The "Green" paradox

 With the world we are all equally a part of reaching the peak of its available resources, we must see our rampant hunger for the next best thing as a key proponent in perpetuating a steady sequence of detrimental waves upon our microcosm of life.  We talk and hear about cycling as being supposedly so "green" and "sustainable" with little regard to the simple fact that all of this stuff has to come from somewhere.  With new sub-sub-genres that irrationally generate new niches that us ever so hungry cycling consumers must gobble up, we further dig ourselves into the self defeating hole of what I would like to call non-green cycling.

my neighbor pulling up in his van after having visited with his
LBS and acquiring a bike for every must have nu-style of riding.  

What is green anyway?

Maybe answering the aforementioned question is easier by addressing what is not green as opposed to taking a stab at pinning down the ever fleeting marketing trends that gallivant about while wearing the "green" label on their sleeves.  Running through a brand new frame every year due to promised gains in speed, aerodynamics and lightweight is not green.  Buying new kit simply because pros and peers are doing it is not green.  Destroying cycling gear that was designed on the razors edge of durability/reliability every other season (thinking paper thin gears, ultra lightweight and under built wheels/frame and relatively untested fill in the blank designs/materials/bonding methods/electronics/ultra soft tires ect....) is not green.  Owning thirteen bikes that were all designed to fill ultra niche cycling related activities is not green.  Driving SUVs and trucks to good cycling spots (be it road or trail) just to ride is not particularly green either.  Are you beginning to catch my drift here?  The waste factor involved in facilitating our so called green activity of cycling is not always so clean after all.  In fact, I am very much of the opinion that depending on how one carries about it, cycling can and often is one of the least green recreational activities out there.

youth learning how to service their own bikes as opposed to buying
into the notion that its time for a new one. (yes, that is indeed
a serviceable, real world bicycle)

Its all petrol

Regardless of whether or not we choose to look at it, every single facet of our bicycles are derived in one way or another from some form of petroleum.  Be it the plastics in your shifters, the vulcanization process in rubber tires,  the absolutely toxic nature of epoxy resins and carbon fibers that compose most new "high end" frames or simply the packaging, distribution and reallocation processes involved in getting that new XTR derailleur to the front door: oil was involved in the process, and lots of it.  Even with less toxic materials like steel and aluminum, a tremendous amount of oil is consumed during the extraction, refinement, forging and forming process.  There is really no other way to look at it: more and more stuff means a directly paralleled correlation in natural resource demand.

If we can make it a habit to regularly keep the aforementioned in our field of view we can use, purchase, share and re purpose with a new sense of vigor.  Making due with that 2 or 3 year old mountain bike and its seemingly "obsolete" suspension tech of yesteryear or seeing to it that the bike you or your children outgrew makes its way into someone else's hands as opposed to a scrap yard (the process of recycling is not green either: petrol being the main energy source in such a process) are the kind of things that really make a difference here.  Replacing spokes instead of wheels, rebuilding derailleurs instead of upgrading and gifting instead of scraping are incredibly important acts in an industry that like so many others, tends to center its business models around planned obsolescence and daily performance-gain induced upgrading.

a child (and a man behind) scrape by on what are probably retrofitted/re purposed
discarded bikes while recycling rubber from what appear to be tires and other various
items (I.E our shit)

Your Junk is an other's gold

Though it might seem like i am overselling the message here, the bottom line is that most of what we cast away can be used for a good chunk of time by someone out there.  Though I have lots of wasteful purchases on my track record, I have tried to make the bulk of my purchasing second hand whenever and however I can.  Building bikes primarily from older and often vintage components allows the life expectancy of many seemingly obfuscated parts and frames to see another day out in the world.  It is only when we allow ourselves to be convinced that we need a multitude of seemingly redundant tools for seemingly overlapping purposes that we fall into the classic consumerist trap.  By being critically thinking and questioning the status quo we can make progress with the incredible volumes of waste and over consumption that has us in the peak-everything condition that we are today.