Experience Cycling like Never Before

It is deforestation that has to end, not forestry.

The world’s forests have been under pressure since the dawn of the industrial revolution, and the biological diversity that they harbor – the wild nature which created the fertile land and breathable atmosphere that we take for granted – remains at great risk as the demands of the world’s industrial economy continue to grow.

Tropical regions are one of the destinations of Simple Cycle technology, and we have to ask what effect our project might have there. Tropical forests are being cleared to make way for cattle ranching and palm oil plantations to feed growing human populations. Tropical forests are also cleared to make room for monoculture rubber plantations that serve to put tires on the world’s cars and trucks (and yes, bicycles too).  Tropical forests have been clear cut for their lumber, and then replaced by cattle pasture or plantations, rather than being encouraged to go back to native wild forest. None of these harmful practices do we wish to exacerbate.

Utilizing Simple Cycle wood-frame technology can help preserve our forests. We do not have to destroy any type of forest in order to have a modest amount of wood. Harvesting wood for cycles on a small local scale no more ruins a forest than do the activities of woodpeckers and beavers; human impact is largely a matter of scale. Removing a fallen, diseased or dead tree here and there need not have a profound ecological impact. The method of logging chosen makes a critical difference, and industrial clear-cut logging is very different in carbon cost and habitat impact than careful small-scale select harvest. We acknowledge that certain habitat types should be treated gently, or left alone entirely.

We have scientific understanding enough to manage forest lands without ruining watersheds, robbing soil fertility, driving species to extinction, and worsening the desperation of the rural poor.  We do not need to impoverish the forest environment by felling giant ancient trees. The very small scale of Simple Cycle technology makes taking these basic precautions highly achievable.

A quick calculation, for perspective: Building Simple cycles of wood represents an extremely modest and manageable demand for lumber. The average Simple cycle frame is made up of about 1 cubic foot (30cm X 30cm X 30cm) of wood. A typical mid-size pine or fir tree may yield 70 cubic feet of lumber, enough for 70 wood-framed Simple cycles. A pine/fir forest (our example is from northern Idaho) may have 500 medium-size trees per acre (1200 trees per hectare). An acre of such forest, thinned by 30% in a selective cut, could produce lumber for 10,000 cycles, while leaving a healthy stand of forest behind. A managed stand can actually be ‘healthier’, in that trees infested with forest-killing bark beetle larvae – overpopulating because of a changing climate – can be removed. In as few as 15 years the amount of tree-biomass on the landscape will grow back to pre-thinning levels. Wood for a billion cycles could be produced by the thinning of one hundred thousand acres, which is an area of productive pine forest 12 miles by 12 miles (18 x 18 kilometers). Fifteen such blocks could be fit within Shoshone County, Idaho. This is a mountainous landscape blanketed by a productive ‘second growth’ (already logged once) forest of Ponderosa Pine, Western White Pine, Douglas Fir, Hemlock and Western Red Cedar, a habitat wherein live Elk, Mule Deer, Whitetail, Bighorn, Mountain Goat, Moose, Black Bear, Mountain Lions, Wolves, Lynx, Bobcats, Wolverine, Fisher, Mink, Marten, Skunk and Weasels, along with a full complement of small mammals, birds, amphibians, riverine fish, understory plants, arthropods, and – with the greatest mass of all – microorganisms and fungi. After careful selective logging as described above, every one of the inhabitant species listed would remain still present on the landscape. The last Woodland Caribou was driven north out of Idaho in 2018 by clear-cutting, highway paving, urban development and climate warming; if each of these changes could be ameliorated, a careful harvest of timber could help re-create conditions which allow the caribou to reestablish. The amount of forested land found in this single (large) northern-Idaho county (which represents 0.0001% [one ten thousandth of one percent] of the Earth’s 4 Billion hectares of forest land) could produce, under careful and conscientious management, a wood-framed Simple cycle for every human being on earth, every 10 years, indefinitely into the future. If such a timber harvest were dispersed worldwide, this level of use would be essentially undetectable.

SIMPLE TECH HELPS DRAW DOWN CARBON

Unlike virtually all other industrial materials, carefully harvested wood and bamboo (as well as hemp, flax and grass fiber) that is used in durable applications sequesters carbon, rather than releasing fossil carbon to the atmosphere as conventional bicycle manufacture does. 

In the study Environmental Impacts of Redwood Lumber (Sahoo and Bergman, 2019), researchers found that lumber from small second-growth Redwood trees stored 12X more greenhouse gas than was released by fossil-fueled machinery during that lumber’s harvest and processing. 

The carbon-cost of shipping is avoided when native materials are sourced at point-of-use.

Modular hardware fully reuses metal, spreading energy investment over multiple vehicle lifetimes.

All Simple subassemblies can be easily dismounted whole-and-reusable from the assembled cycle.

Simple subassemblies are non-composited and thus fully-recyclable material.

No materials that are difficult to reclaim and recycle are specified.

No waste need be sent to landfill in the manufacture or decommissioning of Simple cycles.

Cradle-to-grave lifecycle carbon cost of a Simple cycle is extremely low, even for a bicycle. 

There are ways to harvest wood without killing a tree. 

Daisugi is a Japanese Bonsai technique which produces straight and knot-free poles without felling the tree. Pollarding is a similar European technique where arborists severely prune trees (with new growth of buds and leaves emerging above the reach of livestock) at intervals of eight to fifteen years, a pruning cycle which produces defect-free poles for fencing and construction. Coppicing cuts trees (of species known to reliably re-sprout) down to a low stump, which then puts forth new shoots. All of these systems greatly lengthen the life of the tree by delaying senescence. 

Rocky Mountain Aspen is one of a number of species of tree that grow in clonal groups. Forest fires or timber harvest leave the Aspen’s shared root system intact to nourish re-growing stems, thus allowing the group to maintain canopy dominance for many centuries. 

Each of these renewable wood products can be used to build Simple Cycles.

BUILDING FROM SALVAGED MATERIALS

Discarded shipping pallets are a source of two-by-fours and one-by-fours (or close equivalents) in dimensions usable (and often near-perfect) for Simple cycle frames. Shipping pallets (in the US) are usually made either from hardwoods like oak (decking), and from various types of pine (stringers). A single standard 40” x 48” pallet in decent condition is often sufficient for one Simple Cycle frame. 

This weathered one-by-four “deck board” (below) came from the neglected pile of pallets in the photo shown above. After an end section (on the right side of the photo below) was sanded, a board of solid, sound, attractive white oak was revealed. The two-by-four stringers were pine, some of which were usable. Many of the nails were recovered and straightened—ready and capable of holding a cycle together, just as well as they did the pallet.