Rider of the week: Rain harvester rides a bike

Brad Lancaster literally wrote the book on rain water harvesting, but he is also an avid cyclist.

He says he sold his car in 1996 and immediately got a $7,000 raise because he no longer had to pay for gas, maintenance and insurance. He says going car free allowed him to be part of the solution rather than the problem.

The majority of the riding Lancaster does is on neighborhood streets. He says he sees more interesting stuff that he can recycle and runs into more people he knows on neighborhood streets. He says his Xtracycle helps with both finding material to recycle and running into people he knows, because he can load both up on his bike and ride away.

He says he’s thrilled with the city’s push for bike boulevards throughout the city.

If he could improve anything for cycling in the city, he says he would go much further with the bike boulevard concept and make neighborhood streets a “sustainable shade belt.”

He’d like to see shade and fruit trees lining neighborhood streets and irrigated by harvested rainwater. He imagines a street that was shady and cool and had fruit trees along the way allowing people to stop and eat on their way.

“With a scenario like that, why would anyone drive?” Lancaster said.

Related posts:

Rider of the week: Father/son bike time Rider of the Week: Bike rescue Rider of the Week: Riding dancer Rider of the week: Celebrating Bike-to-Work Week