The Ride Is On! Climate Ride 2013

I just signed up for the California Climate Ride, a 5-day, 320-mile bike ride from Humboldt County to San Francisco this May 19-23.

Oh. My. God.

My biking baby on our fat ride

I am super excited – and also super amped about the challenge.  Let’s start with the challenge part.

So I already ride about 80 miles a week, averaging between 14 and 20 miles per day – slowly, through city traffic, largely on the flat.  Lots of this riding is our ridiculous commute to day care (which I will describe in another post) which involves riding a super heavy cargo bike while repeatedly singing the Itsy Bitsy Spider.  Sort of good training for 60 miles per day on California’s coast range, but…really not.  Today I did my first official training ride (since I signed up yesterday), and 25 miles all at once kind of kicked my butt.  So working up to more than twice that distance, 5 days straight, is going to take significant amounts of time.  And with an almost two-year-old, time is not plentiful.  (Especially since the father of said almost two-year-old is training for his own cycling event at the beginning of May.)

Oh, yeah.  Then there’s the fundraising part.  The ride is a fundraiser for organizations that work on climate change issues – so the minimum fundraising requirement is $2,400.  But I’ve never been someone who just aims for the minimum.  So I set my goal at $5,000 – 100 people at $50 each, that should be doable, right?  But it will still take a bunch of time to email, call, and remind you all to help me out.  See above point on time.

So this is a challenge, and it’s one I need a lot of help with.  Yikes.

But the thing is, to get to that “super excited” part, I think it’d be more challenging to stay home.

The awesome organization I work for, TransForm, is a beneficiary this year, and as a member of the fundraising team, I’ve already been writing content for other people’s fundraising efforts.  I really believe in our work – creating world-class public transportation and walkable communities in California, fighting the #1 contributor of greenhouse gases in the state, improving health and saving farmland and making the streets safer for people like my family who bike and walk pretty much everywhere – so I’m motivated to make our first year a success.

I love riding my bike, and I haven’t really been doing a lot of fun riding since 2009, when a back injury grounded me until I got pregnant and then my bike was stolen – twice – and now I have a kid and consider it a luxury to get out for an hour every third weekend.  I am more than a little bit goal-oriented, so having an event to train for will motivate and inspire me and generally make me a happier person.

And then there’s the kiddo.  I love her to pieces.  I want to give her the best future possible – so my dedication to social change has only strengthened since she arrived on the planet.  I also believe that by setting ambitious goals in sports and civic engagement, I’m setting a good example for her – especially especially especially since she’s a girl.

And I will admit that we just don’t get up to Humboldt enough these days.  I miss the redwood curtain!  So even if it’s just two nights in HumCo, the pull of true northern CA is still strong.

So that’s my story.  I’m fighting climate change and reclaiming my athlete self and modeling strong womanhood for my daughter – and I’ll be chronicling my adventures here in order to help share the adventure with the people in my life.  I hope that many of you will support me, since it really is going to take 100 people to get this to happen!  More to come on the countdown to May 19…

Can you please help me with a donation?  Click here to support my Climate Ride today.