Nice little edit. Both these kids have such wicked style on their bikes. Check out Bogle’s jump @ 0:30. Dam.

Thanks Bjorn!

VIA PinkBike

Perhaps there was a time when it wasn’t important to be knowledgeable, but now is not that time. I highly recommend everybody watch/listen to this, because it is the best thing I have seen for a while showing the big picture of where we are, and where we are going:

Since all our money is loaned onto existence, our economy has to grow exponentially. Martenson proves this point empirically by showing a 99.9% fit of the actual growth curve of the last 40 years to an exponential curve. If we wanted to continue on this path, our debt load would have to double again over the next 10 years. By continually increasing our debt relative to GDP we are making the assumption that our future will always be wealthier than our past. He believes that this assumption is flawed and that the debt loads are already unmanageable.

Martenson explains how exponential growth works and why it is so scary that our economy is based on it. In an example he illustrates how unimaginably fast things speed up towards the end of an exponential curve. He shows that an exponential chart can be found in every one of the three “E’s” for instance in GDP growth, oil production, water use or species extinction. Due to the natural limitations on resources, Martenson comes to the conclusion that we are facing a serious energy crisis.

This energy predicament is namely that the quantity of oil as well as the quality of oil are in decline. He shows that oil discoveries peaked in 1964 and oil production peaked 40 years later. Martenson also shows how our return on invested energy is rapidly declining – the “cheap and easy” oil fields have already been exploited. In 1930 the energy return for oil was 100:1 or greater. Today it is already down to 3:1 and newer technologies such as corn-based ethanol only provide a 1.5:1 return. Martenson predicts that the time in between oil shocks will get shorter and shorter and that oil prices will go much higher.

Not only oil but also other natural resources are being rapidly used up as well. At the current projected pace of use, known reserves for many metals and minerals will be gone within the next 10 to 20 years. The energy needed to get these non-renewable resources out of the ground is growing exponentially. So we live in a world that must grow, but can’t grow and is subject to depletion. The conclusion out of all this is that our money system is poorly designed and that we need to rethink how we do things as quickly as possible.

VIA ZeroHedge

Photos from TWMX

Rubbish photo, but all that is available for now VIA his Twitter. Photoshoot happened yesterday (and today I think too), so there should be some nice pics soon of the team on their new bikes.

It came out a couple of years ago now, but since it is looking so good sitting in the Kiska showroom (despite it’s travels around the world and a currently wrongly routed cable), I thought I would take a few detail shots to share with you.

love the color of those hubs.

Been collecting these little SX and EXC bikes for 4 years now as a sort of mini portfolio of my work. Always surprised how well detailed they are. Not for kids though, my son broke the handlebars and a footpeg off in less than 15 seconds. broooooom, brooom, smash!

After this mild agro on the line at a day in the dirt I chuckled and didn’t think much more of it. At least until Zacher sent me this photo of the first corner.  If this is how intense the racing gets and how good the photos are after a scuffle, I vote for mandatory scraps on the start line to settle gate pick.

I thought this was worth a post since once you understand this, it makes it a lot easier to understand the global economic situation we are living through right now:

Energy returned on energy invested is the ratio of the amount of usable energy acquired from a particular energy resource to the amount of energy expended to obtain that energy resource. When the EROEI of a resource is less than or equal to one, that energy source becomes an “energy sink”, and can no longer be used as a primary source of energy.

A society will generally exploit the highest available EROEI energy sources first, as these provide the most energy for the least effort. With non-renewable sources, progressively lower EROEI sources are then used as the higher-quality ones are exhausted.

For example, when oil was originally discovered, it took on average one barrel of oil to find, extract, and process about 100 barrels of oil. That ratio has declined steadily over the last century to about three barrels gained for one barrel used up in the U.S. (and about ten for one in Saudi Arabia)

Since the discovery of fire, humans have increasingly used exogenous sources of energy to multiply human muscle-power and improve living standards. Some historians have attributed our improved quality of life since then largely to more easily exploited (i.e. higher EROEI) energy sources.

(ED NOTE: declining EROEI therefore can go some way to explain our current economic situation)

Thomas Homer-Dixon demonstrates that a falling EROEI in the Later Roman Empire was one of the reasons for the collapse of the Western Empire in the fifth century CE. In “The Upside of Down” he suggests that EROEI analysis provides a basis for the analysis of the rise and fall of civilisations.

Evidence also fits the cycle of Mayan and Cambodian collapse too. Joseph Tainter suggests that diminishing returns of the EROEI is a chief cause of the collapse of complex societies. Falling EROEI due to depletion of non-renewable resources also poses a difficult challenge for industrial economies. (ED NOTE: somewhat of an understatement)

You can read more about EROI here.

Post inspired by BikerMetric.

There are as many old people as Teenagers and more Protests than riots, but it is a great documentary anyway despite the title. What a mess. None of the “cures” being offered by any of the politicians tackle the 30pc – 40pc currency misalignment and therefore loss of competitiveness Southern Europe has experienced vs the North since the Euro began which is one of the deeper causes of this crisis. So as long as Greece and other Southern European countries stay in the Euro things are unlikely to improve for them. Or until Germany and a few others leave perhaps. Some long, steep, twisty, rocky roads ahead and we seem to be riding a heavy, high mileage old bobber with low gas and flat tires.

Sketchy! That opening is crazy. Not a good spot to be in at all.