The wheel...

"When man invented the bicycle he reached the peak of his attainments. Here was a machine of precision and balance for the convenience of man. And (unlike subsequent inventions for man's convenience) the more he used it, the fitter his body became. Here, for once, was a product of man's brain that was entirely beneficial to those who used it, and of no harm or irritation to others. Progress should have stopped when man invented the bicycle". Elizabeth West, Hovel in the Hills


I've been in Hammamet, Tunisia, for almost 3 weeks now. At first I was excited about the idea of spending a month or so in an Arabic country thinking it would provide enough stimulation for writing and getting myself into a travelling spirit, again.
A few km outside of Hammamet, Port Yasmine area turned out to be quite a dull place.
A randomly series of arabic-themed hotels, resorts, shops, and horse-powered cars, it gives the sensation of being in one low budget American film about the Griswolds family on holidays, The Groundhog Holiday I would call it, all very cheesy, very cliché, very soul less. I was about to say that it feels like there was no planning or a vision on what they wanted to create of this place, but it actually seems like this is what they were after. All these constructions seems pretty evenly built with a tad of bad taste, a few cupfuls of lack of personality and given one good mixed into one soul less American-wannabe Arabic salad!
It has, instead, given me a fair bit of time to check the web and make something useful out of it. So I've been trying to look for interesting reads, websites about interesting bicycling or charity projects, and a few arty, cycling or culinary blogs. I've also been trying to use these cyber social networks to my advantage. Those which seem like dangerous ways to waste your time and to get your girlfriend to find out things she doesn't necessarily needs to know, can be quite a useful tool in spreading the word around about important projects, information, advertising and promoting events, and also a good provider of healthy entertaining... if you’re willing to look for such. It’s all there, you just need to wonder and have a look
I’ve also been thinking about my blog and what I should be posting these days when fiddling around on the boat takes the most of my time and life off the boat consists on taking the 5 minute walk to the gelateria after dinner. I realized is hopeless trying to find interesting things to say when nothing really interesting is happening here. But there’s plenty of things going on out there worth having a look, entertain yourself for a while and share it with friends and others. So I thought of sharing some here every now and then...
Last month as some of you might know, I rode across the UK along with other 23 cyclist in what was called the Slow Food, Fast Ride... We were lucky enough to have Tom on the team as the designated chef. Apart from a few good meals, Tom’s an interesting character and worth having a chat or two. He rode from NY to Rio a few years ago in the search for the perfect meal and wrote a book about his trip called The Hungry Cyclist. You can check his website here.
From Tom’s FB last week I read about the Copenhagen Wheel Project. Which is, as you can see in the website, a pretty cool thing. They’re basically “transforming your ordinary bicycle into a hybrid e-bike that also provides feedback on pollution, traffic congestion and road condition in real time”. Checking out the video on their site, I couldn’t help but wonder on all this technology and specially the iPhones.
A year ago I saw an Iphone listening to a music on the TV, searching for the album in the internet and buying the album from Itunes store. Just like that, 10 minutes. Although from that day I’ve seen many other awesome tricks by the little black thingy, that day Impressed, and scared! I started joking about the little tool which (or maybe I should referring to it as a WHO) in a few years would threaten human kind. Admire the machine, but I want to think that this dependency a lot of people are developing around these Smart phones today can be quite mistuning for man and its reality.
I had a look at the Copenhagen Wheel Project last week and kept thinking about it for a while. I’m left speechless almost on a daily basis with stories and news about humans just doing what they are suppose to do I guess, progressing. I admire this type of forward thinking and I’m thankful of these pioneers who have taken us where we are today. But sometimes I think is just too much. Watching the video today and the little iPod connected to the bike I just felt overwhelmed. Is that really necessary? I thought. Would a perfect invention like the bicycle, ever need an iPod connected to it? I don’t think so. Maybe, as the quote as the beginning says, “progress should’ve stopped when man invented the bike” .