Category: Sustainable

Burn Calories, Make Electricity

SportsArt Fitness, a designer and manufacturer of cardiovascular and strength equipment for home and commercial use, has a machine that will let you burn calories while making electricity in the process.

The SportsArt Fitness S770 Pinnacle Trainer continues the “greening-up” of exercise equipment, by producing its own power to run the machine for exercising at a gym or at home.

The S770 features include a self-generating design that requires no outside power to operate. The machine features forward/backward and medial/lateral motion, which can improve core stability and balance and engages multiple muscle groups, also produces electricity to power it, including a heart rate monitor.

Here is a device that is good for the heart and good on the wallet as it won’t cost anything to run it.

SportsArt Fitness Official Website

Is Plywood the Next Big Bicycle Material?

Bonobo Bicycle

This year we’ve seen bikes that have simulated wood grain and even bikes made of bamboo in a variety of form factors. Now words comes that a couple of manufacturers are working with plywood, a very odd choice for frame building at first thought, but isn’t plywood technically a composite material?

Well, it isn’t carbon fiber but plywood has advantages in that it is strong, can be made into shapes that typical wood boards can’t, and it has a springiness as well. Polish designer Stanislaw Poloski has created a one-of-a-kind bike called the Bonobo, which is made of curved, laminated layers of plywood. The bike, which weighs about 16 kilograms, is fitted with a single-speed drivetrain and disc brakes. Continue reading Is Plywood the Next Big Bicycle Material?

Fitness Journal: Fix it, Don’t Trash it

When did we become such a throwaway society? For most people, once a cell phone, computer, appliance or even a bicycle frame breaks, they are just chuck it into the trash instead of taking the time to fix the item. For many products it remains cheaper to buy a new one than it is to try to repair the broken one. This fact is especially true with electronics, but bike frames are a bit different. Depending on the type of break and material, a frame can be repaired and often for a fraction of the cost of a new frame – even carbon fiber.

Over the years, we’ve come across a number of companies that either offer the service of frame repair as their only business, while some frame builders offer the service on the side.

We’ve combined a list of a few companies that will let you fix it instead of trashing it:

Continue reading Fitness Journal: Fix it, Don’t Trash it

Not so Trashy Swimsuits

We live in a disposable society, no doubt about it. Last year’s fashions end up piling up until they’re donated or thrown away. But what if you could send your swimsuit to the composite pile?

That’s the idea behind designer Linda Loudermilk’s new design, which made its debut at the Haute Natured sustainable-swimwear show during Fashion Week in Miami recently. While the show featured swim attire from several designers, reportedly being made from recycled plastic bottles, wood pulp and even parachutes (how 1980s sounding), Loudermilk’s design is made from plant starch, so it will biodegrade.

The suits reportedly can break down in about 180 days when buried underground, so it should be fine for a season in the sun and pool. It gives a whole new meaning to trashy swimsuit.

[Via Cnet: Compostable swimsuits make a splash in Miami]

Interbike: DannyShane to Preview New Products for 2012

Oh Danny Boy, Las Vegas is calling, as eco-conscious cycling apparel company DannyShane has announced that it will previewing its 2012 cycling apparel line at next month’s Interbike International Trade Expo in Las Vegas. The innovative cycling apparel company is known for its product line that features a proprietary fabric blend of 50 percent bamboo white ash (BWA), a natural, eco-friendly performance fiber. The BWA is infused into every weave of jersey fabric, providing natural UV protection that is breathable and moisture wicking.

“We are excited to return to Interbike and look forward to previewing our 2012 spring line at North America’s largest cycling trade event,” said Shane Hunt, president of DannyShane. “We unveiled the DannyShane 2011 line at last year’s expo, and the industry and consumer response since then has been phenomenal. Our new line builds on that success with new, innovative designs and a continued commitment to capturing the wonderment of cycling’s past in our styling, while using cutting-edge, eco-performance fabrics.” Continue reading Interbike: DannyShane to Preview New Products for 2012

One Street Goes the Right Way By Launching Components Arm

Getting bikes to those who need them is just one way that One Street helps, but now the organization has announced that it has launched a new program to help address the issue of what happens after bike parts wear out. Now the international bicycle advocacy nonprofit has launched One Street Components. This new components arm of the organization has become necessary as One Street’s Social Bike Business program provides durable transportation bikes to impoverished people in communities around the world.

Each local program starts by refurbishing used bikes as they move toward manufacturing their own steel frames, forks and racks. This local manufacturing will be necessary as the bike industry no longer produces quality, affordable transportation bikes. But an alarming pattern has been hindering even the refurbishing stage. Continue reading One Street Goes the Right Way By Launching Components Arm

For the Dearly Departed Surfboard

We all bemoan when a favorite workout item reaches the end of the line, and in many ways whether it is a bike or surfboard, it can feel like a friend passing. But what happens next we ask? While new products often get a lot of attention, less is given to what happens when the new new becomes old? The truth is that much of our new materials aren’t so easy to recycle, and many products that are made from recycled materials can’t be further reused.

Designer/surfer/artist Christopher Anderson is drawing attention to this fact with a new project he’s calling “1000 Surfboard Graveyard,” which aims to provoke new ideas and generate a conversation about the sustainability of high performance surfboards, while looking at their carbon emissions and non-renewable resource consumption and finally their eventual disposal into a landfill

The artist is currently trying to collect and install 1,000 broken surfboards on Garie Beach in New South Wales, Australia as part of a project with Surfrider Foundation Australia. We’ll be sure to follow this story and look for the results.

1000 Surfboard Graveyard Blog

Plastic Fantastic Recycled Bike

There are materials that are just easy to recycle. And while plastic isn’t quite gold, as in it can be used over and over again and forged into new shapes, Israeli design student Dror Peleg has a golden idea with the Frii concept bicycle. While working for his degree at Bezalel Academy of Art and Design in Jerusalem, Peleg came up with the idea for a bicycle made of recycled plastics using injection molding technology.

The Frii is a single speed city bike that looks unique and has some very unique characteristics. While recycled materials aren’t new, Peleg’s idea is that the bike could be manufactured locally for local use, thus further making a very green product in the process. Components could be injection molded into modular shapes that snap or otherwise connect together, resulting in a strong, yet lightweight and very colorful bike. Continue reading Plastic Fantastic Recycled Bike

Fitness Journal: Transform a Belly of Flab With a Bag of Sand

There was a workout routine we had been hearing about, and had mixed opinion about. It was called the “sandbag training,” which essentially is a sort of weight lifting routine but instead of lifting metal or other solid weights, it involved using a bag of sand.

As with any weight lifting regime, it is important to do things correctly or you could cause serious injury. Additionally, it seems that not sand is created equal. And there are other factors to consider including the fineness of the sand and the types of bags that will be used. Essentially sandbag training is about bags of sands within bags, making for a flexible but still consistent weight.

(Video after the jump) Continue reading Fitness Journal: Transform a Belly of Flab With a Bag of Sand

New Spin on Bamboo Bicycle

We’ve seen many bicycles designs that incorporate sustainable materials, including bamboo. But most are built around traditional frame designs. Now Alexander Vittouris, a master’s student at Monash University in Australia had devised a three-wheeled vehicle made of the quick growing grass.

He is in the running for the Australian Design Award for his concept bicycle. Rather than take the time to harvest, weave and compress the bamboo, which has traditionally been needed to make the grass conform to traditional bicycle frame design, Vittouris instead made his vehicle conform to the shape of the bamboo – creating a skeleton frame from the long strands.

In other words, his Ajiro bicycle was essentially grown in the backyard of his Malvern East home. After taking shape, traditional bike parts were incorporated, so the result is a front-pedal design that resembles a recumbent bicycle.

And while Vittouris admits the first concept didn’t come cheap, he does envision a future of mass-grown vehicles, planted in fields.

[Via WAtoday.com.au: Bamboozled? Give it a grow]

Bicycle Furniture

Furniture maker Seth Deysach has created something that combined his two passions, working in wood and cycling. The result is the Lagomorph bike, a single-speed that Deysach designed as part of the Object Society Design Show that was held last year.

While he had made a single bike in a single size (and again it was a single speed), the designer is now taking special orders for his wooden-framed bike, and even offering custom options. His Lagomorph bike features a traditional triangle frame, which is bridal jointed and glued together and fastened together, much as how a chair is assembled. Makes sense given his furniture background. Continue reading Bicycle Furniture

Artist Turns 72 Beer Cans into Functioning Surfboard

The Beer Can Surfboard by Richard Quinn Morrison (Photo: Richard Morrison/Enviro Surf Art Series)

Here’s one way to recycle those empty aluminum beverage cans from your next party. Surfer and artist Richard Quinn Morrison, who started the Enviro Surf Art Series, has created a surfboard using 72 empty beer cans from six brands salvaged from a local bar. Morrison created the board with the help of surfboard maker Gary Seagraves. The 6’2” board uses a rocket fish design with twin fins and a swallow tail, and it was designed to be functional. Watch this video of how he put the board together. The board will be put to use soon to test out its sea legs.

ENVIRO SURF ART SERIES (FACEBOOK)

FROM 72 RECYCLED BEER CANS COMES A SWEET SURFBOARD (TREEHUGGER)

 

Tees Worthy of an Epoch

It might be easy to dismiss a golf tee as a small part of the game, but the pros go the extra distance with the Epoch Golf Tees from Evolve Golf. The company lives up to its name by creating tees that will stand the test of the time and help players evolve to the next level.

Since 2004 the tees have been used in 127 wins on tour. The revolutionary/evolutionary tees feature “radius posts” that span the width of the ball’s dimples, and this creates the lowest coefficient of friction of any tee currently on the market, and thus eliminates deflection at the moment of impact, while further increasing ball speed and control off the tee. The result is longer shots on the fairway.

The Epoch are available in three lengths – 3.25-inchs, 2.75-inches and 1.5-inches and are priced from $3.99 to $6.99. But can you put a price on evolution?

Evolve Golf Official Website
[Via BeSportier.com: Professional Golf Tees : Epoch Golf Tees]