Celeste makes soap. She delivers much of it using her bike. She wanted a Big Dummy to replace the car she sometimes had to use to deliver her wares. We didn't have them yet, but she did not allow the possibility that we would forget her when they arrived. We advised she talk to her local shop. She did. Plus she cajoled. She pestered. She sent us apple butter and soap. Fast forward to yesterday, when she sent us this email:

To: surly
Subject: Local newspaper article

Dear guys,

Here's a local newspaper article on me and my Big Dummy.

Click here for the article

Celeste Cobena
The Soap Pedaler

Right on Celeste! Thanks for sending that.



What else are people doing with bikes? In Nicaragua, dude started a business.

"Pedaled Phone Calls provides the energetic entrepreneur the opportunity to literally go where the market is, be it a festival, a busy intersection, the big game. For those who have trouble getting around, the phone could come to them, as well. The station charges batteries as the vendor drives around."

Rad!

The article is here.

And that article links to this website, Just Soap, "The Pedal Powered Soap," which actually makes their soap using pedal power.

Bitchin'.

A few weeks ago another guy sent pictures of the special plug-in racks he had made so he could deliver wine on his Big Dummy. There are countless others we and you don't know about who are doing things with bikes that heretofore had been the territory of individualists reduced to the fringes of consideration. There is finally a growing seriousness here in the U.S. to the larger discussion of internal combustion alternatives. And as we've witnessed here today, not just discussion but action. People are trying things. People are buying technology like the Big Dummy when it becomes available, and asking for more options. People are finding out they can do more than they may have thought. And not just weirdo bikers like you. People like your dad. Your aunt. Your kids.
I had a discussion with the girl at the video store the other day who wants to save money on gas this summer, and is going to start riding a bike. She's not a cyclist, just motivated. The first steps are the most important. I cannot remember a time when such talk was so seriously considered across the usual walls here. Good. It's a good time for this to be happening. The fruit is ripe. Options are sprouting up. People are thinking of new ways to do things that are cleaner, healthier, that are financially and environmentally sustainable, that open possibilities, encourage self reliance and social consideration, and that are actually fun too.
This, my friends, is freedom.