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Many people who meet Keith for the first time find<br />
him to be quiet but intense, and it’s easy to mistake his<br />
introverted personality for standoffishness. Get to know<br />
him, though, and you uncover a dry sense of humour and<br />
a wicked wit to match the flash of his gold tooth.<br />
Keith has never been one to waste resources or to buy<br />
new products for the sake of them. He used to do all of his<br />
shopping in the Santa Cruz charity shops, until the used<br />
clothes market discovered just how many quality items were<br />
being dropped off by spring-cleaning dot-commers and<br />
started funnelling them to more upmarket locations. I’ve<br />
still never, ever, seen Keith in anything resembling a suit.<br />
His home cooking and his kitchen garden are<br />
rightly famous. And if you ever get the chance of a<br />
meal, or a chat about recipes, you should take it.<br />
You must have made a fair amount of<br />
cash over the years. What have you<br />
done with it all? This scruffy gardener<br />
look and modest house isn’t fooling<br />
anyone…<br />
You’ve found me out. The garden and<br />
farmhouse are obviously just a facade.<br />
I have a very nice villa in Monaco,<br />
several massive offshore accounts,<br />
a yacht in the harbour and three<br />
vintage Porsches in a garage around<br />
the corner. I will not release my tax<br />
returns either so don’t bother asking…<br />
I’ve been very lucky. I work<br />
for a great company and have been<br />
paid generously enough to put three<br />
daughters through college, to help fund<br />
Julie’s prosthetics and rehabilitation,<br />
and to have a place for us to live in<br />
the most amazing town in California.<br />
I hope to have enough left over in<br />
my golden years to keep this going.<br />
I live the way I want to live. I prefer<br />
to make or grow or find the things I<br />
need, rather than buying them. I like to<br />
invent things and to improve things so I<br />
have a workshop. I like doing things for<br />
myself and others, to share whatever I<br />
can whenever I can. I like to work hard<br />
every day and to stay healthy. I am not<br />
fond of [phone and computer] screens<br />
and have very little interest in keeping<br />
up with pop culture. It’s a pretty simple<br />
life. It doesn’t take a lot of cash.<br />
Carbon frames aren’t really that<br />
recyclable, are they? What happens in<br />
a few years when our carbon frames<br />
either wear out or, more likely, just<br />
aren’t on-trend any more? At least old<br />
steel and alloy frames had the good<br />
grace to break, or get turned into town<br />
bikes if not... Can mountain bikers<br />
take any credit for saving the earth?<br />
Or are we just as bad as everyone<br />
else?<br />
On average we’re just as bad as everyone<br />
else and always have been. There is<br />
nothing inherently green or earth<br />
friendly about riding mountain bikes.<br />
I suppose you could say it’s better than<br />
riding an off-road motorcycle, but<br />
that’s a straw man. The sport started<br />
off with greenish spirit and there are<br />
still hippies among us. But that was<br />
an artefact of the NorCal culture that<br />
started things and was never very<br />
serious. Transport and commuting<br />
are the green(er) side of cycling.<br />
Bike frames and parts made<br />
from CFRP (carbon fibre reinforced<br />
polymer) are hard to recycle at the<br />
moment, though it is possible. That<br />
will change soon though. Car and<br />
aircraft manufacturers are using a lot<br />
more composites and are working out<br />
ways to recycle the materials they are<br />
using. As far as I know carmakers in<br />
the EU are required to make cars out of<br />
materials that can be (largely) recycled.<br />
Eventually that will make it easier for<br />
everyone to dispose of a carbon part<br />
without it ending up in a landfill.<br />
On the other hand, I don’t<br />
think carbon bikes are leading to an<br />
environmental catastrophe at this point.<br />
They last a long time (mechanically<br />
speaking), so it will take a lot longer<br />
to wear one out. A significant, and<br />
forgotten, aspect of conservation is to<br />
make good, durable things that last a<br />
long time and don’t require recycling.<br />
Carbon stuff is expensive too so there<br />
aren’t that many of them in use yet.<br />
The bikes that fall out of fashion<br />
but are still rideable are sold on to<br />
poverty-stricken 20 year olds, right?<br />
Also, I am not sure “having the<br />
good grace to break” is an advantage<br />
of things made with aluminium or<br />
steel. I’ve been fortunate and have<br />
managed to wobble to a stop when<br />
I was blessed with a broken (but<br />
recyclable!) bike. Not everyone has been.<br />
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