Journey of Action with Timberland at the Methow Valley Film Festival

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Journey of Action-Methow Valley Film Festival from Journey of Action on Vimeo.

Journey of action recently spent an incredible fall weekend with Timberland at the 24th annual Methow Valley Bike Festival where short films that incorported an admiration for bicycle culture where screened, and the great outdoors were enjoyed by all in attendance. We were able to connect with passionate bicyclists, filmmakers, and rediscover the magic that comes from riding a bicycle — the true “freedom machine.”

The Methow Valley is Washington’s equivalent of the Old West, and you definitely get this feeling that you are on a set from a Western Movie. As you drive up the valley, you’ll pass fields of baled hay, big old weathered barns, corrals full of horses and the jagged Cascades for a backdrop. The scenery is truly breathtaking, and the small town attracts earthkeepers and outdoor enthusiasts from all over the Pacific Northwest who escape the stresses of city living to establish a relationship with nature, quality time with family and friends, and authentic adventure.

5 Things to consider in regards to biking:

1) Is it not odd that as adults we relinquish the genuine transport freedoms provided by the bicycle? Because, for all its seductive promises, the car’s perceived benefits are mostly smoke and mirrors. A car does not provide the freedom we imagine it to do. Instead it diminishes our time, health, earnings and factors into environmental degradation.

2) Financially it can take over three full months of work, each year, to just pay for the cars’ annual costs. As Bicycle Universe explains it, it is not so much that Americans drive to work, it’s more that they work to drive.  In the USA car ownership & operating expenses accounted for 17% of average annual household expenditures in 2004, coming in well ahead of even food, and being only beaten out of top spot by the home mortgage or rent.

3) Physical separation from motorized traffic on busy streets is the single most effective policy for getting more people to bike, and the more people we have riding bikes-then the more likely we will have changes in policy favoring the creation of biking lanes, boulevards in our metropolitan cities and an emphasis on educating our youth on all the benefits of utilizing their bicycles.

4) 40 percent of all urban trips fall within a two-mile ring around the trip’s starting point, and nearly all of them are done by car. But two miles is not a very large distance. You can easily cover it by bike instead of by driving. And if more people biked their urban trips, we could significantly reduce our carbon output.

5) A 2005 poll found that 220 million American adults average an hour and a half a day in their cars. That’s six percent of their lives. And 75% of them noted that driving often gives them “a sense of independence.” But at what cost does this “sense” come? All this expense for a vehicle that can only average a downtown speed of about 13 miles per hour (21 kmph). A speed readily achieved by regular bicycle riders.

*Here is a great article on “How to Make Biking Mainstream” from Yes Magazine