These guys are doing a whole lot of right. Pants that reflect when you roll the cuffs? Sign me up.

Bright Bike from Michael Mandiberg on Vimeo.

Bright Bike is a Retroreflective Vinyl coated bike. It is like coating your bike with a big sticker that turns ultra-brite in headlights. Right now we are in the prototyping stages, and hope to offer a DIY Kit soon. If you can’t wait that long, contact Beacon Graphics in NJ for Scotchlight 680.

[Thanks, Rocketboom!]

Longtime readers will know that I day dream a lot about long distance bike adventures, but it’s been a while since I wrote about one.

At MountainFilm in Telluride this year, we had the pleasure of catching this amazing film made by two young French Canadians called Asiemut. The courageous and adventuresome couple, Olivier Higgins and Mélanie Carrier (heros!), bike their way across a significant portion of the Asian continent completely on their own. It’s an amazing film, truly one that inspired me in my own dreams of documenting such an adventure. It’s one of those films that makes you think, ‘damn, you can do anything if you stick your mind to it!’

If you’re planning on doing a trip like this (who isn’t?) they’ve got some great tips on how and where and when to travel on their website. I’m bummed they don’t have a full trailer up on YouTube, though they do have this short clip to give you a sense of the tone of the film:

Asiemut certainly reminded me of my blog buddies, Project Pedal. I’m sure they’ll dig this. Maybe you guys would like to do a bike trip with Audrey and me next? Haha. I can’t wait to see their film!

Since I’m a video nerd, statements like this make me drool (over the possibilities):

We filmed the whole documentary film with a semi-professional camera, mini-dv Sony pdx10, 16:9 format. We traveled with seventy mini-dv tapes and two 360 minutes lithium batteries. We also had one charger, a stool, and a laptop. We took ourselves every single images of our film!

As you can see on the picture below, we had a camera mount that permitted us to film and to speak to the camera as we biked. We created it ourselves in the north of China with the help of two amazing chinese welders. It was attached at the front of our luggage support and was also attached to our handlebar. It was a homemade camera mount, quite heavy, but worked very well!

Sadly, I haven’t made that statement in quite some time, though it remains extremely high on my list of lifestyle priorities. Over the past year, I’ve worked too far from home to effectively bike. Recently, my company moved to a suburb a *little* closer to my house, so after some prodding by my friend Stellargirl, a gorgeous sunny spring morning and an overwhelming need to get my blood pumping, I gave it a whirl today. Just shy of 12 miles according to Google Maps. And boy did it feel good. Now, as I sit and type this on my lunch break, I realize – oh shit. I have to bike all the way home again! My legs are still sore.

If I did this every day, though, I can tell you I would be fit as a fiddle. And I like the sound of that!

Coincidentally, once I got to work, I discovered that this is Bike to Work Week thanks to my pal Sara. Cool!