The MindRider Helmet can read your mind as you bike to work. That’s right–with the help of an EEG sensor that displays your stress levels, it tells you how your mind is reacting to your commute.

A sensor translates your mind’s engagement but lighting up from green to red and the results are linked up with your smartphone so you can see them on your MindRider app after you bike to work.

The app shows you red hotspots, where you’re most focused and when you’re the most relaxed via green “sweet spots” when you bike to work. It can give you all sorts of insights like where you need better bike lanes and where pot holes, tractor trailers, and road construction stressed you out in your morning commute.

“It indicates your mental state by flashing a visual vocabulary of traffic lights,” says MindRider inventor Arlene Ducao, reported in Wired. “Green is low stress, red is high stress and blinking lights indicate panic.”

The first MindRider was invented at MIT and since then the inventors have been working to come up with cool lightweight helmets that show how your mind reacts to your favorite activities. Their Kickstarter campaign is going on right now.

But the helmet isn’t just for your morning commute. You can use it in all sorts of other activities like rock climbing or skateboarding to see at which points you’re the most engaged. It can also be used to share your routes with friends to show the best bike routes in your city. The helmet uses Neurosky Mindset biosensor innovation in wearable technology to pick up ten types of brain waves. Ducao hopes the next step will be expanding the mental states that the helmet tracks.

Related on EcoSalon

Plan a Biking Vacation, See the World By Bike

10 Infographics on Bikes and Biking

In Celebration of Bike to Work Day

Images: Ben Tudhope

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It’s no news that cycling is good for you.

It gets you outside. It keeps you out of your car, which means fewer emissions. It brings you into a community of people. It makes you active. Above all, the simple act of biking often is a recipe for feeling good: try cycling on a sunny afternoon without breaking a smile.

Cycling isn’t just a choice to being greener or healthier; it’s a lifestyle, a thing that, if you’re luck, truly gets incorporated into your everyday.

But to start riding, you need a bicycle.

Look no further than Papillionaire, a Melbourne-based, women-led company that recently brought their operations to the U.S., starting with a shop in Brooklyn. Their Dutch-style bikes are sleek and simple, the kind of bicycle you want to ride and want to be seen on.

It’s not just any bike company. Papillionaire’s goal is making cycling easy and accessible to all, especially the one demographic that often gets left out: women. For a variety of reasons, females are a minority in the traditional cycling market. Given cycling’s benefits, and the fact that women who bike 30 minutes a day have a lower risk of breast cancer, that’s something that needs to change.

Don’t believe that there’s a market for women’s focused bike products? Papillionaire is run with women in mind, and the company’s attitude has helped them bring in a predominantly female customer base – in Australia it’s 80 percent and in the US it’s 60-70 percent. In both places that’s a significant number, and as they grow, we can hope that the female interest in cycling does as well.

Their bicycles are drool-worthy–the kind of thing you want to take out for a spin the second you see them. And that’s how a good bike should be. If you aren’t inspired to ride it, you won’t use it.

If you’re not in Brooklyn, you can track down one of their dealers around the U.S. and also shop Papillionaire online, and even order a bike and get it sent straight to your doorstep.

Intrigued? Here is a selection of what Papillionaire has to offer:

Images: Papillionaire

The post Bikes Geared at Women – A Brooklyn Cycle Shop With Flair appeared first on EcoSalon.

So many microbrews…so little time.

Two of Portland’s favorite pastimes? Beers and bikes, which is why it makes sense that the two would come together in a guidebook, intended not just for tourists but locals with an affinity for exploring the wide world of microbrews on two wheels. Hop in the Saddle is just that guidebook.

Whereas most guidebooks focus simply on destinations, Hop in the Saddle is just as much about how to get there as what to do when you arrive.

“Cycling is the best way to explore any city. You’re out in the open instead of being hidden inside a vehicle where you can’t interact as directly with the world around you. On a bike you notice things like which plants are blooming at certain times of the year and the rainbow knee-high socks of the rider in front of you. In Portland, you’re smelling coffee roasting and beer brewing as you ride. You’re hearing urban chickens. On a bike you get a real sense of the way a city’s designed and what matters to the people who live there,” says author Lucy Burningham.

With a focus on local drink culture, the guidebook is also an exploration of a thriving beer scene.

“Portland has 51 breweries within city limits, more than any other city in the world, which means there’s plenty of beer being made in every corner of town. Beer drinkers have plenty of choices when it comes to finding fresh, locally brewed beer. And this is a town that celebrates quality and innovation. Brewers are constantly using new ingredients and methods to make surprising, thought-provoking beers. As a beer writer, there’s never a dull moment,” says Burningham.

Combining insider knowledge of the city’s best tasting rooms, where to find rare bottles and which top chefs have a secret beer stash with detailed bike routes and maps, this is the kind of guidebook that will certainly make other velo and hop aficionados jealous.

Images: Hop in the Saddle

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Life on two wheels. 

EcoSalon reader Kristin Bott rocks a sundress at the Portland Short Track Series.

As she puts it, “It rains for nine months of the year in Portland. Not an exaggeration. So when summer comes, the whole city celebrates. Every year, the folks behind the Portland Short Track Series  have a ‘summer casual night’ when they encourage racers to ‘Leave the lycra at home and come race in your Monday best’- casual threads: oversized surf trunks, colorful skirts, double-rainbow tie dye tees, knitted socks… anything goes. I lack tie-dyes and surf trunks, but I do have a couple of sundresses, and I rarely wear skirts, but it seemed a good fit.”

On the Move documents our life on two wheels. Have your own On the Move worthy photo? Send it our way! Email pictures tocontact@ecosalon.com.

Image: Richard Rosko

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Life on two wheels.

Elly Blue, cycling advocate, writer and woman behind Taking the Lane, rocks not only two wheels, but wheels that manage to pull a futon. When was the last time you put your bike to work like that?

On the Move documents our life on two wheels. Have your own On the Move worthy photo? Send it our way! Email pictures to contact@ecosalon.com.

Image: Neighborhood Notes

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Life on two wheels.

Fatima Lwany is an art director specializing in fashion. Along with biking to work everyday, she is in constant pursuit to reduce her carbon footprint in all aspects of her life.

We just think she’s smokin’ hot.

On the Move documents our life on two wheels. Have your own On the Move worthy photo? Send it our way! Email pictures to contact@ecosalon.com.

The post On the Move: Los Angeles appeared first on EcoSalon.

All over the world, bike powered energy is being used to burn calories and produce clean wattage.

Cycling is a massively popular pastime, means of transport, and sporting activity. Millions of people use two wheels to get around, have fun, and get a carbon-neutral adrenalin rush. Now, in places and spaces all the world, energy generated by pedaling is being turned into electricity to power leisure and entertainment equipment.

In the UK, pop-up carbon-free movie theaters are being powered by the audience. Open-air cycle-in cinemas are appearing at British festivals and art spaces promoting a “celluloid kills cellulite” type experience. One of the organizers of these cycle-led events is Magnificent Revolution, a collective of artists, musicians, designers, engineers and ecologists that run workshops about renewable technology and micro-power generation.

We all love to relax in front of the TV, but some places want you to pedal to earn your entertainment. The Cottage Lodge in New Forest, England, has introduced a bike-powered television for guests. Built from a reclaimed ship from the 17th century, the Cottage Lodge fuses sustainability and media very creatively.

At the other end of the “leisure time” scale, a prison in Phoenix, Arizona uses Pedal Vision, which is also a pedal-powered TV system. But there’s no choice for these guests: to watch their favorite shows, inmates have to cycle while positioned in front of the TV set. Some see it as unfair making the inmates cycle to watch the box, but the box-watching prisoners are undeniably fitter and healthier. If they slack off, the TV shuts down.

So, thinking logically, when you’re cycling for the sake of it, can’t that energy be harnessed too? Of course it can. While you’re pedalling at the gym – or running, or on the cross-trainer – the kinetic energy that was used can be re-used for a constructive, emission-cutting purpose. Florida company ReRev retro-fits workout equipment to generate electricity: 30 minutes’ exercise produces 50 watt-hours of clean electricity. The Universities of Arkansas, Florida, Montana, North Texas, and Oregon all use its system.

The trailblazer for pedal-powered exercise systems was the super-environmentally-friendly Green Microgym in Portland, Oregon, which was the U.S.’s first human-powered gym. The gym offers further incentives for using its electricity-generating machines, some of which are fitted with iPads: each half-hour workout earns you a voucher to use at local businesses. Encouraging support for neighborhood stores, as well as being carbon-neutral (they also use solar power): we like.

Photos: Mon Labiaga Ferrer, Magnificent Revolution, Cottage Lodge, Green Microgym

Places & Spaces is a travel guide that will inspire you to carve out a vacation on your calendar. All of the gorgeous locations and accommodations in our guide share our concern for the environment. From tent glamping to lavish built environments, fair warning, you’ll feel compelled to pack your suitcase.

The post Places & Spaces: Where Pedal Power Is The HVAC appeared first on EcoSalon.

VideoAround the world on two wheels.

Be they humorous or touching, all of these videos are about celebrating life on two wheels, for work, for pleasure, for simplicity, proving that no matter where we are in the world, the bicycle is a beautiful thing.

USA with Euro flare: Le Velo

India + Zambia + Ghana + Guatemala + USA: With My Own Two Wheels

USA: Scrapertown

Ghana: Bikelordz

Scotland: Way Back Home

USA: If I Ride

Canada: Lifecycles

USA: Holstee LIFEcycle

Gambia: Freestyle Cycling

USA: LIFECYCLE: 365 Days in the Life of a Bike in NYC

Slovenia: Making of Orto Bikes

Sweden: Robo-Rainbow

China/USA: The Flying Pigeon

Denmark: Copenhagen: City of Cyclists

South Africa: South African Bicycle Portraits

Australia: Marry Me

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Climate Ride is a non-profit organization that organizes fully supported, charitable bike rides to support sustainable energy solutions, bike advocacy, and environmental causes. This is a special guest post from the Climate Ride NYC-DC 2012 participant Jenny Cooper of Environmental Defense Fund. 

Five days, four states, 300 miles of bicycle riding, and 200 hundred incredible people who are all working their tails off to address the greatest challenge of our time: climate change. With a perfect combination of mental and physical challenge, I couldn’t imagine a better adventure than Climate Ride, an epic bicycle ride from NYC to DC to raise awareness and funds for climate change solutions and sustainable transportation.

It’s the final day of my third Climate Ride. The ride yesterday took us through the hilly forests of southern Pennsylvania to the undulating landscape of rural northern Maryland dotted with horse farms. Today we’re pedaling 65 miles to the nation’s capital. Washington, DC here we come!

With nearly 200 riders this spring, Climate Ride is bigger than ever, drawing people from all over the country. We come from different geographic, professional, and cycling backgrounds, but two common threads tie us together: our dedication to finding effective solutions to climate change, and our love for bicycles (in some cases a newfound love!)

Growing up in Baltimore, Maryland and having family in New York, I’ve made the trek from DC to NYC upwards a hundred times in my life, whizzing up and down the I-95 corridor by train or by car. The architecture is largely homogenous and the sprawl rampant; I’m rarely inspired to stop along the way.

Riding my bike between the two cities with Climate Ride is the antithesis of that speedy and faceless experience. Back roads wind us through culturally rich and historically significant towns and across stunning river crossings once forded by Washington’s revolutionary army. We cycle past Amish farms, through state parks lush with trees and steeped in Civil War history, and end our five day adventure in our nation’s capital via a bike path along the Potomac river.

We’ve been biking 60+ miles each day, and each night we spend time as a group listening to speakers (nearly all of them riders) discuss their climate and sustainable transportation related work and explore creative ways to inspire and effect positive social change that will help avert catastrophic climate change.

From large scale sustainability initiatives at major universities, NOAA climate science updates, and climate change adaptation projects in developing countries, to bicycle infrastructure improvements across the globe, sustainable architecture, and climate literacy, the evening speaker series on Climate Ride offers an unparalleled opportunity to engage with people working on climate change issues from myriad angles. We push our physical abilities by day, and expand our brains by night.

Riding my bike connects me to the physical landscape, people, and culture in ways that cars simply can’t. As I pedal south from New York City, I feel the physical and cultural landscapes changing under my bike tires. The towering skyscrapers, potholes, and bustling streets of lower Manhattan shift to the rolling hills of New Jersey, which give way to the farmland and forests of Pennsylvania and the horse and buggies of Amish country.

As I ride through the urban jungle of New York City dotted with green spaces and chock full of high density housing, past the suburban McMansions of northern New Jersey, into Lancaster county where “car back!” becomes “buggy back!” and each house has its laundry hanging out to dry on a clothes line, I can’t help but think about how we design our public and private spaces and allocate resources to infrastructure improvements and construction.

Why do some people feel compelled to live in 10,000 square foot houses, while others are inclined to have 1,000 square foot abodes? Why are the small towns with mixed commercial and residential main streets so much more people-friendly than the strip malls of suburbia? Why are we converting farmland to housing developments scores of miles from supermarkets, schools, and other amenities? And why aren’t the vast majority of our roads built for people, rather than simply cars? Where are the sidewalks and bike lanes? How do these choices effect climate change, and how will our lives and the systems that sustain us be impacted by climate change?

We’ve built our houses, roads, factories, and bridges, based on predictable natural patterns—seasons, rain fall, wind, snow, heat, and cold. Climate change alters those natural patterns in unpredictable ways, threatening our natural and built environment, the very structures that sustain our lives. Climate Ride presents a rare opportunity, enabled by our bicycles, to confront these challenges and questions head on and brainstorm creative solutions. Hope to see you out on the road with us, pedaling our way to a sustainable future!

Learn more about Climate Ride and how you can participate and support the organization here. 

The post Climate Ride NYC-DC 2012: Pedaling for Sustainable Solutions appeared first on EcoSalon.

Two wheeled and ready for speed.

This week we celebrated both National Bike To Work Day, and the week before, National Bike Month (as we’ve done for years). We admit it – when it comes to the human-powered, pedal-driven single-track marvel known as the bicycle, we’re biased. But it’s not just about machine-worship. As these 6 stories from our archives demonstrate, bicycles can make our world a better place…

The goal for Asha 2012 is to provide bicycles to girls who have endured and transcended similar situations of slavery and abuse, in turn empowering them to take part in their communities, attend school and grow as strong women.

“We’ve found that girls tend to appreciate the bikes more and demonstrate greater maturity [owning the bicycles]. Women and girls deal endure and transcend tremendous abuse and unequal rights, especially in the developing world. We believe focusing on girls has the greatest overall impact on the community. We want to do everything we can to foster leadership and healing among heroic girls who’ve risen above challenging circumstances beyond their control,” says 88bikes co-founder Dan Austin.

88Bikes’ Asha 2012 Program: Empowering Girls With Bicycles

So why aren’t more of us riding? In many places, cycling for women is affected by a serious gender gap. But women have been riding through the ages, changing gender stereotypes along the way.

As Susan B. Anthony once said, “I think [the bicycle] has done more to emancipate women than anything else in the world. It gives a woman a feeling of freedom and self-reliance.”

From the first woman to bicycle around the world, to using the bicycle to promote cultural change, biking has been an empowering tool for women throughout the ages. In honor of female cyclists, here’s a visual look at women on two wheels from the last century.

Cycle Chic: Female Cyclists Through The Ages

One way you’ve broken barriers is by mountain biking across dangerous regions of Afghanistan. Can you talk a bit about the cultural implications of an act like that?

Well, Afghanistan is one of the few places in the world where women are not allowed to ride bikes. Around the world the bike is used as an effective vehicle for social justice and it was frustrating to realize that it just wasn’t something we could utilize in rural communities for school transportation, or for midwives and teachers. After working in Afghanistan for a couple of years I realized that I was constantly challenging gender barriers as part of my daily routine. When I’m in Kabul I like to walk as much as I can and interact with the Afghans I met in a more natural way. I ride a motorcycle which I bought in Kabul to avoid the traffic snarls that congest the city at rush hour, thanks to the lawlessness that permeates the country it means that you can ride on the sidewalk, or weave backwards through oncoming traffic, it’s all about the shortcuts. Being a foreign woman means that I find myself in a unique position as a hybrid gender. Men that still treat Afghan women as second class citizens will treat me as an equal and let me challenge gender barriers like riding my mountain bike because they are curious or intrigued but not threatened. It’s a little thing, but I also wanted to show another side of Afghanistan, the beauty, the adventure, and the possibility that what was once a tourist destination, could perhaps be again in the future if peace was ever achieved.

We Heart Our Readers: Shannon Galpin, Mountain2Mountain

The new Google feature delivers information about bike trails that have no motor vehicles, and the streets and routes recommended for cyclists, avoiding motor vehicle traffic, and steep hills. So far, the green and bike loving blogosphere has reacted with mixed reviews, deeming Google Maps for Bikes a good start, but not quite there yet.

We hope that Google’s Bike Maps feature will encourage car commuters to go green and get fit. Biking where you might have driven before can prevent tons of carbon emissions each year, while burning hundreds of calories an hour.

Ecomeme: Cyclists Get Google Maps Love

…bikes tend to appendage themselves to the foyer – hopefully,one with exposed brick. If you fit the demographics jimmied above, your bike has prolly become as elemental to your décor as that aviator chair from Restoration Hardware. Speaking of prolly, the hub of bicycle porn Prolly Is Not Probably takes an optimistic view of the bicycle cum purse rack: “[there’s] nothing like pristine track bikes in pristine apartments.”

Correction: that is, if – and only if – your track bike is sexy. That goes for your dirt bike, too. Here are 20 hot wheels that could be for display only.

Fashionable Bikes You Can Also Use For Home Decor

In early October, 10 miles of roads in East Hollywood, Downtown L.A., East L.A. and in between were closed down for regular traffic. Instead of cars and SUVs, cyclists, skateboarders and pedestrians took over the streets for a day of clean, fossil fuel-free fun. An estimated 130,000 people hit the streets for this third edition of CicLAvia, which has become a day of celebration for Angelenos from all walks of life. Even the city’s Mayor, Antonio Villaraigosa, put on his helmet and pedaled along, calling the event a good break for a city that’s “addicted to the single-passenger automobile.” All along the now-expanded course was music, food and games, like dodge ball and street chess. That certainly sounds like more fun than being stuck in traffic behind an angry SUV driver, don’t you think?

CicLAvia Gives Bikes & People The Right Of Way For A Day

Images: ClickFlashPhotos/Nicki Varkevisser, 88bikes, Mountain2Mountain, Toronto History, Knife & Saw, CicLAvia and Pixel Addict.

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