Las Vegas Bicycling Community Website

As a child, my grandmother would take me to the public library each week.  I would literally run and scream down the aisles as everyone around me would look at my grandmother and give her the ‘Could you shut her up?’ look.  I loved going to the library.  It was a great way to hang out with my Mommom (that’s what all the grandkids called her) and at the same time, it would allow me to read all the books I ever wanted each week.  I never bought a book as a kid.  I only checked them out at the library and then returned them.  It’s actually a great concept that I’ve forgotten about in my adult life.  I’ve gotten so used to just buying a book when I wanted it and that was fine if I liked the book, but if I didn’t…then I was bummed that I blew anywhere from $5 to $30 on it.

Hence the reason for this blog post…

If you’re like me, you probably buy a lot of fitness books and DVD’s.  Since the economy has been a little slow lately, I’ve been a bit more choosy on where I spend my money.   So I decided to see what free resources are available to me as a taxpayer.  (After all, I pay for it, so why not use it…right?)

Well, If you haven’t been to the Clark County Library lately, you really are missing out on one of the best local resources in town!  Libraries no longer carry just books (like when I was a kid), but they also allow you to check out Videos and DVD’s, and reserve computer systems as well!  Now that’s cool!  And the Clark County Library District (CCLD) has a great website that allows you to reserve books online too!  So you research what books you want, and then reserve them on the spot!  That’s incredible and in the long run, will save you money.  “Try before you buy” is a great concept and I plan on taking advantage of it (again).

To give you an idea of what they have for cycling that you may be interested in trying before buying…I did some quick look-ups of popular subject, authors and titles.  (Click the links below to see what the library has.)

Here’s a quick lookup I did for Chris Carmichael books:
http://ilsweb.lvccld.org/search~S12/a?carmichael+chris

Women’s Cycling:
http://ilsweb.lvccld.org/search~S12?/dcycling/dcycling/1%2C44%2C212%2CB/exact&FF=dcycling+for+women&1%2C3%2C

Mountain Biking:
http://ilsweb.lvccld.org/search~S12?/dMountain+biking/dmountain+biking/1%2C20%2C71%2CB/exact&FF=dmountain+biking&1%2C25%2C

Lance Armstrong:
http://ilsweb.lvccld.org/search/a?lance%20armstrong

I think you are getting the picture now.  If not, I’ll put it plain and simple…Here’s a free resource (all you need is to apply for a library card for free) that allows you to take out all the books / DVD’s you ever wanted so you can try them out before you buy them.  Now that’s cool!

By the way….now that you know about this…pass it on!  The more people that use the library, the better.  Just don’t take out all the cycling books and dvd’s before I get there…OK?!

Do you eat enough fruits and vegetables each day?  If you have any question about it, you need to check out the Center for Disease Control’s “Fruits and Veggies Matter” website.

What’s great about it is this…They have a fun little calculator that enables you to plugin your age, sex and physical activity level which then calculates how much fruits and veggies you should be eating each day.  Along with that, it gives you sample recipes to help you include these necessary food groups into your meals.

Now…couple all of this with some other fun interactive tools like the “Analyze My Plate” tool and the “What Counts as a Cup” feature and you’ve got a great resource for nutrition!!

I encourage any cyclist who is interested in eating right to make sure they visit the “Fruits and Veggies Matter” website, if anything, just for fun.

I know as a cyclist, I’ve become very aware of what I put in my body, on my body or even just around my body…so this type of information is helpful and I thought I would pass it along.

For those of you who like to keep a current eye on any type of recall, whether it’s foods, cosmetics, medicines, products, etc…you may want to check out Recalls.gov.  This is a government funded website that lists the following types of recalls:

Consumer products
Foods, Medicines, Cosmetics
Motor Vehicles, Car Seats
Environmental Products
Meat and Poultry
Boats and Boating Safety

This website is jam packed with recall information and is definitely worth a look if you like to keep up to date on these types of things.