I hope this finds everyone well. These turbulent times of change are certainly challenging. So as I walk the streets of small town North Carolina, it was a relaxing pleasure to sit in a rocking chair talking to Jamey and Billy about their lives here in the South.
Come join us rocking in our chairs, and chewing the cud! Enjoy.
Be well.
Peace, Joe
Hello there,
In my last written blog the story I told even inspired me to finally stop hesitating on something I’ve been contemplating for a while. So thanks to Michel, who I wrote about in my last blog, I have made a move in my life, and thanks to the human web of life, we can all be positively affected by others.
On my “Joe’s Velosophy” channel I want to share positive moments and stories that somehow have to do with the wonderful bicycle. If you’d like me to share yours, just let me know.
Here is my second Velosophical video.
As always, enjoy the journey.
Be well. Peace, Joe
What does receiving a gift have to do with responsibility? As I sit down and write this I am pondering this very question.
A few months ago I wrote an article for Permaculture Magazine. We have been subscribing to that magazine for years, so when they asked me to somehow merge my love of cycling and permaculture philosophies into 1500 words I was excited to be published. I know they run on a slim budget, so I didn’t expect to get paid for the article, some free advertising for my book suited me down to the ground.
About a month after the article came out I received an email from a woman called Renée who had read my article and thought her dad, who had recently passed away, would have also enjoyed the article as he was a life-long cyclist. She offered to give me two of his bicycles to pass on his spirit and keep his bikes rolling. She lived in France about three and a half hours away towards the Mediterranean Sea, so Angie and I decided to have a short holiday on the coast and pick up the bikes.
As I try to be creative and get as many people on bicycles around where we live as I can, I am used to buying older bicycles, many from the back of garages as I have a penchant for steel frame road bikes from the 70’s, 80’s & 90’s. I enjoy transforming them into comfortable flat handlebar bikes, while keeping that era of craftsmanship alive and well. I have bought plenty of bikes that need lots of work, but the old frames – built with such detail to attention, and the backstories behind the bikes – are usually worth the time and effort it takes to get them rolling once again. So when I was made this kind offer from a woman whose dad was 85 years old, I was expecting a couple of bikes that needed some work to get them ready. What would be awaiting in this small town when we arrived to pick them up? I didn’t know, but decided that the investment of the seven hour return journey, with diesel costing the equivalent of 10 U.S. dollars a gallon, was well worth it because of the kindness in the gesture and the honour of being gifted this woman’s dad’s bikes.
On arrival in Ceret we mistakenly drove to her address rather than her dad’s, so we had a lovely cup of tea, and learned about her dad’s life, his love of cycling, and the fact that he was short in stature, so the bikes would be too small for me to ride for sure. As the story of her dad’s life unfolded I was further humbled learning about the tragedies Michel’s life had dealt him. Despite this he had remained a gentle, caring, loving soul, and did not project his sorrows onto others, bearing them internally instead. He gave generously of his time and, more importantly, his compassion to others for the 85 years he walked, or should I say pedalled on this planet.
I want to respect his privacy and wishes not to be held out as anything other than what he was, another human being, who like too many of his era, suffered needlessly. Being born a Jew in 1936 in northern France was an untimely beginning for this gentle soul to start his sojourn on our sometimes harsh planet. Having lost his whole family to the horrors of the Holocaust at the young age of seven, he couldn’t fully comprehend what happened, but with the help of his fellow villagers he survived, and the world was lucky to have him around for another 78 years.
Despite being alone in the world at such a young age, Michel went on to be a husband, father, scholar, teacher, translator and a linguist. He once worked on a Kibbutz in Israel, and always held a vision of the occupied territories being given back to The Palestinians one day. He met an English woman on that Kibbutz and then spent most of his days living and working in his adopted country, England, with his British wife where they raised their daughter Renée. Visits to, and friends visiting him from, the Kibbutz were some of those precious moments he then integrated into his British life. Giving up driving at the age of thirty-five, the bicycle became his preferred form of transport. At 67 years old he learned to ride a motorcycle, but his trusty bicycles were what kept him moving most of his life into his eighties.
Losing his family at such a young age gave him a deep respect for all forms of life. In an era before being an environmentalist or vegetarian were trendy, Michel just quietly embraced being both, while never ‘labeling’ himself as either. Speaking French, English and Hebrew, he decided to learn Arabic later in life, and used his new language skills to help many displaced Palestinians in the area of London where he lived. He was respected and loved by all he came into contact with. His inner turmoil never fully left him, but his bicycle gave him comfort, let him be free, and kept him mobile until nearly his dying day. Renée told me one of his favourite mantras was, “A bicycle is happiness on two wheels.” I obviously never met Michel, but his daughter and her partner painted such a lovely picture of the man whose responsibility I now have to make sure his two-wheeled legacies keep on rolling while keeping his memory alive and well. A task I will enjoy taking on, and already have, tinkering with his bikes while “conversing” with Michel in my workshop.
When we arrived in Ceret we fully intended on having a cup of tea, getting the bicycles, then going on to camp somewhere on the coast. Being his father’s daughter, Renée kindly offered us to stay at her dad’s house. That is where we got to know Michel a little bit better. He only just passed from this life in January, so his books were still on the shelf, and his bikes in the garage. His eclectic book collection was intriguing, then as I was looking at one of the shelves I saw the glass-framed yellow star with ‘Juif’ (‘Jew’ in French) written boldly in it. The sight of the original star he was forced to wear as a young child sent shivers down my spine. For the two days we stayed at Michel’s house, we bumped into his neighbours who could only say how gentle he was and how he would be missed in their little cul de sac.
On the second day there Angie and I dusted off Michel’s two bikes, put air in the tires and drove off to the coast. We rode around the coastal town of Argeles. We had lunch, took the bikes to the seafront and felt we had a companion with us along the way. It was then I truly realised the gift we were getting came with a big responsibility to be loved, ridden, and taken care of, but most importantly to be appreciated for what they were, not only bicycles, but an extension of the gentle man we never met. As his bikes were really too small for me to ride, I will somehow try to incorporate some of their parts and accessories into my touring bike so I can take Michel with me on my next tour. His lovely road bike, a British-made Pearson is, astonishingly enough, a custom fit for my daughter who has always ridden road bikes slightly too large for her as we tried to get her onto old frames that always just seemed to somehow not cater to her body measurements. But now with the generosity of Renée and the stature of Michel she has the pleasure of continuing the legacy of this wonderful man whenever she gets on her ‘custom fit’ bike, which has painted on the top tube “I’LL GET ME COAT.” This was a fitting phrase for a man who, while living in Britain, had another life mantra – when it came to the weather of England, he’d say “Hesitate often, seldom regret.” I expect he often rode with a coat on!
The world works in mysterious ways, I am used to the many synchronicities the universe has in store for us when we are open to receive them. Now when I wear Michel’s old cycling cap given to him from a club rider in Ireland, use his old panniers, put air in my tires with his pump, or do my next tour with his wheels swapped out onto my bike, I will picture his gentle face, his full bookshelves, and I will have a smile on my face knowing that he has now been released from the bonds of the human existence he obviously cherished, but also had left their mark. My smile will broaden just knowing that the simple bicycle gave such a selfless man so much pleasure even when life tried to take away his humanity, it couldn’t.
As my life has been so entangled with the two-wheeled vehicle and it has brought me such pleasure over the years enjoying seeing the world from the slow pace of the bicycle, I will always cherish the backstories of so many of the bicycles I have transformed over the years. When I feel like packing up my bike tools, I’ll pinch myself and remember that all those wonderful miles I have helped others to explore are not in vain. I hope that the mechanics who kept Michel rolling into his eighties, somehow know that the bicycle is just that much more than just a vehicle, it is somehow an extension of freedom, a liberty from some of the obstacles that life can throw at you. In Michel’s own words, “Happiness on two wheels!” If you need to get on your bike and the weather is inclement, just keep in mind the phrase on Michel’s top tube, get inspired, and think to yourself, “I’ll get me coat.” Life is too short for any regrets!
As always, enjoy the journey.
Peace, Joe
Hello there, I hope this finds you all well.
I took TTRP TV to the skies. Come join me on a short flight here in the south of France!
Enjoy the ride. Be well, stay sane.
Peace, Joe
My latest TTRP TV episode. Share it, like it, comment on the Youtube site. I hope this finds everyone well. Peace, Joe
Hello all.
With too much news out there bringing us down, I will continue to focus on the positive, and try to show the other side to the conversation. Yes, the world is going through turbulent times, but we can never forget that life goes on, nature is a healing and wonderful force never too far away.
Enjoy my latest episode. Like, share, subscribe and comment. let’s keep the conversation going.
Thanks for being out there. Stay well, be informed, keep the faith.
Peace, Joe
Hey there everyone.
I left Facebook this past weekend. Here is my latest episode of TTRP TV talking a bit about why, and if indeed, there is life after Facebook.
Stay well, be informed.
Peace, Joe
When The Vietnam War was raging, people were protesting, music was at the heart of a movement to end a war that was turning young Americans and Australians into killers or corpses. I cherish the memories of a time when we weren’t all just bowing to the corporate world and we stood up risking to talk out against the narrative that didn’t feel correct. Taking those strong points of view, standing by them with others, and helping to stop a war that put many people at odds with each other on one side of the globe, and had people killing each other on the other side were difficult times indeed. Opinions were strong, the government had its stance, those young people who didn’t want to fight what many felt was an unjust war had theirs. The movement produced a counterculture, changed a whole decade, gave us so many protest songs and artists willing to sing out against the government, that we all held onto the “Flower Generation” for decades after hoping the ‘Age of Aquarius’ was going to be ushered in with a boom, and we “Wouldn’t get fooled again!” What happened?
I do not want to cause even more division, but to watch this culture of censorship explode in front of our eyes is basically pretty frightening. Now that there is an information war raging, and people on all sides are being injured, as the chart below does show, I hardly see anyone in the limelight speaking out. Why?
The loudest voices I hear are from those who say they are for free speech, but only if it doesn’t question the current narrative that has taken us down a path of fear, division, and an acceptance of control to a level unprecedented in the free world. For example Joe Rogan’s podcast presents a different side to the current one-sided story we are being force fed, and it gets labeled misinformation and dangerous. Is it really dangerous to listen to differing opinions, some of it actually based in science? What is science anyway? It certainly just isn’t the narrow path we’re being forced to tread on. I thought that was what free speech was based on, differing points of views coming together in open discussion. Are we willing to continue supporting platforms that deny other voices to be heard? Do we continue to buy our music, watch our movies, and eagerly await our next delivery from a company who constantly mistreats and underpays its employees, while it’s founder flies into space, and is now having a 430 million dollar yacht custom built that is so big a bridge in Holland has to be dismantled to get it out of the shipyard! Is this where our current democratic systems have led us?
The too many examples of how we have let the fear of the past two years manipulate our good sense, letting ourselves be scanned, QR coded, tested, censored, divided, masked, and the list goes on, has me wondering where all the alterative voices have gone. Making a personal choice for a vaccine is one thing, but to be where we are now is quite another. I know there are alternative voices out there. I am thankful for Russell Brand and his newscast, Joe Rogan’s podcast, Heather Heying and Bret Weinstein’s Dark Horse podcast, Dr. John Campbell’s ongoing research, interviews etc.., (if you watch the interview with Dr. Campbell and Kyle you’ll also see why it is so important to have all sides of the story being shown) plus the many other doctors, nurses, scientists, professors, etc… putting their careers on the line to put out information that doesn’t just fit nicely into the boxes that we are being told are the only places we should look. I also thank the so many truckers and their brave supporters around the world willing to put their lives and careers on the line to fight for what they feel is just, and in so many cases actually winning, but in too many cases their movement is being censored and marginalised to levels that make 1984 look like a child’s fairy tale book.
As the alternative rock scene of the sixties and the current truckers in Canada have shown, we actually still can make a difference, even amongst mass censorship, and a constant backdrop of fear trying to manipulate us all to be good obedient citizens and just follow a narrative down a very dark alleyway into a dystopian, divided future. I still have hope. To quote Bob Dylan from a few decades back when his voice was heard loudly and clearly above the throng of the status quo, “The times they are a changing!” They are, it’s just a slower crawl now. While mainstream media spoon feeds us a biased version of what is happening because of way too much corporate interest in the news and everywhere else in our lives, we need to find alternatives sources, but when they get censored and are privately owned by billion dollar companies with agendas, the lines really get blurry indeed! The megalomaniac founders eerily become the new kings, floating or flying in their otherworldly chariots.
Thankfully the reality is not just that, look out your windows and beyond your front doors. People are speaking out, Facebook has lost money for the first time in its eighteen year history, the truckers in Canada have helped to have some unfair mandates repealed, Russell Brand and Joe Rogan aren’t going away, indeed their fan base is still growing. I believe their willingness to admit being wrong, and trying to present difficult material to a cynical world right now is a big reason. People like being treated like humans with a brain, not just numbers on a spreadsheet being spoken at with no respect for our innate intelligence. So have faith, don’t lose your power, and try to find your own small way to make a difference.
I know I am not going to single-handedly change the world, but I can only try to do what feels right deeper down when I face my own fears. Facebook has been shutting down groups, controlling the narrative, and trying to steer our world into a Metaverse I personally want nothing to do with. I, probably like many of you out there, have a Facebook account. I have used it to help me to promote my books, my blog and Youtube channel. I also keep in touch with friends and have joined groups I enjoy diving into once in a while. Although I started questioning my Facebook membership a couple of years ago, fear always got the best of me. How would I keep in contact, promote my blogs, and Youtube broadcasts without it? Would I miss the posts about the good old days in The Bronx? I guess at the end of the day the answer to that would probably be yes. I will miss some of the good things I do get from being on Facebook, but when I weigh it all up, I have finally come to the decision to leave the platform behind. So this is the last blog that will be posted on Facebook, and if you enjoy getting my blogs, follow me on my WordPress blogsite or send me your email so I can add you onto my mailing list. My email is thebikeguy61@gmail.com. I hope to hear from some of you out there.
Together we can create a more inclusive, less fearful and fairer world. It takes time, and I realise it isn’t easy trawling through all the information that we get bombarded with on a daily basis. Dig down deeper than normal in these confusing times. Spend some time walking in nature, maybe even take a few minutes and meditate or say a quick prayer on the couch before you start the day. Stay connected to what is real, because at the end of the day no matter how much the powers that be who benefit from a disjointed, divided, uninformed, scared, consumer based society, are only able to do what they do, and wield their false power over society if it is supported by us, the masses who still know that deep down we don’t really need their stuff, their manipulation or their censored versions of reality. The truth is right in front of us, those people we share the planet with and the natural beauty that surrounds us gives us that gift every waking moment of our day, we just have to make sure we keep looking in the right direction.
Here in the northern hemisphere as the winter season gives us it’s white wintry beauty, we know the blossoms of spring are just around the corner. New life, exploding colors, birdsong, rivers flowing with the melting snows of the white capped mountains. Those are the realities no social media, newscast or government will ever be able to censor. We are all born into this beautiful world, don’t get fooled into thinking anyone else has more right to enjoy it than you do, somehow or another that is the story we have convinced ourselves to be reality, it isn’t. We all are equal when it comes down to it. The planet we are born into just does what it does – constantly gives generously of its abundance. Never forget that true gift, and try to enjoy it all to its fullest, no matter where life finds you. You got the power!
Be well, stay connected.
Peace, Joe
Hello everyone, hope you are as well as can be!
Someone recently told me they had a dream about me starting some sort of TV show or podcast. I’m techno unsavvy, and kinda like it that way, but there is a side to me that wants to spread some of the positive happenings I come across on nearly a weekly basis. So that is why I enjoy doing my occasional TeleMontbrun interviews, but with TTRP TV alongside those interviews I hope to be able to share these awesome stories in a slightly different format, but always keeping the subject matter interesting and inspiring.
The reality we all live in is somewhat different to what we get to see on our screens, or read about in the newspapers. I traveled the world for fourteen years and lost a flashlight and a Swiss Army Knife, and the loss of both was basically my own fault. So for me, the addiction to traveling the world was being drawn to the beauty and kindness that is out there in abundance.
On our fourteen month cross country journey in Janey-Rae the camping car (RV in America), we met welcoming people, stayed on city streets, Walmart parking lots, Native American Gambling Casino land, and some of America’s most beautiful nature spots. All in a nearly thirty year old camping car that many thought wasn’t up to the journey, but we knew better!! What an amazing trip it was.
The past two years I have met so many inspiring people, made new friends, and watched as our kids went on their own adventures becoming young adults along the way. Angie and I even had some adventures of our own in the beautiful region of the world we live in. All of this during such a tumultuous time in our human history, but the generosity and kindness of everyday people, as well as the wonderful nature that surrounds us, still shone through, proving to me that nature and humanity can always rise above what might seem to be insurmountable circumstances.
So all this to say, here is my new attempt at a slightly different format than my TeleMontbrun interview channel. I am calling it TTRP TV. I hope – for those of you who are drawn to watch it – that you enjoy the thirty minutes of great stories, not mind-numbing, time-wasting conversations, but truly inspirational stories from ordinary yet extraordinary people, those just like you and me!
Let me know what you think. It’s all low budget and limited to the devices I have at hand. Any ideas are welcomed, and feedback is always nice. If you like it, share it around. As always, enjoy the journey!
Peace, Joe
My mom was always into astrology, not on such a deep level that she looked at charts and plotted what every move in the vastness of space meant here on earth, but definitely more than reading The Daily News horoscopes. There were always a few books around on the subject and she had a knack for telling people what star sign they were. So seeds were sown back in my childhood that led me to believe we are more than mere mortals wandering around on earth till we die. I then spent my life traveling and being supported by the universe, synchronicity being a big theme in my life. Those galactic seeds planted by my mom also sprouted every once in a while. Combined, all of these tiny glimmers and glimpses into something beyond what society tries to tell me is important, have let me live in magic, beauty and awe of our planet and its inhabitants.
Now though, I feel the need to tap even deeper. With everything going on around me, I am reconnecting with my old galactic buddies once again. My friend Marga Laube helped kickstart me and my wife on the path guided by our nightly, twinkly friends. Her monthly broadcasts and recent book, Agents of Evolution started me listening more deeply to what the stars are saying. More recently Angie discovered an astrologer called Pam Gregory, and man, what this woman from England was saying in her broadcasts had me sitting up and listening! Not only did they echo Marga and an intuitive, Lee Harris who we also listen to, but they helped the puzzle come together, and gave renewed hope that we are all just part of this one big mystery. The night skies couldn’t have been making my vision more clearer. If you want to dive in to Pam Gregory’s world, listen to this chat she recently had with Lee Harris. She’s a middle class woman from England, who likes Elvis Presley style collars, but put a goatee and some shaggy hair on her, and you might be tempted to call her Che!!
Some of you out there might wonder why the need to look at the stars or dive deeper into our souls with everything is going so smoothly. Hmmm, not so sure about that! For me, the beauty of our twinkly friends above, the vastness of space we are voyaging through, and the depth of our spiritual selves show us that we are so much more than the physical limits of our human selves. The energy fields we are created from, and live our lives trying to ignore, are now coming to the fore and showing us, almost forcing us, to see how powerful that energy is.
Just look up at night at those constellations and picture our planet/solar system moving around in space. Apparently we are in a position that we haven’t been in for over 12,000 years. Many of you may say, so, what does that mean? Well, astrologically, a lot more than I can tell you, but on a more earthly level, to me it sounds pretty damn cool to know that in the vastness of time and space we’ve come back to the same place we were when our great great great ancestors were just starting to tread down a different path, planting seeds, setting up political structures, and laying the groundwork for getting us to where we are right now. Does this arrival in space back to where we once were mean something far more deeper than, “Here we go again, ready for another loop?” I hope so, especially if we are able to look at it in terms of, “Okay, we saw where that experiment led to, ready to try something a bit more progressive now?”
If you are interested in our position amongst the stars on an astrological level, Pam explains it more deeply in the above link with Lee. Entering the photon belt, gamma rays, neutrinos, all interesting and esoteric, but a bit over my head, excuse the pun;-). It is nice though to feel part of something way more than our earthbound existence, because when you really think of it, although we can let ourselves become quite weighed down and stagnant in our current human form, the planet we are living on is anything but standing still. Every minute we breath, our planet is spinning, whirling, moving and traveling. So, like it or not, we’re all on this earth ship together, and in the current state of affairs why would you want to ignore such an awesome existence that we are all experiencing together spinning on a globe hurling through space. How friggin cool is that?
I believe our ten thousand or so years on this great journey of progress wasn’t all one big mistake, far from it. We have gone off the rails along the way, that is for sure. Where and what that ride through time and space has led us to though, is many of us having access to some pretty cool technology, some pretty damn clear hindsight, and a plethora of choices in how we move on from here. What the indigenous societies have shown us is that to connect and respect the planet and all of its wonder is a good start. Along with the spiritual practices developed millennia ago that are now being embraced in the growing field of quantum science, our race is starting to finally embrace it’s true magical powers.
Entwining the earthly wisdom that has been seriously damaged over the past few hundred years into what we now know about our inner beings and the outer realms of space, all combine to make our current journey pretty damn awesome! These two recent authors with indigenous blood, knowledge and insight help us to reconnect to some of those lost aspects of our humanity. The poetically written, Braiding Sweetgrass, by Robin Wall Kimmerer, explores the wealth of knowledge from the native North Americans and their natural wisdom. Along with the clever journey into the Australian Aboriginal cultures in Sand Talk by Tyson Yunkaporta are two books that show us how well we humans can operate when we give ourselves over to the fact that we are a species on a diverse planet, and without respecting and integrating into the natural world, we can get led astray and wander into some dark alleyways. If we follow our true paths an amazing existence awaits when we emerge from the darkness we unwittingly let ourselves get lost in. As humans our inner light needs to be constantly stoked as these alleyways that promise to fulfill us usually just leaving us feeling even more empty. What keeps us fully nourished are the qualities of connection, love and acceptance. As we humans sometimes get drawn to a false light of material wealth, forgetting what truly matters, we become like moths drawn to a flame, and are shocked when our wings get singed and we crash and burn. Let’s try to collectively stop this cycle, and take real flight to the expanding heavens above, and the boundless inner peace and transformative energy we have inside of us, just waiting to be tapped into.
Look up to the stars, look down into the earth and then turn inwards and peer into your soul. I am confident if we all did this, we would see more clearly that division, coercion, right and wrong, us and them, financial gain for its own sake, is just a bunch of stuff we found in the dark alleyways getting led astray on our collective journey. We will emerge out of this period in history. We will shape a different future together. It is a necessity. The power structures who feel their towers starting to crumble are trying incessantly to patch up a structure in active collapse. They may succeed for a short period of time, but listen to Pam, Lee, Marga, Robin, Tyson and the list goes on. It is written in the stars, it is part of the earth we share. Life is meant to be wondrous, the beauty of our planet is not to be ignored and brushed aside, treated like a factory just milling out what we need to survive. It is so much more than that. Don’t listen to the people who profit from doom, gloom, fear and division, they are still the minority, although now that they are busy trying to patch up their falling/failing structure, we can see them for what they truly are, just humans led astray looking for light in the wrong places. When the tower falls, we will all see more clearly across the plain, up into the mountains, gazing up to the stars and deeper into ourselves. These are our true leaders. When we follow the natural path to our humanity, the future looks pretty darn bright, better put on your shades!!
thebikeguy61 