Entries tagged with ‘society’
One of my favorite moments at the EUROBIKE show came when I ran into the LIKE A BIKE company. This little gem of a business has everything that makes for great and stimulating story. Children + Natural Products + Education + Craftsmanship + Sports + History = one heck of a model company. LIKE A BIKE makes a range of wooden bikes WITHOUT PEDALS for very young children and some fun accessories to make it even safer and more enjoyable. It all started 10 years ago when a German couple witnessed, as all parents do, their son having a terrible time mastering the art of riding a bicycle. Being creative and a skilled handyman, founder Rolf Merten went into his garage and proceeded to remove the training wheels, the pedals and even chopped a bit of the seat stem off in order to lower it. What happened a few minutes later changed his son’s life and eventually his own.
Since then LIKE A BIKE has continued to design new and better versions of his invention, using wood and other natural materials to make the bikers safer to use, easier to repair and easily accessible even to toddlers.
As I stood their talking with Delphine Mordenti, who distributes these bikes throughout Europe, I witnessed countless little kids whipping around on their “Mountain” models, deftly avoiding all the “big people” who were mesmerized by all the bikes on display and who wouldn’t have seen them anyway. What surprised me the most was how very small children, some who barley walked well, “rode” their bikes, by pushing themselves around with their two legs, like Venetian Gondola drivers with their canes. It also struck me that these children were highly independent and at the same time, very responsible, since they held their “presence” (in space & time) in their own hands.
The bikes themselves are of exceptionally quality (the wood is beautiful) and come in a variety of sizes and colors and are surprisingly transportable (with a simple Allen Key, anyone can pack it up in under 2 minutes). LIKE A BIKE is an ingenious product that teaches children the fun of living an active lifestyle, the importance of valuing time, and most importantly the connection that nature provides in terms of resources and settings.
Posted by: andrew |
Tags: family, brands, society
Fall, my favorite time of year, is almost upon us. This beautiful season is the same in any language and it happens in almost every place across the Planet. The bright hues of red, orange and yellow appear almost overnight and nature’s internal clock signals a gradual slow-down.
What’s funny is that we also enjoy our favorite outdoor activities – differently come autumn. Our friends and training partners slow down after the summer full of exploits, and a more causal enjoyment becomes the number one objective. The very way we experience nature changes drastically too. The air and water temperature cools which change the way we feel and breathe. The fact that we have to wear different “layers” changes our contact with the outdoor elements. And even our energy levels change requiring different amounts of food, water and sleep.
And of course the environment changes around us too. Water currents change, as do wave patterns. Leaves fall off the trees and decorate our favorite trails. Rain makes an occasional and unexpected appearance, and even our favorite animal friends suddenly change coats, migrate to warmer climates, or disappear all together to hibernate through the winter. All of this makes for a tantalizing piece of art that only nature could create.
So in the upcoming months, take a moment to enjoy the changes happening around you on your regular training routes or weekend trips. And remember to slow down and celebrate this special time of year with an “après” Cappuccino and Hot Wine with your friends.
Posted by: andrew |
Tags: society, environment
I don’t know about you, but I’m tired of hearing all these catastrophic statistics and data on climate change and tragic images of wildlife and landscape. Sure we need to raise awareness, but intimidating people with apocalyptic scenarios isn’t going to get us anywhere. In my opinion, the focus on dramatizing environmental issues is counter productive. There is a moment when all of it becomes “too much”. People lose track, get confused, don’t know what to do, and most of all – give up – because it seems too big to solve with simple answers. In reality however, simple changes and tiny commitments are all that is needed to make a huge difference.
The recent rise in public eco-consciousness is due to the massive media coverage of literally millions of initiatives around the world. Some fueled by capitalistic opportunism, others purely by civic responsibility. Whatever the root cause, what’s at stake is not market share or consumer trends – it’s the environment. Hype is for shopping, not for social issues. But with this huge onslaught of information, just picking through the available news is a job on its own. You practically have to be a PhD expert to understand it all and be able to differentiate fact from myth.
At Laneo, we steer clear of all the hype and clutter. By talking about what’s new, who’s doing what, where the initiatives are going, and how you can participate if you wish – Laneo offers you a positive approach to make your own choices and your own level of impact.
What interests us is the great outdoors. Those picture perfect swells, the mist rising off the lakes, the silence of country trails and the majesty of century old boulders. Getting everyone outside to experience this, whether they’re beginners or experts (and at whatever dose they choose), that is our “hands-on training” of what’s right and what’s wrong for our planet.
Outdoors should be fun and it should enlighten adults as it does children. It should never ever become a terrain for hopelessness, regret or restraint. So go out there and play. Enjoy the spirit of life and nature. Because only when you get out there and experience it for yourself, will you understand what you yourself can do to protect your planet.
Posted by: andrew |
Tags: society, community, environment
I just came back from an hour long trail run and while I was out there, I ran into a friend who during our conversation asked me “Andrew, why did you choose to make joining Laneo a Free membership?”
So I came home and looked up the dictionary definition of “free” and here’s what I found:
a) “not subject to or constrained by engagements and obligations”
b) “using or expending something without restraint”
c) “so as to become available for a particular purpose”
When I decided to make Laneo memberships free, there were two opposite perspectives that I was battling. In today’s capitalist society, anything that is free is considered to be “bad” or “poor quality” or not really worth pursuing. Yet “why” should helping clean up our outdoors cost those who want to do it. There’s a lot of debate today on the subject of free in “business models”, “culture price” and “community expenses”. Some even argue that “price” is the only barrier to wastefulness, but I think it’s a lot simpler than everyone’s making it out to be.
Remember when you were a child and everything seemed so accessible? You went outside and you could basically go anywhere and do anything, for nothing. You could climb a tree, jump in a lake or run through a cornfield. Money was not an issue. It’s only when you grew up and society caught up with you that things started to cost money.
Today as adults, especially in big corporations, we turn everything into money. Products, services, people’s time and expertise, production, overhead, – it all has money attached to it. But things like family, friends, quality of your life, quality of your environment – no one can assign a monetary value to those things. They are beyond any price anyone could assign to them.
I made Laneo memberships free, so that the model could “free up” restrictions and fuel opportunities because I believe our environment is beyond price. If we destroy it, no amount of money we collect and leave to our kids, will ever enable them restore it.
Posted by: andrew |
Tags: society, community
During my 50 km bike ride with my friends today, the younger ones especially, were intrigued by my attire. It’s not that my stuff was dirty or torn, it was just that most of what I was wearing was at least 8 years old. One aspiring triathlete even asked me what brand “TINLEY” was?. He said he’d never heard of it?! (checkout his website – he’s one of my heroes)
It made me wonder. Was I keeping my old stuff because it reminded me of a time when I could effortlessly leave all these youngsters in the dust. Or was it my way of saying “hey I’ve been here doing this a lot longer than any of you – you’ve got nothing on me”. Or was it perhaps because my budget conflicts with other toys I want? Was it space? After all, there’s only so much stuff you can cram into the drawers of your sports cupboard in the garage right?
Well the truth is that most of the stuff I have is still in pretty good shape and its technical characteristics still answer all my needs. I mean the promise of long term durability and performance is why I purchased the stuff in the first place. So why replace it so quickly? And really where will all that stuff go when I throw it away? I could reuse some of the old shirts for menial tasks like cleaning bike chains, washing the car, or drying the dog. But if I replace my attire every year – I’m going to end up with more rags than I could use in a lifetime. And no mater what, I’m eventually going to have to throw those rags away or hope I can find a way to recycle them.
Now don’t get me wrong, I really think there has been some tremendous innovation in sports equipment over the past years and I’m not suggesting we deprive ourselves and go back to the days of running a 60 km trail race in December -15°c weather with a cotton t-shirt and sweatshirt – risking hypothermia. But I think we owe it to ourselves and those we care about, to make a conscious effort to distinguish between “wants” and “needs”. Yeah I may really want that cool new bike shirt (if not for anything else than to stop my friends from teasing me), but I really don’t need it.
I’ve been around long enough to learn that trying to keep up with my wants is one race I’m never going to win. So I choose to focus on what is important to me. To be with my friends, to be outside, to ride my bike on the beautiful roads and trails that remain – that’s important to me – and I’m just not willing to throw that away.
Posted by: andrew |
Tags: society, sports
Social networking websites are sprouting up around the globe faster than we can keep up with them. It’s no wonder that small companies have found a new “gold rush” in supplying a wide variety of innovative tools and services for their members. Each promising newer and more amazing features so that their members can create better and more personalized “windows” of themselves. (Makes me think of all those quaint storefronts in Salzburg, Austria at Christmas.)
I belong to quite a few of them and have tested many of the “options & gadgets” that are offered. One of them has just caught my eye – I AM GREEN available on FACEBOOK.
Residing under the “Applications” section of the FACEBOOK site, this option to lets you check off eco-actions (or leaves, as they call it) to indicate the things you typically do in favor of the planet. These engagements then show up on your profile and you can then invite your “Facebook friends” to join you. It has spiraled into over 24,500 users and over 700,000 different “leaves”!
And while creating personal “windows” on social networking sites may be a fad, “greenness” is most likely here to stay. Everyday, more and more people are changing the way they live and once they do, they are not turning back. I for one am very happy to see that Facebook is providing people with an opportunity to express themselves in different ways.
The people behind I AM GREEN state; “When we commit to doing something good, we inspire each other to do that, and more.”
They must have read my mind.
Posted by: andrew |
Tags: technology, society, community, environment
At Laneo, as part of our core mission to help preserve the planet, we feel we have an obligation to support the small and weak. There are quite significantly more small sport companies and local ecological groups around the world than there are large ones. It’s not that we don’t like the big guys; we just think that there are a lot of minor players out there that don’t get enough attention and backing. We also think that the impact of not defending these companies and associations is detrimental to local culture, traditions, creativity & innovation and most of all, the state of the planet. Is it better to inject resources into one big thing or a vast series of small things?
A friend of mine, who teaches at INSEAD, said to me that Nobel Prize winner Muhammed Yunus (Grameen Bank) did not pioneer “micro-credit”, he only managed to make it understandable to those that could put it into action.
Now, ask yourself the following question; if you could contribute in supporting hundreds of small eco-efforts around the globe, wouldn’t that probably spark other small initiatives? That’s the direction we’re headed and we count on the global collective conscious of thousands of people who love the great outdoors as the leverage to achieve that goal.
Posted by: andrew |
Tags: society, environment
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