Tire Pressure

This weekend I got a very dramatic lesson in how tire pressure affects gas mileage - from my bicycle.

Abelisto and I usually ride our bikes to the Farmer's Market in Winona on Saturday mornings. We have panniers on our bikes that can hold the equivalent of 2 brown paper grocery bags each. Together we can get over a week's groceries in the panniers.

Anyway, over the last couple weeks I had been having more and more trouble riding the bike. I was cursing poor Adventure Cycle, thinking that they were at fault (had a recent tune up and one of the problems following it was this difficulty/trouble with riding - the other problem, erratic shifting issues still is going on). On Saturday morning Abelisto noticed that my rear tire was extremely low on air. We quickly went to the service station and added quite a bit of air pressure to both my tires.

Getting back on the bike was amazing - it now rolled so freely, so effortlessly... The difference in energy expenditure was unbelievable. It must be much the same with a car, except we do not notice it since we aren't doing the pedaling...

Now I have got to check the tires on all the vehicles in the household.

Now I need to check the tire pressures on all the vehicles.

Monoculture

On the drive back and forth between Minnesota and Indiana we usually (read: always) take the same route. Boring, I know, but efficient, since I have made the trip enough times over the 12+ years I have lived up here to know the fastest, easiest route.

Our drive takes us through part of the corn-belt of this country. It truly is appalling to crest a rise in the Illinois' flatlands and realize that, for as far as the eye can see, all there is is row after row of corn.

Although I am not an expert on sustainable lifestyles, I know that growing all that corn, year after year, is not a sustainable model. Corn is not an efficient crop; it requires massive amounts of chemical intervention.

I worry about this push towards corn based ethanol gasoline additive. I do not think that we save much in the way of spent energy or carbon emissions with corn-based ethanol.

I need to do more research.

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