This afternoon's bike trip was a 37 km round trip in one hour and ten minutes to collect a 20 kg sack of "greensand" olivine for the garden.

I think it's a good example of the efficiency of velomobiles: how they make human power even more effective than when riding a normal bike. Even on the return journey with a headwind and loaded with the sack of sand, it was easy to keep the speed above 35 km/h.

Being able to stow a lot of things inside the aerodynamic form of the bike helps a lot with efficiency. You feel extra weight when accelerating, not so much once you get going.

And why the olivine ? I calculated a few weeks back that in the worst case this last winter our heating could have emitted 105 kg of CO2. This sack is enough to absorb about a fifth of that amount from the atmosphere.

Each time we plant things indoors or in our garden we add a bit of olivine.

Once humanity (especially those of us in the highly emitting richer countries) has reduced emissions by a lot, it's possible to make a bit of a dent by using a product like this. But there's no chance of compensating for ever larger emissions by trying to mine ever larger amounts of olivine.

#recumbent #velomobile #regel17 #cycling #biketooter #olivine #greensand #weathering #enhancedweathering