

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Photo: Fanch

At the moment, I'm inclined to pretty much put my DIY electric bike on hold. This first appeared to be a simple project.

1. Buy a cheap bike
2. Buy a hub motor kit
3. Install the wheel and connect the basic connectors.
4. Ride away.

First, the original bike didn't have enough room between the forks, so I bought a replacement bike after measuring quite a few.

Then, today, I finally had the time to put on the tire, install the motor, and hook it all together. My mom, Shelly and my sister headed out shopping for the day and the garage is mostly cleaned out after last weekend.

I got the wheel installed, and then wired the controller, the motor and the throttle together (they were just clip-together connectors) and went to hook the charged up batteries.

It was at that point that a bright flash of light blinded me. The smell of ozone filled the air and my fingers, newly scorched black and burned by the arc, dropped the connectors. Despite there really only being one way to hook this all together, something is apparently very wrong with one or more of the components.

Then, apparently proving which side of the scientific divide I'm on, I tried it again.

I think there was more ozone, but less scorching the second time.

This, combined with the fact that I nearly lit my pants on fire by casually tossing a couple of AA batteries into my pocket along with my keys a couple of weeks ago, thus shorting them out has me thinking it might be time for a refresher course in battery safety. Does anyone have some aloe vera?

A topic came up a few weeks ago during my Sunday breakfast that entered my brain again yesterday. I was filling up my truck at a Holiday station that advertises their BluePlanet&tm; "Earth-friendly gasoline".

I paid at the pump like I always do and was asked to choose an octane, if I wanted a receipt and then was asked the question that prompted my greater question: do you want a $9 car wash?

I'm wondering why they're not also asking me if I want to buy a carbon offset and neutralize my gas consumption?

After all, PetSmart's little keypad asks me if I want to donate $1.50 to homeless pets every time I buy dog food.

I'm just surprised that all of these gasoline companies that are trying to appear more "green" aren't already doing this. They'd just have to pass it through to another program. And, the $9 car washes are proof-positive that, even when the filled gas tank is running $41 (and people are complaining about it), they'll *still* add on the car wash and make it an even $50.

Now, I know that many of the carbon offset programs are a scam. So are a lot of other charities. That doesn't make the *concept* invalid. There's got to be an organization that would *actually* sink the appropriate amount of carbon into trees or other methods in a verifiable way for a fee.

That's the fee I'd like to see on the pump. I've seen offset costs between $1 and $30 a ton tossed around. Whatever the actual cost, if it's between that range, a 20 gallon tank of gas puts the carbon offset at or below that $9 car wash. The PR win alone would be worth it for any one of those gas station chains and they'd get that credit just for making it *possible* for their customers to do the right thing.

This weekend, despite removing 15" of snow from my driveway, the calendar convinced me that the weather will be changing in 4-6 weeks to something that's more suited to riding atop a bicycle. And, given my stated intent to get my *electric* bike built "this winter", I needed to get off my butt and at least get the parts ordered.

So, I ordered the 600W hub motor kit from We're Electrified. It's initially going on the cheap Target bike ($100 or so). That's to help establish a baseline. That this project can be done and works with a clunky cheap bike, ridden by a guy who's never likely to be much smaller than 200 pounds. It looks like the total cost for the project will be about $500. The bike was $100, the kit $350 and the shipping $50 (lead batteries aren't cheap to ship).

Once it's built, I'm going to be using a plug-in electric meter to track the kilowatt hours required per mile traveled. That's for a couple of reasons.

1. To know exactly how much this replacement commuting option costs and saves over driving the truck.
2. To be able to properly size a solar charging solution, rendering the commute powered by the sun.

It'd be easy to over or under estimate the size of the solar charging setup. I want it to match my actual commute fairly well.

Beyond the electric bike, I want to also get a gas moped of some sort. Either a "traditional" 49cc moped or something more "bicycle" styled like one of these or these. I'm also intrigued by this 3 wheeled electric vehicle. That kit, my electric bike and a gas bike would cost less than $4500, and provide a variety of options, ALL of them greener than my current truck. The point being a continuum of transportation options.

I'm still going to keep the pickup, because it's paid for and is useful for hauling cargo. However, I'd like to have it shift to occasional use (which has the side effect of it lasting longer) to be replaced by lighter options rather than trying to have a single vehicle for all of my needs. That "all-in-one" approach is what's led to so many SUV's on the road in the United States. Since we believe we can only have our one vehicle (per person of course), we insist that it can take care of everything we might possibly need.

As a result, instead of renting a van, the 1 time per year we need to transport a group of 7 adults somewhere, we drive around 364 other days of the year by ourselves in an 8 passenger SUV. Instead of considering an electric vehicle that will cover our needs for everything except for 2 trips to Grandma's a year (and renting a car for the long trip), we turn it down because it can't drive more than 150 miles in a day.

So, I'm taking a stab at incremental improvement. I'm not going to pretend that I'll somehow find myself willing to take up full human-powered cycling. I've tried that in the past and didn't get very far. I think the key is to treat this as something where you work toward improvement *over your current situation* instead of worrying about comparing to the ideal, you are making things better. Success needs to be anchored to the appropriate benchmark. And, that benchmark needs to be *your* starting point, not the perfect end point.

And with every gallon of gas not burned, you save 19 pounds of carbon dioxide from getting dumped into the air. If I replace 105 round trips to work, that's a literal ton of CO2 that stays out of the air.

Now, I just have to figure out how to get a decent MP3 speaker setup strapped to it by the time I'm ready to roll.