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Miss Kitty

Meow
Jun 10, 2005
47,011
1,131
70
:clap:...you are the pedaler!!!
 

InletBchDweller

SoWal Insider
Feb 14, 2006
6,802
263
55
Prairieville, La
I read this last week as well...great article...:wave:

I have to say that when i read the title of this thread I thought of Fred Sanford...:lol:
 

Kurt

Admin
Oct 15, 2004
2,318
5,018
SoWal
mooncreek.com
Very nice! For the last 10 years or so, Celeste's products are the only thing that's not alive that touches my body when I have no clothes on. :D

The kayak on the bike is impressive.

k1yedo-celestecobena.jpg



The article:
One Santa Rosa Beach woman has found the answer to high gas prices at the pump. The answer comes in the form of a bike.
While many visitors to the beach bike for exercise and enjoyment, Celeste Cobena has made it a way of life as far as travel goes.
Cobena owns a home-based business - the Soap Pedaler - and must make regular deliveries of her specialty soap and bath products up and down County Road 30A. She also ships the soaps to customers throughout the southeast. Her trips to the UPS store at Grand Boulevard and all points on 30A, she makes on her trusty Surly Big Dummy bike from her home in Dune Allen Beach.
Cobena said she has always been a biker and an environmentalist and began delivering her homemade soaps via bike 10 years ago at the business's inception. She pulled a cart laden with her goods along behind her bike.
"I got really busy, though, and got away from using the bike since I had to go so many places," she said.
But when gas prices hit $3 a gallon last year, Cobena vowed not to pay it and bought the new Surly.
She makes the trips on an "as needed basis" to the stores carrying her more than 30 varieties of soap, scrubs, lotions and balms, concocted in her sweet aroma-filled "soap studio" in the back of her home.
The shops include Patchouli's at Gulf Place and Rosemary Beach, Toni's Market at Grayton Beach, Picket's in Seagrove, and For the Health of It in Blue Mountain.
"It took me an hour and a half to ride my bike as far as Alys Beach. During Spring Break, it took me an hour and 20 minutes to drive it," she said incredulously. "Why not bike it?"
"People say they couldn't do it, but they could," she continued. "I started out just going a short ways and kept going a little farther and a little farther. I make it into an enjoyable trip and stop by Seaside for ice cream or lunch. It's a fun."
Cobena also bikes to shop for groceries at Grand Boulevard, toting them home in the bike's side carriers.
"I don't love riding on the side of 98, but I'll do it," she said. "It's an easy ride along 30A. You can do a lot without a combustion engine."
On Sundays, Cobena shares her wheels with her hubby, Ted, who plays in a band at Stinky's Fish Camp. He loads his congas into the bike's side carriers and pedals the short distance to Stinky's.
Even though Cobena's business has grown from its austere beginnings at her kitchen sink and she is at the level where she could hire help, she wants to keep it at the level it is now - a home-based cottage industry.
"I want to keep it at a level where I can ride my bike to make deliveries. It's about quality of life, reducing my carbon footprint and how good it is, not how big," she said.
 

ozbeachmom

Beach Lover
Feb 8, 2007
148
13
Kansas/miramar beach
I love your products. We live in Kansas City during the school year and come down to our other home at the beach during the summer. I always load up on your products when I come down. Thanks for making such a wonderful earth friendly product! THe girls at Patchouli really do a great job selling your stuff!:D
 
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