The perfect interplay of engineering prowess and world-class design. Manual transmission. Fully loaded. Unsurpassed Fuel Economy. Sports Package Available… introducing the HYBRID HUMAN.
Story by Joe Nuss
Photos by Kim Hummel
Gas-electric, lower emission diesel, plug-in, electric, hydrogen or E85 ethanol powered vehicles are the cars of the future. Mixing and matching these technologies, propulsion systems and fuels will help us drive our way to a greener existence. Yet, it will be years before the ultimate, most efficient, and affordable design sees the open road. Recent problems with the once best-selling Toyota Prius have raised concerns as well. But, Charlotte Chris Bradle isn’t concerned. He’s already driving one of the most-efficient hybrids on the planet.
Chris’ hybrid isn’t quite in line with Ford and Toyota’s research and development, though. More like a ‘what’s old is new again’ vision, the type of vehicle Chris uses can mean big savings and added benefits for you. What Chris drives matches the ultimate in engineering prowess with efficient design. It’s unique style and level of refinement are considered a benchmark in it’s class. The fuel economy is unsurpassed and gets better with every mile. The type of vehicle Chris is talking about, is YOU. You are the next generation of vehicle Chris calls the “Hybrid Human”.
While hybrid cars focus on combining two or more technologies, like gas and electric, the Hybrid Human focuses on combing exercise and commuting and is the culminating idea of Chris’ endeavor to optimize his life and career.
Early in 2009, he was competitive marathon runner struggling to find time to train in the midst of expecting their second child and maintaining a demanding schedule running his brand development firm, Eye Design Studio in Charlotte. Considering the gas price spiked economy, he and his employees wrestled with ideas of how to save money or find alternative solutions for the daily commute to their studio. Given his competitive running background, “run commuting” seemed a great way for Chris to both ramp up marathon training while saving training time and a little money all at the same time.
“I always wanted my passion for running to be part of the whole package of my life and career,” said Chris, who as a runner, admits he used to be “just a Gatorade-type guy” before the White Lake race.
“I was doing the run as part of a relay and I was just dying,” says Chris. “My son was just born two months earlier, I hadn’t yet started run commuting and I was not in any shape to race,” he admits. “But then I came across something called HEED at an aid station. I had never heard of it before but knew I needed something, so I chugged it down. Miraculously, it pulled me through and I knew then, that testing endurance products would be a big component of run commuting”.
Chris jumped right in to full-time run commuting and putting endurance products through their paces on his self-propelled journey to work each day. With this came the birth of EnduroBrand – a new branding concept aimed at capturing the daily and weekly activities, product reviews and ultimately leveraging this expertise to partner with endurance industry brands to accelerate their communication efforts. Over the course of two weeks of run commuting, including easy runs and speed sessions, Chris tallies about a 100 miles of testing per product. With such a detailed and exhaustive review process coupled with his love for endurance sports, Chris quickly developed a portfolio of in-depth and authentic product reviews on his website, EnduroBrand.com, not to mention a reputation as a ‘running billboard’ making daily appearances on his routes through downtown Charlotte.
It wasn’t long before he began to fully understand the power behind the concept of people acting as their own vehicle – the Hybrid Human. According to Chris, anyone can become a Hybrid Human run commuter. It all starts with either a comfortable travel radius to work or ideas of other functional lifetstyle destinations, then slowly building up your mileage and commute frequency.
“The whole point of run commuting is to weave a workout into your dayrunning to destinations instead of driving a vehicle,” says Chris. “For me, the idea started out simply as running to work but, then evolved into running to get a movie, running to pick up some groceries, or running to get a couple burritos for dinner.”
Now, when Chris Bradle says he’s going to ‘run out’ to get some dinner, he literally runs out to get some dinner. In fact, there aren’t too many places Chris doesn’t run – dropping his daughter off at school, mail run to the post office, or even RedBox for a movie. His vision is to see more people optimize their lives in a sustainable way to incorporate exercise and commuting.
