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Sustainable Cycles

Bicycles and Menstrual Cycles

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  • Tour 2013

Departure date May 4!

rawkale April 29, 2013

Hey hey from the SF Bay!

Some updates:

Owen had a slight and unexpected health issue pop up, so he has a Dr.’s appt. this week. That pushes our departure date from April 28 to May 4. Cross your fingers that we are healthy and able to start our ride!

The first couple of workshops were awesome. At the Berkeley Free Clinic, we had a great and informative discussion with clinic volunteers and community members. At the California Student Sustainability Coalition (CSSC) convergence at UC Berkeley, Owen and I had about 40 young dreamers attend our workshop–very exciting!

Also, I had the opportunity to check out the Women’s Community Clinic in SF, which is an awesome organization that provides health care for all sorts of women in the area.

I have given out a number of menstrual cups (thank you, DivaCup for the generous donations) to interested women, and have already gotten some response. One woman emailed just to “let you know how pleased I am with this life change!”

It’s exciting, it’s happening, it’s great.

  • Tour 2013

Greetings from Rachel!

rawkale April 22, 2013

Hi, All,

Since Toni last wrote, MUCH has happened. I am riding SF to NYC with my good friend, Owen Gorman, an incredible young man who’s doing a bicycle advocacy project of his own–raising awareness about the Safe Routes to School Program. Check his project out, too.

We are geared up, our route is planned, and we’ve been doing some training here in Los Angeles, including two fully-loaded over-nighters.

ImageThe gear: This is Owen’s list. Mine includes ~30 menstrual cups generously donated by DivaCup (figure courtesy of Owen Gorman).

ImageThe route: forgive the quality of the image–we’re working on making it “zoomable”, but this is the gist! (courtesy Owen Gorman)

Image

Owen and I on a training ride to Henninger Flats–including a 1400 ft climb over 3 miles. (Photo credit: Kent Strumpell).

As you may deduce from the fact that all the computer images are made by Owen, I am what some might call “technologically challenged” as in, I don’t fully understand what a hashtag is, and I’m still figuring out how the heck Twitter works. But! Alas, given that I am jazzed, stoked, and pumped about doing this project across the country, I am putting effort into entering the 21st century…check out the Twitter account I made! We will be ‘tweet tweeting’ along the way.

Sustainable Cycles has got a couple of events already planned!

  • Friday, April 26. 6:30 to 8:30 pm at the Berkeley Free Clinic: Sustainable Cycles 101: shifting gears from single-use menstrual products. 
  • Friday, April 26 at party o’clock in Emeryville: Owen and Rachel’s Bike Eleganza Extravaganza. i.e. Our goodbye party! As it’s at the residence of a friend, please email for details: sustainablecycles101@gmail.com.
  • Saturday, April 27. 1:30 pm at UC Berkeley: Owen and I are presenting at the California Student Sustainability Coalition’s Convergence, though it requires pre-registration…

Fundraising wise, the cup is more than half full! (pun absolutely intended). With a goal of $2000, we’ve raised $1600! Thank you to all those who have contributed!

The timeline:

  • Owen and Rachel drive to SF on Tuesday (4/23).
  • Owen and Rachel DAY 1 to Davis: Sunday (4/28).

We are pumped, we are excited, we are enjoying our beds for the last few nights! Over and out.

  • Tour 2013

Announcing Our Summer 2013 Cross-Country Bicycle Tour!

tonicraige March 10, 2013

Sustainable Cycles is off to an incredible start in 2013!  We were awarded the year-long Lead Now Fellowship; we are presenting at the Society for Menstrual Cycle Research Conference this June; and we are sending Spokeswomen on a trip from the Bay Area to New York City – 3,250 miles!  

Our 2013 trip will be led by Rachel Horn, a recent graduate of UC Berkeley (read more about Rachel in her bio on our “About” page). The trip begins April 28th in the Bay Area and will take about three months.  Passionate Spokeswomen are invited to come along for either the entire trip or a short leg.   Please email Rachel directly if you are interested in joining up!

rachihorn@gmail.com

DSCN0249_2

Like our previous trip, menstrual cup companies are donating cups for us to give away.  Spokeswomen will write blog posts and articles, do interviews, give workshops, and make a ruckus to raise awareness about sustainable menstrual products.

Donate now to Rachel’s trip! Her total budget for the 3 month trip (including food, bike repair, sleeping arrangements, a train ticket back to California, everything) is $2,000.

We run on a tight (practically non-existent) budget and we are proud of it!  On our last bike trip we spent just $1,400, while giving away 200 menstrual cups.  Within a year of use the cups we gave away will save our giftees $9,600 (considering that most women spend $4/month on throw-away supplies).  Since the cups last 10 years, those cups will save our giftees $96,000 dollars!  

Think about it – with an investment of $1,400, Sustainable Cycles saved women $96,000 – that is $68 dollars of value for every $1 invested.  Of course it’s not just about money – those cups are also reducing waste, and benefiting women’s health.

SC comparison photo

It’s a great investment – donate to keep this incredible project going strong!

IMG_1396

  • Tour 2011

Sustainable Cycles has been selected for the year-long, $1,000 “Lead Now Fellowship”

tonicraige February 21, 2013

Sustainable Cycles, in partnership with girls’ empowerment organization, Full Circles Foundation (FCF), has been selected as one of 6 projects to receive a $1,000 Fellowship though SustainUS, a youth environmentalist organization!  The Fellowships were awarded to 6 small-scale sustainable development projects all over the United States.  For the year 2013, Sustainable Cycles will partner with FCF campers Tyra Davis and Aniah Bland. They will receive mentoring and support for their project, and get to know the other fellows though conference calls and in-person meetings.

We will be working on creating educator’s packets, and organizing a cross country bike trip to come (more on that later). We’d also like to begin writing posts about some of the international public health work going on regarding access to affordable, sustainable menstrual products.  In Raleigh, Toni, Aniah, and Tyra are developing a line of reusable cloth menstrual pads to sell as a microventure to support FCF.  So far, SC has focused on menstrual cups – we are excited to branch out.  The awesome thing about pads is that we (or anyone!) can make them ourselves without any fancy equipment, and have a low-cost, sustainable product.

Until now, all Sustainable Cycles’ funds have come from grassroots fundraising and small donations, or out of Sarah and Toni’s pockets. We can’t wait to step up our game in 2013!

Here’s some more information about the project. Please let us know if you want to know more, get involved, or if you have any ideas for us:

LNF tyra sewing

Tyra Davis sewing cloth pads at FCF’s office in Raleigh, North Carolina

Project Description:

Campers from Full Circles Foundation (represented by Tyra Davis, Aniah Bland, and Toni Craige), will partner with Sustainable Cycles (represented by Sarah Konner and Toni Craige). The FCF girls will learn to make reusable cloth menstrual pads to sell as a fundraiser for FCF, and they will create “educators’ packets” on the what, why and how of sustainable menstrual products. Sustainable Cycles will distribute the packets to community educators all over the country. Sustainable Cycles is also planning and promoting an upcoming cross-country bicycle tour to raise awareness.

Why?:

Conventional products are expensive and wasteful: The average woman in the US will spend about $2000 over her lifetime on single-use, disposable menstrual products. Conventional disposable products are made of trees, bleach, cotton, and glue (none of which are great things to put inside your body). After one use they are thrown away. The average woman throws away a huge truckload of menstrual products over her lifetime.

Very few people know about the alternatives: A very small proportion of US women use sustainable alternatives (menstrual cups, sea sponges, reusable cloth pads). It is not lucrative business to sell these products (they are inexpensive, and you do not need to replace them often). Our culture of silence about women’s bodies and menstruation stops people from even talking about the issue.

There is limited access to sustainable products in communities that most need them: Menstrual products are a significant financial burden on low-income women. They often do not have access to information about alternatives, or the up-front cost of the alternatives is prohibitive.

How we are addressing the challenge:

Making an alternative: We are making a sustainable product by hand, on a small scale, which will replace tons of trash produced by multinational corporations.

Income source for FCF girls and programming: This project could eventually provide fair and empowering employment for FCF girls.  FCF has a long-term vision of having youth-owned cooperative businesses all over the Southeastern United States.

Sparking a grassroots movement, reaching out to new communities, empowering community educators: We hope that the hands-on experience of making the pads and educator’s packets will get FCF girls fired-up about these issues. FCF works primarily with low-income women of color – a community which does not tend to have a lot of access to sustainable products. The girls will have the tools and enthusiasm needed to spark a grassroots change in their communities. Sustainable Cycles will reach out to our large national network of supporters to put the educator’s packets in action all over the country.

  • Tour 2011

Buy a Cup, support Sustainable Cycles

tonicraige November 3, 2012

Click this banner to buy a menstrual cup online –  $12.50 will go to Sustainable Cycles!  Perfect holiday gifts…

Reusable Menstrual Cup

Hi Everyone!

It has been almost a year since our ride down the West Coast!  We wanted to check in, share some news, and ask for your support in the next phase of Sustainable Cycles.

Where we are going next:  

  • Make “educator’s packets” with literature, fact sheets, visuals, and samples so that people all over the country and world can do effective education work in their community.
  • Going on another bike trip (funds permitting).
  • Attend the Society for Menstrual Cycle Research conference in summer 2013.
  • Continue to write about our work on our blog.

Give back, and invest in our next steps:  There are many ways to support Sustainable Cycles.  Please continue to tell friends about the project and spread the word.  We also need some funds to make educators packets, and some money in the piggy bank to travel to conferences and go on a bike trip.

Buy a cup: If you buy a Keeper or Mooncup through our website, Sustainable Cycles gets $12.50.

*This is so great!  It advances our mission of getting more people to use cups, and helps support our education work.

*Think about it – do you know any women who don’t use a cup?  Any birthdays coming up?  Can you buy some gifts in advance of the holidays?

*This promotion ends January 1st – please forward this announcement to anyone who might want to buy a cup for themselves or a friend.

CLICK THE BANNER AT THE TOP OF THIS PAGE,

OR

GO DIRECTLY TO THE KEEPER’S WEBSITE TO “ORDER A KEEPER OR MOON CUP” – Sustainable Cycles will get $12.50.  Let us know if you have any trouble ordering – call Toni at (919) 219-8100.

Invest in Sustainable Cycles: To decide how much to donate, take into account what you can afford, and these facts:

*$35 – The market value of a cup (which giftees got for free).

*$48 – The amount of money a cup will save you in a year.

*$480 – The amount of money a cup will save you in its 10 year lifespan.

You can donate through PayPal on our website.

How “productive” is Sustainable Cycles: We run on a tight (practically non-existent) budget, and we are proud of it!  Since our trip, all Sustainable Cycles costs (mostly making photocopies) have come out of our pockets, and we do all of our education work for free. We pulled off a 3 month bike trip (including plane tickets, and a new bicycle) with $1,400 and some in-kind donations – most notably the cups, which were generously donated by The Keeper, DivaCup, and Lunette.  Some math:

*We gave away 200 menstrual cups, retail value $7,000.  With a year of use, the cups we gave away will save our giftees $9,600 (considering that most women spend $4/month on throw-away supplies).  Since the cups last 10 years, those cups will save our giftees $96,000 dollars!  

*Think about it – with an investment of $1,400, Sustainable Cycles saved women $96,000 – that is $68 dollars of value for every $1 invested.  Of course it’s not just about money – those cups are reducing waste, and benefiting women’s health.

Help us keep pedaling along by buying a cup, or donating through PayPal.  If you can’t afford a monetary donation right now, that’s OK – we hope you are inspired to keep spreading the word – let us know if we can support you in any way.

All the best,

Toni Craige and Sarah Konner

  • Tour 2011

We Have a Winner! (Two Actually), and Other News

tonicraige July 26, 2012

Hey everyone, remember us?  Since our big bike trip, Sustainable Cycles has been more on the back burner, but there is still some great news to report.  We have been awarding prizes for the handsome young man contest, following up with giftees from our bike trip, presenting at conferences, and more.

*   *   *

All along, the Handsome Young Man Project, (“The Handsome Young Man Project: Sarah and Toni bicycle down the West Coast, live on $4 a day, and Talk to Handsome Young Men About Sustainable Approaches to Menstruation”), has been one of the more absurd and fun parts of Sustainable Cycles.  We found that many men were curious about menstrual cups, and wanted to help with our efforts.  We decided to create a contest:

The handsome young man who convinces the most women to switch to a menstrual cup wins.  Brilliant – any man wants to fall into the category of handsome and young, and men love contests.   The promised prize?  An enormous menstrual cup shaped beer goblet!

See the original post here for details.  (Warning: this project should not be taken seriously).

After getting home from the trip, I set about finding the right potter for the job – classy, manly pottery for a good price.  Luckily, we are family friends with Mark Hewitt – fabulous potter with a good sense of humor.  He agreed to have his apprentice, Seth Guzovsky make us two goblets for $50.

Big pots like this are Mark’s signature– due to budget restrictions, we commissioned something more modest, but no less impressive…

Mark’s wood-fired kiln.

One of the goblets by Mark’s apprentice, Seth.

It was impossible to pick just one winner!  Each of our two winners got one of these goblets:

The text says: “This certifies that [name] has been deemed an exceptional advocate of sustainable menstrual products, and therefore of women’s health, a fair economy, and a healthy earth by Sustainable Cycles. In recognition for his sensitivity, boldness, good looks, youth, and virility, he is awarded this giant menstrual cup shaped beer goblet.

THE WINNERS:

Ben hosted us at his house in Olympia.  In high school (!!!) at an age when most boys blush at the mere mention of periods, Benjamin bought menstrual cups for two female friends.  Ben with his cup:

Ben with his cup.

Cole is an irrepressible menstrual cup enthusiast.  He convinced many women in his large community to make the switch, and is a true pioneer in his openness to talk about these issues.  He also got an article about sustainable menstrual products published in Street Roots, a newspaper focused on empowering Portland’s homeless community.

Cole with his cup.

*   *   *

Now onto less ridiculous matters…

After getting back from our trip, we sent out a survey to all 200 giftees asking for feedback about the cups, and finding out about their “spokeswomen” activities.  Whenever I need a little pick-me-up, I can always go look at their responses:

Stats from our survey:

*90% told a friend

*46% are interested in going on a SC bike trip

* 5 people (6% of respondents) have already given a small, informal workshop on cups! 60% may do so in the future

 Fun testimonials:

“Through my work as a social worker I have given out 3 of the 4 cups you gave to me. I am also talking about the cup with friends, peers and clients promoting both the environmental and cost benefits. Thank you for your hard work on this! It is a great project and your dedication rocks!” 

“I’m basically enamored. So much easier, so much cleaner than using anything else – I want to personally hug whoever invented these things. My housemate is making all the girls in our house personalized menstrual cup bags. We’re obsessed. I do a lot of talking about it with people whom I think might be interested in switching over – told a few people where to get them and about the learning curve. I’m thinking of getting my sister one for Christmas, but she’d probably think it was weird. Anyway thanks so much for filling us in about this. I couldn’t be happier.”

“I was really NOT interested in using Cups when I first heard about them. I was fine with using tampons and the whole process sounded gross to me. Then, I went with some of my JV housemates to the talk at In Other Words and I felt a little bit persuaded. When Toni gave the non-Cup using girls in our house cups, I felt like I should at least give it three cycles, which is was recommended by a housemate, and I was fully prepared to hate it and be done by December…I LOVE IT!! I can’t get over how much easier it is. It is so much cleaner, I feel better about not having those disgusting cotton toxic tampons in my body, and not creating all that paper waste. I talk about them to everyone who will listen and I am committed to getting my sister and best friend to start using Cups by the end of this year!”

“The women who came to my co-op house were incredibly enthusiastic and helpful. My friends and I learned a lot from them, and continue to benefit from their communication and support. The Sustainable Cycles workshop generated a meaningful and lasting conversation in our community about the issues of womens’ bodies and health.”

*   *   *

I had the great opportunity to attend two day-long conferences put on by Law Students for Reproductive Justice.  The first was the southern regional meeting at UNC Chapel Hill, which I attended as a guest, and the second was the mid-Atlantic conference at American University in Washington DC, where I spoke on a panel about reproduction and sexuality education.

Reproductive justice is huge in the news right now (Susan G. Komen/ Planned Parenthood, Catholics and birth control, the Right to Know Act, etc).  I never would have even heard about the conference if the organizer, Nikola, had not posted a comment on our blog and asked to get in touch. Then– and it almost feels like a joke– she asked me to be on a panel!  It was wonderful to hear such accomplished professionals talk about their work in Reproductive Justice, and it was a great honor to be alongside two advocates for comprehensive sex ed in DC.

Watching Sarah Audelo of Advocates for Youth give her presentation.

* * *

I have been working with a girls empowerment organization, Full Circles Foundation, which works to build strong girls, a fair economy, and a healthy earth.  Sounds a lot like the mission of Sustainable Cycles…

FCF’s main program is a summer camp called “Strong Camp” for low-income girls ages 7-15.  I did a workshop for the girls 12 and up– the youngest group I have ever given a Sustainable Cycles presentation to.  More so than older women, younger girls tend to be “grossed out” by this topic, and less inclined to “poke around” and get to know themselves in the way they would need to to use a menstrual cup.  I was able to give away 5 cups to some wonderful girls.  Several felt that they were not “ready” now, but may be in the future, and a few others wanted to try out cloth pads.

What struck me most was how important frank, accurate conversations about the body are to teens.  So much is learned through whispers and euphamisms, oversexed by the media, or silenced by shame.  Everyone was paying very close attention!

*  *  *

We have updated the other pages of the blog – check it out, and forward this along to friends who might be interested. Please be in touch with questions, and comments.

More news coming soon…

  • Tour 2011

Chapter Two

tonicraige November 30, 2011


If you can believe it, we are now writing to you, each from the comfort of our respective homes back on the east coast! Don’t worry… there is still more to come and we’ll keep it interesting. Our bicycling adventure is over (for the time being), but we are still doing lots of exciting work to keep Sustainable Cycles growing into its future.  Toni just finished her trip with our friend Kaitlin, and Sarah has been in Michigan giving away cups and educating folks at the NASCO conference.  To date, we given away almost 300 cups!  We are finally settling into our more stationary lives (Toni in North Carolina and Sarah in Brooklyn), doing follow-up work from the trip, and envisioning and creating the next projects for Sustainable Cycles.  But first, reports from the field!  Since we’ve split up, this post will break our “we” convention and use the first person to describe each of our post-trip experiences.

*          *          *

Sarah flew home on October 14th, and I had 10 whole days to spend exploring LA before heading off on bike-trip-part-two with our friend Kaitlin.  Our event at the Bicycle Kitchen, that we wrote about in our last post, was a lucky start to my time in LA. We met a whole room-full of interesting and motivated women who helped me make plans for the rest of my stay.  April of Chicks on Bikes Radio, a monthly podcast about women in cycling, invited me to meet up for an interview for her show. You can download the free podcast here (it’s the 5th episode).  I organized several small workshops in LA– revisiting the Bicycle Kitchen twice, and teaching a giving away cups at the LA Ecovillage, Occupy LA, and Casa Maura Clarke, a community of Jesuit Volunteers.

A bus stop by Occupy LA

Giving away cups at Occupy LA

My adventure with Kaitlin was a great epilogue to my trip with Sarah, and also the beginning of the next steps for Sustainable Cycles – opening the project to other inspired women who want to do this work.  Kaitlin and I  were less ambitious in our mileage, than on the trip with Sarah. We stuck to a small area with relatively safe roads, and beautiful scenery.

 We bicycled out of LA on the Ballona Creek bike path.  The beds of the LA River and Ballona Creek were completely covered in concrete after a series of heavy floods in 1938.  Much of the year, the concrete course is completely dry. Think of the scene in Greece where they are racing cars in the concrete channel… that’s the LA river.  Today, plants are slowing growing in the cracks in the concrete, and bicycle paths run alongside the waterways.  Ballona Creek empties into the Pacific, and we headed north to marvel the strip on Venice Beach and Santa Monica.  Once the bike path ended, we threw our bikes in a pick-up truck to head north on the 101 to Santa Barbara, where we stayed in an amazing group of the student coops.  Again, I have been so impressed by all the smart, progressive, and community-minded college students I’ve met in housing co-operatives on this trip.

Skate park in Venice Beach

Thanks for the ride!

From Santa Barbara, we headed northeast to the wine country east of the coastal mountain range, then back to the coast to San Luis Obispo, where we stayed at “The Establishment” a community housing 19 people.  Mo, a resident of The Establishment, published a blog post about our project on the BambuBatu (a bambo clothing line) website soon after we left town– thanks Mo!

Santa Ynez Valley

Giving away cups at The Establishment

Sign outside The Establishment

After leaving San Luis Obispo (affectiontely called “SLO” by residents), we stayed in the beach towns of Morro Bay, Cambria, and San Simeon.  Several days when we were going north on Highway 1, there were headwinds gusting up to 25mph!  That factor combined with the beauty of the scenery left us inclined to linger longer at our lunch stops and then decide, “let’s just stay here!”  So, we didn’t make it very far north before needing to head back to LA, but we didn’t mind.  Maybe it’s because these were the last spots I got to stay on my West Coast adventure, or maybe because they are just plain beautiful, this part of the Central California coast has become one of my favorite places in the world.  It is absurdly magical.  You can visit Hearst Castle, the palace-on-a-hill of the newspaper mogul, replete with grand European architecture and a herd of zebras in the pastures below.  A few miles north, hundreds of elephant seals bask in the sun.  Looking with an east-coaster’s eye, I can’t believe how spacious and undeveloped it is.  Most of the land along the central California coast is home to cattle.  There are way too many coves and cliffs and caves to ever finish exploring.

The indoor pool at Hearst Castle

Morro Bay

Little cave in a little cove in San Simeon State Park

Check out that rainbow!

*          *          *

 Meanwhile, on the other side of the country— news from Sarah:

Hey y’all… I live in New York City now! Wow! It’s the land of possibility, interesting people, great art, and so much cool stuff to do, that you’re always missing something. In my first week in this Big Apple city, I was able to finally meet, in person, the wonderful ladies who run Lunette, the menstrual cup company based in Finland. Together with their marketing director from Snapdragon, we all shared stories and brainstormed future projects for Lunette, Sustainable Cycles, and this movement in general.

What an amazing time to move to New York City… Occupy Wallstreet!

            Within my first week in New York, I also got to meet with Kim Burgas – a brilliant young woman introduced to us by Julia Schopik of the Keeper. Kim is working on a project called the Crimson Campaign—much in the same way that Toni and I are working, her project aims to promote sustainable approaches to menstruation and shift the covert and shameful culture surrounding periods. Like Sustainable Cycles, the Crimson Campaign is focused on grassroots education and empowerment of women teaching one another, without working for any one company, and without selling anything. Kim is currently working with the Society for Menstrual Cycle Research to help plan a conference for 2013 in New York City. Kim has invited both Toni and myself to be involved in the conference and its planning. It is a really exciting event because it will bring together scientific research and activism—a rare working pair—to share knowledge and brainstorm about this movement in the coming years.

The Crimson Campaign is doing very inspiring work… be sure to check it out.

            My first big event post-bicycle-trip was to the NASCO Institute in Ann Arbor, MI. Most of you probably know about student housing co-ops by now, since we have visited many and have sung their praise. NASCO (North American Students of Cooperation) is an umbrella organization for student housing cooperatives from around the country. Once a year motivated students from housing co-ops all over the country come together for a conference to share knowledge, teach workshops, and make connections within the movement. After all of our success with the housing cooperatives on the west coast, I was excited to make it this event. I had a table set up in the commons, next to the Beehive Collective (if you’ve never seen their work… you must!).

“The True Cost of Coal” by the Beehive Collective

Thanks to Julia and Lou from the Keeper, I had 30 Mooncups and Keepers to give away to representatives from over twenty different houses, and I talked to many more people than that! I encouraged everyone who got a cup to go back to their houses and speak about sustainable menstruation loud, clear, and unabashedly. Many of the giftees from the conference are now working on getting our article about sustainable menstruation published in their co-op or school newsletters. Check out the NASCO Tumbler video from my booth at the conference. This felt like and incredibly effective place to “plant seeds” and give away cups. I look forward to hearing the report-backs!

The sign for my table at NASCO

            My last bit of news is that I was recently interviewed on a Seattle-based radio show, The Dr. Pat Show, with Tracy Puhl from Gladrags. We talked about menstrual cups, Sustainable Cycles, Gladrags, and what we learned from the people we met on our trip. Dr. Pat had some great questions for us, and Tracy was able to offer a free cup give-a-way to one of the listeners. Thank you Tracy for inviting me to be part of this!

*          *          *

There is certainly a shift to be made – doing this work inside my everyday life rather than on a trip devoted to it. I want to continue to speak out over the hush-hush of menstruation, and find innovative ways to help people open up to this lifestyle change. Toni and I have our work cut out for us. In the coming months, we want to do thorough follow up with all of our giftees from the trip, apply for fiscal sponsorship (so that you can all make tax-deductible donations!), and apply for grants, so that Sustainable Cycles can have a supported future. There are several amazing women we have met that want to go on Sustainable Cycles bike trips, Toni and I are planning another trip through the southeast later this year, and we want to keep writing, publishing, speaking, teaching workshops, and doing outreach (I will soon be visiting women’s centers and health clinics in New York City).

If you have ideas about this work, we want to hear them. If you want to take an active role by publishing an article or teaching a workshop, we want to give you resources. If you want to help us out— keep telling your friends about menstrual cups, and if we gave you a cup, keep an eye out for a survey coming your way. We are in a privileged position right now, to collect some very useful data about how menstrual cups work for recent converts, from a wide range of different kinds of people. Thanks for all your continued support. Chapter two! Bon voyage! More to come!

  • Tour 2011

We Made it to LA!!!

sskonner October 13, 2011

On October 2nd we left the Bay Area, bringing with us our fun and spunky host, Kit, to ride south with us for a few days. We rode our bikes to Half-Moon Bay, where we camped for a night in a cypress grove overlooking the ocean (one of the most beautiful places we’ve pitched our tent!). The next day was the first rainy day of our trip. We spent an extra day there by the bay with a wonderful family before biddng adieu to Kit and making our way to Santa Cruz.

Our first stop in Santa Cruz was a visit to SubRosa – an anarchist community space, zine library and coffee shop. We learned about their projects and gave away a few cups.

Santa Cruz was not the most productive of our stops. We hadn’t planned to stay long, but bad weather slowed us down. It rained for several days and our hosts Ian and Bob were so awesome we hardly wanted to go anywhere.  Ian studies solar energy and is a talented guitar player. Bob is a social psychology grad student at UC Santa Cruz. The internet was amazingly slow, so we had no choice but to enjoy ourselves playing music, cooking, and hanging out.  Tough life!

That’s a blurry trailer behind us. Ian took us to a potluck at a student trailer park at UCSC. All the women there already had cups and were already telling their friends!

We left Ian with a cup to give to his sister and had him model a t-shirt that Lunette sent us. The back of the shirt says: “Take care down there:  Us women spend 6 ½ years of our lives menstruating.  But with Lunette’s menstrual cups, it desnt have to feel like it.  You can continue to play sports, and some say, even enjoy oral sex at any time of the month.”  Thanks for sending us the shirt, Caron (from Lunette), I’m sure people will really notice when Ian wears it!

Ian… the new face of Lunette!

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Often in life, you can wake up in the morning and visualize fairly accurately how your day will turn out- what friends you will see, where you’ll eat your meals, and where you’ll sleep.   This is emphatically not the case on a bicycle trip.  On October 6th, we imagined a long day of bicycling along some of the most famously beautiful coast line, in order to reach Big Sur on the afternoon of the 7th.

Here’s what actually happened:

5 miles into the ride, Toni got a flat tire.  We fixed the tire in front of a real estate office in the Santa Cruz suburbs.  Onwards!  A few miles later…. another flat tire, no more spare tubes, and a chilly rain.  We hitch-hiked to a bike shop where we blew $21 on three new tubes, and invested $40, we think wisely, in a new tire.  By the time we left the bike shop, it was almost 5pm.  We weighed our options, took a brief go at hitch-hiking towards Big Sur, then decided to turn back to spend another night with Ian and Bob.  A long, hard day, ending where we started.

Right before we left Seattle our friend Patrick jokingly asked, “Are you guys going to totally dominate this bike ride?!?” We thought for a moment about the challenge ahead, our own personalities, and our philosophies about travel/life.  After a moment, Toni said, “No, we are going to experience it.”

We think about that conversation almost every day, as we walk our bikes up huge hills, ride along congested freeways, run out of food or water, hide in shade for hours from the brutal midday sun, get flat tires, pass each other without noticing on the road, then worry, wait, and maybe ride around aimlessly searching.  We also think about that conversation when amazing things we could never have imagined fall into our laps.  The idea of dominating any of this is absurd.

In coming towards the end of this trip, we’ve been reflecting on why we enjoy or don’t enjoy an experience on a given day.  We know we can’t be in control of what happens, but that lesson is not easy to internalize. Any situation can be good if it is approached with creativity, perspective, and gratitude. Often we can’t muster those virtues in the moment.

By chance, this time of year is also a time of reflection in the Jewish calendar.  Yom Kippur, which fell this year on the 8th of October, is the Sabbath of Sabbaths, the holiest day of the year. On this Day of Atonement, in the Jewish tradition, we reflect on our sins and ask for forgiveness from the people in our lives. We fast from food and water, mourn those we’ve lost, get a last chance for repentance from sins, and usually spend most of the day in the temple.  Sarah grew up in this tradition. Toni is not Jewish, but we were both interested in creating a meaningful ritual in the spirit of Yom Kippur and our trip together.

We had been very concerned with where we were going to spend Yom Kippur. Of course things did not turn out as planned. We did not get as far as we wanted, but ended up finding a good place in Carmel Highlands, the last town before a long uninhabited (and steep) stretch of Big Sur State Park. We knocked on the door of a house with a garden filled with prayer flags, flowers, and huge stacks of balancing rocks (cairns), traditionally used for marking trails.  We knew we’d found our spot.  Jim, the artist who created the rock sculptures and the garden “retreat” space, invited us to stay, brought us to the private beach across the road, and talked with us about the spiritual meaning us his art-making.

In our version of this Day of Atonement, we started with apologies to each other. We have spent a lot of time together over the last two months and have been each other’s main support system. We’ve done a lot of things right, but naturally we’ve disappointed each other as well.  It was powerful, but also scary to be specific and honest about the ways in which we caused each other (and ourselves) suffering on this trip. It is humbling to think about the magnitude of time we’ve spent in our lives not being happy and not giving our best selves to the people around us, and how it’s our own fault.

That conversation set the tone for a day of reflecting on the other facets of our lives.  We spent the day at Point Lobos State Park, a beautiful setting for peaceful reflection.  As we broke our fast with wine and food we talked about what is next in our own lives and for Sustainable Cycles (more on that later).

*    *    *

We woke up on the 9th of October, 300 miles from LA, with an event at 8pm on the 10th. Hmmmmmm…

We took a morning ride along the Big Sur coastline and then sadly said goodbye to the last pedal-powered moments of our adventure.  Toni hurled a hard-boiled egg over the cliffs into the ocean as a sacrificial offering to the hitch-hiking gods, and… it worked!

The first truck that drove by stopped and offered to drive us 130 miles!!! It was perfect. We got to join the family vacation of David, Scott, and Liz. We stopped to look for jade on a rocky beach, saw elephant seal pups lounging in the sand, and visited the estate of the Hearst family (a huge castle surrounded by vineyards, and ranch-land where zebras graze next to cattle). They dropped us off at a gas station in Pismo Beach at 5pm. After an hour and a half of fruitless attempts that were beginning to try our patience, we found the perfect ride. Sarah, a 22 year-old pre-med student at UCLA gave us a ride all the way to Los Angeles!  We gave her one cup for herself and one to give her friend.  Sarah dropped us off right by the water at Venice Beach, where we spent a few minutes in the hum of bars, music, and beach bums before heading to our friend Maria’s house a few miles away.

*    *    *

Surprisingly enough, we love LA!  By reputation, not the most bicycle friendly town due to traffic, sprawl, pollution, and heat, we’ve actually had a lot of fun exploring the city on our bikes.  So far, we’ve met great people, biked through vibrant neighborhoods of all different cultures, and enjoyed the unique “So-Cal” beach-y feel.

Full moon over Los Angeles

On Monday night, we had our favorite event of our trip: we were special guests at The Bicycle Kitchen’s weekly ‘Bicycle Bitchen’, i.e. women and trans-gendered only night.  The Bicycle Kitchen is a non-profit, cooperatively run, do-it-yourself repair shop.  “Cooks” volunteer their time and teach people how to fix their bicycles.  Customers pay a suggested $7/hour (or whatever they can afford) to use the space, tools, and expertise of the cooks.  Bicycle Bitchen, held from 6:30-9:00pm on Monday nights, is a basic repair/maintenance workshop by and for women and transgendered people.  We worked on our bikes until 8:00, then settled in with pizza and beer to talk about menstrual cups.  We gave away 12 cups, and got a plenty of suggestions for other communities to connect with in LA. One of the “Bitchen Cooks” invited us to a craft night at a bar in the same neighborhood. We showed up to a room full of people in great spirits! Crafting, drinking, and open to our message. We gave away 7 cups and got a few more tips on places to visit in LA.

On the surface LA is a tricky place to find community.  Thankfully, we stopped at the Bicycle Kitchen first– it was the perfect place for us to plug into some great networks.

Bike repair/ menstrual cup workshop at the Bicycle Kitchen

We are thrilled to be in LA during Occupy LA, the Los Angeles wing of the Occupy Wallstreet movement.  We think it is important to build awareness about the Occupy movement – mainstream newsmedia is not doing its job.  According to the Occupy Wallstreet website: “Occupy Wall Street is [a] leaderless resistance movement with people of many colors, genders and political persuasions. The one thing we all have in common is that We Are The 99% that will no longer tolerate the greed and corruption of the 1%. We are using the revolutionary Arab Spring tactic to achieve our ends and encourage the use of nonviolence to maximize the safety of all participants.”  This movement is huge: over 650 cities around the world have agreed to organize solidarity protests on October 15th.  Please take a few minutes to educate yourself about this movement!

View in front of City Hall at Occupy LA

In LA, there are hundreds of tents set up on the lawn of city council.  The Occupation is less than two weeks old, and is impressively well organized.  Free meals, snacks, sunscreen, and pads and tampons (we will work on that) are provided. There are 6 porta-johns (which we hung our fliers on), there is a Welcome tent with a daily schedule and volunteers to answer questions.  The organization is horizontal, and non-hierarchical– basically, you jump in and help out with whatever you want.  Of course there are kinks to work out, but overall, Occupy LA has built a well-functioning, leaderless society in less than two weeks. Wow!  Within 20 minutes, 50+ people can be rallied to speak at a city council meeting against an unpopular item on the agenda.  And it’s fun – on Tuesday, we spent a couple hours playing music and singing protest songs with a group of new friends.

On Thursday the 13th at 2pm, we are doing a workshop on menstrual cups at Occupy LA – we’ll let you know how it goes!

*    *    *

News in Sustainable Cycles:

Snapdragon, the public relations firm that works with Lunette, has began helping us publicize our project.  Deidre Sullivan is blogging, tumbling, and tweeting about us.  She is planning to pitch our project to a few TV shows, and documentary film-makers.  Snapdragon is based in NYC.  Sarah has a meeting planned with Deidre when she moves to New York in November to talk about PR and Sustainable Cycles projects in NYC.

We’ve already written several times about our outreach to social workers who work with low-income women: we give them a handful of cups to give away at their discretion.  As we continue to imagine how our project can grow and change, we are excited about empowering more people to educate their community and give away cups.  We are starting a small pilot project of giving away a few cups to passionate, smart young women who want to spread the word.  We encourage them to talk about cups, plan events, and get articles published.  After they give cups away, they email us the contact information of their giftees so we can follow up with everyone who has received a cup.  We invite these “spokespeople” to write guest essays for our blog sharing their experience doing Sustainable Cycles activism in different parts of the country.   We want this project to keep growing beyond “Toni and Sarah” and this bicycle trip.

Ou main goal is to get as many people as possible to know about and use menstrual cups.  This trip is the seed of that project. Even though this chapter of Sustainable Cycles is coming to a close, stay tuned – there’s a lot more work to be done.

In the very immediate future…

Toni is going to keep bicycling for three more weeks!  Our good friend Kaitlin McCarthy (also a passionate cup enthusiast) is meeting Toni in LA on the 24th.  From there, they will continue the Sustainable Cycles project, revisiting areas of central California that we missed on our first pass through.  We have enough money left in our budget for them to continue living for three weeks on $4/day.  Toni will fly home for Thanksgiving and spend December at home with family.  There are many universities and colleges within 30 minutes drive of Toni’s house in Raleigh (Duke, UNC, NC State, and many smaller colleges).  She hopes to do Sustainable Cycles work through those institutions and other organizations around Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill.  In January, she is doing a month-long dance-training intensive, and from there, she has no set plans.

Sarah is flying to NYC on October 14th to work dancing and teaching yoga. In November, Sarah will be in Michigan participating in the NASCO Institute, a yearly conference which brings together progressively-minded activists living in housing co-operatives from all over North America to teach workshops, gain access to wider networks, and share ideas. Sarah will have a table, give out cups, and encourage and facilitate bulk orders in co-ops like the ones we have connected with on this trip.

*     *     *

We honestly don’t see this as the end of this work, but rather the beginning of much larger, evolving project. Toni and Kaitlin will continue to blog about their adventures in the coming weeks. Later, you can look forward to stories and updates from our “spokespeople”. In about three months we will be emailing all of the giftees to find out what happened with the cups and if/ how they have spread the word. We’ll let you know what happens.

Craft Night at AkBar. Glue, games, and menstrual cups are fun!

Thanks for the support!

Onwards!

  • Tour 2011

California — Did You Know It’s Legal to be Naked in San Francisco?

sskonner October 1, 2011

Now we understand why people from California are unhappy anywhere else.  They complain about the humidity, the bugs, the cold, and the cynicism of east-coasters.  California is amazingly free of plagues- we love it!  In our limited experience, we’ve found that the clichés and stereotypes about California are pretty true.  We’ve gotten several thumbs-up out of car windows – “have a groovy bike ride.”  Someone commented that people who are impatient with slow bicyclists on highway one really need to “cool it.”  People use the word “mellow” often: “that beach is really mellow – it’s great for swimming.”  Our first night in California, we went up to a house to ask to camp in the yard.  We were greeted by a naked couple in their 60’s who offered us food, wine, and invited us into their hot tub.  Check out this rad San Francisco bicycle (those are two Ken dolls glued to the back rack):

Rare San Francisco species of bicycle.  Spotted 9/25/11 in the Mission.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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After our stay in Arcata, we spent a night camping in the Redwoods with our friend Morgan, who we met at Alpha Farm in Deadwood (see earlier post).  On an afternoon hike we discovered a huge hollow redwood, big enough to fit 20 people sitting in a circle inside.  Morgan left his hat outside to mark the tree so we could come back and sleep in it that night.  We walked back to the tree in the dark, singing, and playing the banjo to make sure the bears were aware of our presence.

This photo was taken from THE INSIDE of the tree where we slept

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The next morning on our way out, we met a wonderful, recently retired couple, traveling by RV.  Anne was excited to learn about menstrual cups, buy them for her daughters, and spread the word about our project to her network.

The next few days, we were constantly reminded that we were in the heart of California pot-growing country (Humboldt county).  Nearly everyone we met in this county was high, and many either had a smoking device within reach, or were using it as we spoke.   These are not ideal conditions for educating people about menstrual cups, finding

backyards to camp in, or hitchhiking.  We’ll leave the rest of this experience to your imagination…

Enjoying Creme Brulee!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Luckily, we ran back into our friends from Adventure Cycling as we were beginning a famously steep and long climb up Leggett Pass.  They invited us to camp with them again after a long (and very beautiful) day of biking, and surprised us by inviting us to dinner at a fancy cliff-side seafood restaurant overlooking the ocean in Fort Bragg.  Simple living be damned, we accepted.  We gave a bunch of massages and menstrual cups for people’s daughters in gratitude for their hospitality.

From Leggett Pass onwards, we have been on highway 1 – such an improvement over the 101.  The 1 is a small, narrow, winding two-lane road without much traffic.  You can hear cars coming from ½ a mile away, and just pull over if they sound big.  On the 1, you ride along the edges of cliffs 100s of feet about crashing waves.  The stretch of 1 north of San Francisco is very rural.  We had little planned in this sparsely populated area so we were open to discovering unexpected people and places – an important reason to travel by bicycle!

In Mendocino, We happened upon a the Mendocino Rejuvination Music Festival.  The festival was another quintessential California experience.  Dreadlocks, flowy skirts, raw food, songs about peace and love, and a reclining chair surrounded by gongs, where your whole body could become one with sacred vibrations.

Later, in Mendocino country, we ran into a group of about 200 motorcyclists.  They had ridden from the Bay Area north to The Zen House: the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance for a tasty taco lunch, a beer, and a poetry reading.  We consider motorcycles our mechanized cousins, and were glad to be invited to share their lunch.  Most were men, and we didn’t get a ton of enthusiasm about our project, but we did get one prize-winning California quote.  One woman was very excited about our project and took a cup for her daughter.  She, like many Californians, senses that we are on the cusp of a new era as a society, that we are going to start really changing things and really taking care of the earth.  Naturally, she loved the idea of not using single-use menstrual products anymore, but regretted that we had not found a convenient replacement for disposable diapers: “we’ve gotta find something hip for the babies!”

*         *          *

We had a few great hosts this leg of the trip.  In Elk, a tiny town of 150 on the Mendocino coast, we asked a man who was taking his dog for a walk where all the houses were in town.  After a short conversation he invited us to camp in his yard.  We went for a walk on the beach, then came back to the house to the sound of Chet playing the guitar (beautifully!).  Not wanting to interrupt, we rested on the grass on the front lawn and listened.  Later, we collaborated to make a delicious dinner, and got to know each other.  Chet lives in Sacramento with his wife and 15 year old son – they are building a little getaway on the coast.  He comes to enjoy the quiet, and play guitar on the beach for hours at a time.  When he talks about his family, he glows.  Chet is an amazingly intelligent, and thoughtful person.  We felt so lucky to be in his presence. Eventually, we got to talking about our project, and Chet happily took a cup for his wife, and has lots of ideas about how she could spread the information in their community.

View from near Chet’s house.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Further south, after a long, hot day of bicycling we ended up in Bodega Bay, a town of 7,000 on the Sonoma county coast.  Sarah woke up that day feeling sick.  The heat combined with a big climb knocked her out.  After hitch-hiking into town, Sarah plopped herself under a tree in the shade, refusing to go further. Toni heroically sped off to find a good place to rest for the night and passed a young woman with wild curly hair in a big pickup truck driving by – perfect, but where was she going? Then she circled back and Ton sped after her to meet her at her house.  Alexa was on the day to work, but had forgotten one of her earrings.  Alexa, and her boyfriend Gabe were amazing people and hosts – another big dose of California.  When Toni was describing Sarah’s exhaustion, Gabe knew exactly what was going on with her.  “Oh, she’s fried. We’ve got food, water, electrolytes, whatever you need!”  Fried was the perfect description!  Alexa and Gabe were enthused about our project.  We left them with a cup, and plenty of literature to share with friends.  This was written by Gabe on a chalk board in their kitchen:

Chalk drawing by Gabe on the wall of their kitchen

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Alexa gave us a ride to the highway after our stay. Thanks!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

From Bodega Bay, until the San Francisco Bay Area, we decided to take it easy, since Sarah was not feeling well.  We hitchhiked to Marin county to stay with Christina, the mother of Lucia, a Humboldt State student we met in Arcata.  Christina, Michael, and Martin live in a beautiful home on the water at Bel Marin Keyes.  We were feeling like we needed some comfort and coddling, and we sure got it!  We went swimming a few times a day, ate delicious food, had access to computers to work on our articles, and even got massages from Christina, a professional massage therapist!  Christina saw the massages as a way to “support our bodies,” and therefore support our work.  She toured us around the surrounding town where we gave out information and cups at an acupuncture office, a raw foods cafe, and other businesses.

After two nights in Marin, we took public transit to Berekely, CA to meet up with our friend Kit.  Kit is a Lutheran Volunteer (“LV,” similar to Jesuit Volunteers or Americorps Volunteers) working as an activities coordinator for senior citizens.  She lives in a community with three other LVs.  We are near the end of a 10 day stay in the Bay Area.  This part of the country is densely populated, and super-progressive– a great place to work on our project!

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By the time we reached the Bay Area, we had been on the road a little over a month and had given away all 72 of the cups we started with. A nomadic lifestyle , staying places usually one, very occasionally, two nights, is fun, but also stressful.  Kit’s house in Berkeley is a place for us to recharge our minds and bodies, and the location for a new infusion of cups– we received a total of 140 in the mail!  Thanks so much to Lunette, the Keeper, and DivaCup for your help – of course, this project could not happen without you!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fun with cups!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bicycling for a month is great, but unbalanced exercise.  Upon arrival in Berkeley, we felt like the cyclists in the movie the Triplets of Belleville (a lot of thigh!).  Berkeley is home to a branch of Yoga to the People, a donation-based yoga studio born in LA, now with branches in other major cities.  We wouldn’t normally take yoga classes (since we are both teachers ourselves, and they are so expensive), but it feels amazing to be in someone else’s class, and re-balance our bodies after all the biking.

We had two events in the Bay Area, and three meetings with organizations that work with low-income women.  We visited several co-ops in the enormous Berkeley Student Co-op Association, and we’ve also given out cups to people we’ve met a Yoga to the People, dance classes, and Lutheran Volunteers we’ve met though Kit.  In total, we’ve given out about 60 cups in the Bay Are, and still have a few days to go.

Our first event was at The Book Zoo, a radical bookstore in Oakland.  The owner supplied wine and beer, and gave us each a free book of our choosing!  We educated a small group about sustainable menstrual products, and enjoyed each other’s company.

The Longhaul is an “infoshop,” bookstore, library, and community space.  They host discussions and events, publish a quarterly paper, and a famous planner, the Slingshot Organizer radical planner. Each day in the Slingshot, there is information about a historical event which occurred on that day that you probably did not read about in your history textbook.  In the back of the planner, there is a directory of radical spaces listed by region of the country.  The Slingshot is something of a toolkit for radicals and organizers.

We were special guests at the Longhaul’s weekly craft night.  That week, there was a do-it-yourself reusable pad making workshop.  We cut out the patterns from some old fleece blankets and sewed the pads together by hand.  There were about 15 women at the workshop, most of whom had already heard of, or already used menstrual cups.  The few who did not yet know about them, were happy to learn, and accepted our gifts with enthusiasm.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As we mentioned, Berkeley is the home to the Berkeley Student Housing Cooperatives — one of the biggest networks of student cooperatives in the country. The BSC is a member of a larger network of student housing co-ops, NASCO (North American Students of Cooperation). The BSC collectively owns 17 houses and 3 apartment complexes: affordable housing, mostly for students. We first met with Claire, the Sustainability Coordinator for the BSC. Claire is a vibrant and smart college student at UC Berkeley. We gave Claire lots of educational materials to share with the other co-op houses and talked with her at length about making a bulk order for the whole BSC in order to have discount prices for their members. In the next two days had dinner at three of the houses (yes, two dinners in one night!) and gave away over 20 cups to SUPER enthusiastic young women. Hoyt is a women’s co-op, housing 80 brilliant and progressively-minded young women. Toni and I were so privileged to have the undivided attention of a full dining hall of women at dinner time. This was by far the biggest group of women we have ever talked to at once. They really listened, had great questions, and by the end of our 15 minutes together, most of them wanted cups! We couldn’t give cups away to everyone who wanted them at any of the houses, but we planned for all the women in each house to pitch in to buy the rest of the cups for everyone in the house.  That way everyone benefits from the cups we were able to give away, and they are all in it together.

This experience at the BSC houses and our other experiences at the student housing cooperatives in Eugene (where they also want to make bulk orders for their houses) has made us excited about reaching out to more student housing networks. After this trip ends, Sarah is hoping to attend the NASCO Institute in Ann Arbor, MI in early November (Since she will already be in Michigan at that time!). This is a meeting place for the most motivated co-opers from all over the country to come together to share workshops and dreams for the future. Though NASCO Institute will cost a pretty penny to attend, having access to this event will be worth it. We want to share menstrual cups with this huge network of communities, help encourage more women to make the switch, and help facilitate discount bulk orders. Sarah will set up a table with cups and information and hopefully lead a workshop about bringing sustainable menstrual products into co-op houses.

We had meetings at three social services agencies in the Bay Area.  First, Sarah met with Whitney Hubbard from the Berkeley Food and Housing Project. Whitney explained that the BFHP has a women’s shelter and also long-term housing projects. Though the BFHP is not ready to incorporate menstrual cups now, they are starting a big project to green their whole program. They would like to work with us over the coming months to create educational materials to use with their clients as they move towards environmental sustainability. Sarah gave one cup to Whitney to use herself and four more to give out to other staff or long-term clients who want to use them. These first few cups will serve as a small experiment for the future.

On Wednesday, we both visited the Women’s Daytime Drop-In Center in Berkeley.  The WDDC is a 501 (c)(3) non-profit program empowering women and children to move from the streets to a home by providing ongoing and intensive counseling, case management services, daily support groups, a comprehensive children’s program, a variety of referral services, and a transitional housing program for four single parent families.  They are starting a weekly discussion group on issues of sustainability and health.  Cups can liberate these women from the burden of finding pads and tampons each month.  We did a lot of brainstorming on how to talk about cups with the women who visit the center.  There are barriers: limited access to clean water and bathroom, histories of sexual abuse,  and the need for high-quality training in order to understand and care for the cups.  We left the center with 4 cups to give away as they wish – to staff, or to the people they serve.

On Thursday, we made a pilgrimage across the bay to The Women’s Community Clinic in San Francisco.  The clinic is staffed mostly by volunteers, and provides free health care for uninsured women.  We were invited to come speak to the staff during their lunch break, but as we were shown around the facility, we met lots of apologies from staff and volunteers for not being able to attend – they had too much to do!  The Center was a hive of order and productivity.  We are gladdened and amazed that so many people are working so hard to provide the services low-income women need.  We did get a chance to talk in depth with three staff members.  All three had been wanting a cup, but had not bought one yet, mostly because $35 felt like a lot to spend on something they were unsure about.  We answered their questions, gave each woman a cup, and then talked with them about what it would take to get cups into the hands of their clients. We keep seeing that making the switch is much more likely to be successful if a woman has a friend who uses a cup, can answer her questions and coach her through the first bumps in the road.  We decided that the first step is to get the people working in women’s health to use reusable products.  We left the WCC with 10 cups to give away to staff and volunteers.  They promised to follow up with us about where those 10 cups end up, and with their thoughts on how the WCC can institute programs to liberate women (who are ready) from pads and tampons.  The WCC is absolutely amazing – we are inspired to have met these women, and glad that the cups are in such good hands.

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After the WCC, we biked (yes, San Francisco is really hilly!) to Golden Gate Park for the Hardly, Strictly Bluegrass Festival- San Francisco’s biggest music festival. Three days, six stages, over 750,000 attendees and 350 musicians—amazing!  Thank you San Francisco!  We will spend Saturday enjoying the festival, and then head towards Santa Cruz on Sunday morning.  Our time is running out for bicycling: we have an event in LA on October 10th, so that leaves us with only 6-7 more days of bike riding before we will have to hitchhike into the city.  So it is!  These are days to be savored.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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In other news…

Still no word from Ellen Degeneres, even though about 10 people have written her letters asking her to put us on her show.  Bummer!  Ellen – you too busy to read your mail…?  Let’s keep on writing – see our post to make it easy!

We have written two articles from the road which explain the basics of why to switch to reusable menstrual products.  One just got published in Street Roots, a Portland paper sold by homeless people which addresses issues of social class.  The article will also be published in the upcoming newsletter for the Olympia, WA organization POWER (Parents Organizing For Welfare and Economic Rights).  We’ve posted the articles as PDFs on our Resources page.  Please email them to interested friends and family.  If you have ideas on newsletters or newspapers that would want to publish the articles, let us know.

Bike Snob wrote about us again!  After he wrote about us the first time, we wrote him an email of thanks, and sent him a funny card and a menstrual cup for his wife.  Bike Snob received the gift, and gave us another approving nod in his blog. On September 29th, the day he mentioned us in our blog, we got 1,210 hits!  This is huge for us, since we only have 45 subscribers – thanks Bike Snob!

Here’s a taste of his post – check out his blog, it’s very funny:

In all seriousness, it makes me feel all tingly inside that two people are not only touring by bicycle in order to promote something they believe in, but that they’re doing so with good cheer and in good humor. Then again, that inner tingling could just be a sign that it’s menstrual cup time. Either way, it’s a refreshing alternative to the usual touring logs in which people boast about their mileage, document the minutiae of their bicycle set-ups, and generally suffer from the delusion that their cycling vacations are on par with the exploits of the great explorers.

We are glad that the menstrual cup is having fun at Bike Snob’s house…

  • Tour 2011

Sheep Farms, College Towns, Redwoods, and Beaches

sskonner September 14, 2011

After our night in Hebo, we Hitchiked to Newport, Oregon to avoid the scary riding conditions on that part of the 101. Newport is home to an amazing bike shop: Bike Newport. They have an upstairs loft with internet, couches, a shower, and laundry – everything a bicyclist needs! We did some computer work for our project, then stayed with Julie, a woman we found on warm showers.org (a hospitality network for bicycle tourists similar to couch surfing). Julie was in the middle of a big pickled green bean canning operation, and we were happy to help out.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The next day was the most beautiful day of biking of our lives! Up and over beautiful hillsides with amazing views of sand beaches and rocky outcrops jutting out of the water. But to save ourselves some scary riding on 101 over labor day weekend, we decided to go on an inland loop.

* * *

We stayed with Sarah’s cousin in the tiny community of Deadwood, Oregon (population 150). In Deadwood, we worked on writing an article on the current relevancy of sustainable menstruation, especially for low-income women. We hope to get the article published in community newspapers in Portland, Olympia, Eureka, and elsewhere.

Alpha Farm

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Deadwood is home to Alpha Farm, an income-sharing intentional community, which aims at self-sufficiency and sustainability. We gave away two cups to women living on the farm, then ended up having a long conversation about our project with two handsome young man. They were surprisingly interested in learning about sustainable approaches to menstruation and wanted to tell their friends, put up fliers, and help us get on the Ellen Degeneres show. As we walked home from the farm, we started joking about “The Handsome Young Man Project: Sarah and Toni bicycle down the West Coast, live on $4 a day, and Talk to Handsome Young Men About Sustainable Approaches to Menstruation.”

Andy from Eugene is a math teacher at the University of Oregon. He is competing in the Handsome Young Man Project and making math problems to illustrate the environmental and cost benefits of menstrual cups for his students to solve!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So funny at the time, we were keeled over laughing, but with more thought, we realized that including men in this project and in the conversations in general, was important and could be a valuable tool for spreading this information. We have met several young men who have learned about menstrual cups in the past and have gracefully already told their female friends or even bought them as gifts. It is very important to realize that it is not easy or simple for men to talk to their female friends about how to deal with their periods. With humble acknowledgement of the limits of their understanding and sensitivity to a long history of men telling women what to do with their bodies, we want men to feel empowered to open a dialogue with their close communities about menstrual sustainability.

With all that said, we think that the humor (and flattery) in the Handsome Young Man Project will be a whole new leg to Sustainable Cycles advocacy. Because men like contests, being told they are handsome and young, talking to women, and also prizes, each enthusiastic man who decides to be part of the project will join the Handsome Young Man Face book group and compete to see who can do the best sustainable menstruation activism by the end of 2011. The project will be based on the honor code. For every woman that he sensitively convinces to switch to using a sustainable option, the handsome young man gets one point. There are also additional points available, with discretion, for getting articles published, putting up flyers, bringing it up at a club meeting, etc, but for the most part, we want to encourage the men to talk to their close friends, sisters, mothers, or girlfriends.

Special Note: 2 points for writing and recording a song. How great would it be to have an album of songs about sustainable menstruation written by handsome young men, by the end of the year!

For some Inspiration…

http://www.jux.com/surround/global/users/’aidan’/wd_quarks#/’www42‘

(Thank you Aidan Felman!)

* * *

Our next stop after Deadwood was Eugene, home to the University of Oregon- over 23,000 students. We stayed pitched our tent in the backyard of a student housing cooperative. The Student Cooperative Association of the University of Oregon owns three houses totaling 80 residents. We talked with groups of interested people at each house, gave out 12 cups, and had 4 entries into the Handsome Young Man Contest (HYMC). We also talked to the houses about making a bulk order for all of the women who want cups in all three houses, and getting some kind of bulk discount. We also learned that the Student Housing Association offered, in years past, to split the cost of a cup with any resident who wanted to buy one, in order to encourage sustainability in these communities.

Campbell Club Housing Co-op

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In addition to the student housing coops, we visited two other intentional communities in Eugene, talked to groups of people and gave out cups. Because it was Labor Day weekend, most of the social service organizations we would have liked to connect with were closed, but we left information with Women’s Space and Ophelia’s Place, centers for women and teenagers dealing with poverty and abuse.

After leaving Eugene, we spent some time bicycling through rural Oregon– sheep, vinyards, mountains, beautiful views, and very few people. Though we enjoyed connecting with the people we met there, we became aware of a big difference of impact that each conversation has in a dense network of communities as compared to remote rural areas. So we hopped in another pick-up truck back to the coast, to beat the heat, play in the ocean and get back to some tightly packed cities and communities.

* * *

Riding down the coast, we have been leap-frogging with a group of cyclists on a supported tour from Eugene to San Francisco. The organization happens to be Adventure Cycling, the company that made the maps we are using. They have two guides, one who rides with the groups, and the other who drives a van carrying all their stuff. They have pre-reserved campsites and meals planned for them. Despite being mostly in their 40s, 50s, and 60s, they’ve been keeping a faster pace than us, with our 50lbs of stuff and frequent project stops. After 50 miles of biking, including an 8 mile uphill with almost no shoulder alongside too many big trucks, we appreciated their invitation to share their campsite and dinner for the night. We talked to most of the group about our project, and many of them are excited about getting cups for their daughters or friends. We plan to arrive in San Francisco about the same time as they do, and we hope for more fun campfires, sing-a-longs and charades.

* * *

We are writing this post from the kitchen of three young women who study at Humbolt State University in Arcata, CA. Lucia found us sitting on a curbside at a grocery store, just after we arrived in Arcata. She asked us what we were up to, got really excited about our project and invited us to stay with her.

In Arcata, we first visited the Women’s Resource Center at Humbolt State University. The women running this center are all smart, motivated college students. They are already doing a great job promoting re-useable products on their campus. We shared ideas and left them with some literature. These women are a great resource for anyone interested in doing campus organizing around sustainable menstruation or other women’s issues.

Humbolt State University is also the home to CCAT (Campus Center for Appropriate Technology). This is a student run house that aims to use sustainable energy sources and serves as a resource center for the community. We talked to several people there about our project, and then went back to a joy-filled open mic later that night. We are certainly impressed with the openness and positivity in this town. Most of the students we talked to already knew about menstrual cups, but hopefully we encouraged them to keep talking about these options and getting the word out.

* * *

Cutting tree rings from a fallen redwood to analyze carbon uptake over time as a means to study Global Climate Change.

In the next few days, we will be riding through the redwoods, down the beautiful northern California coast towards the San Francisco bay area. Check out our upcoming events (sidebar), feel free to send us any ideas about publicity, people or places to visit from here on south, and if you haven’t yet, please write to Ellen!

Also, Check out the blog of another great traveling couple. They wrote a piece about Sustainable Cycles, but they are also having some wonderful adventures of their own!

http://ollie.autonomecollective.org/

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