tap root green server farm

Schwinn Earth Urban Commuter

This baby hit the scene at Interbike - Schwinn's bamboo commuter bike!

Looks like the tubes are bamboo and the lugs are the natural version of carbon fiber. Look closely at those saddle bags and you'll see those are Brooks. The bags are simple, but a little on the expensive side.

Hot Headed?

Here's one about the glass being half full - Recent advances in battery technology has made rechargables so powerful, they can break your equipment!

Petzl recently announced that users of MYO series headlamps made before the end of June 2008 need to steer clear of AA/LR6 rechargables. More details here from Climbing Magazine.

Headlamps simply rock. They keep your hands free so you can handle your business AND they light up where you are looking. Get an LED one and power it with rechargable batteries and you are really in business!

But check your brand and model to make sure you don't catch your hair on fire.

Got a headlamp story? Share it with us in the comments.

Commuting by Skateboard Gaining Popularity

You might have noticed a few people arriving to work by skateboard. If you haven't, get ready.

Seems that this trend is gaining popularity and for good reason. Skateboards are:

• Cheap.
• Fun as heck.
• Being made from bamboo and other sustainable materials.
  
• About 3 to 4 times as fast as walking.
• Incredibly portable.
• Great at making you look cool.

Roll into work on a nice-looking longboard, lay it up against the wall, and let the conversations start. A great longboard is truly a work of art and something to be proud of.

And a proper commuter skateboard is not one of those potato chip deals with tiny wheels. These babies have larger wheels for smooth rolling and long decks for a stable and silky ride.

If you're traveling only a few miles, you might want to check one out.

• Arbor skateboards
• Comet skateboards
• Sector 9 skateboards

Your Story about the Outdoors

Have a cool story about being outdoors?  Share it with the Defenders of Wildlife and get some cool gear from REI, amongst other things.  Check out the full story from our climbing buddies here - Your Lands, Your Wildlife, Your Story

Fix Your iPod Shuffle for Podcasts

Two things are probably the greatest advances in sporting in the last decade:

The iPod Shuffle is incredibly small, light, and energy efficient. Podcasts are Internet radio shows about every topic under the sun. Put the two together and you can listen to a show about biking while enjoying a great bouldering session, or vice versa.

Of course, something so great can not go unscathed. Apple's iTunes decided to rain on the podcast parade by making them unloadable to your Shuffle by default. You have to manually OK them every time instead. Fail!

Here is a script you can run to fix this. Take the text below, paste it into notepad, save it as a .js extention, and you are good to go. You can drag it into your start menu for easy finding.  Make sure you replace the playlist name in the first line with your own.

Just run it before uploading your Podcast playlist to your shuffle and it will fix everything. Smart!

Tha Code - 

var playlist_name = "_UnplayedPodcasts";

var iTunes = WScript.CreateObject("iTunes.Application");

var sources = iTunes.Sources;

var playlists = sources.ItemByName("Library").Playlists;

var playlist = playlists.ItemByName(playlist_name);

var tracks = playlist.Tracks;

for (i = 1; i <= tracks.Count; i++) {

    tracks.Item(i).ExcludeFromShuffle = false;

}

Stainless Steel Still Tops

Runner's World latest issue (October, 2008) did a nice review of different water bottles. All kinds of materials were covered and the expert's take is that stainless steel is safest.

Of important note -

• Sigg makes aluminum bottles and they have liners... Liners that nobody seems to know what they are made of. Eh, I'll pass until I know more.
• The lightweight plastic bottles that drinking water often comes in should only be used once and then thrown away.

Check out a copy of the magazine to get the full scoop.

Just When You Thought it was Safe...

California's Governator recently announced he was cutting the budget for keeping the beaches clean by almost a million dollars, due to fiscal issues. Funny, since those same California beaches provide far more than that amount in tourism.

Let those beaches get dirty and you're going to lose much more money than what you're cutting.

Still no news on how long it will be until it is safe to go in the Texas waters after Hurricane Ike. California is known for it's surfers, but Texas has a nice surf and beach scene as well. I surf from Galveston to Corpus Christi on occasion and I can tell you I don't want to bump into animal carcasses or floating oil drums. I'm betting on it not being safe until December. Yuck.