Rider Profile: Amanda Eaken

Climate Ride is the perfect marriage of my passion for creating sustainable communities to help fight climate change and my love of bicycles.

Amanda Eaken is Deputy Director for Sustainable Communities with the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC).  In 2008, Amanda led the campaign to pass SB 375: California’s Sustainable Communities and Climate Protection Act, the nation’s first law to enlist communities in the fight against climate change. The first plan to implement this landmark law will bring an unprecedented $2.6 billion for safe bicycling, as well as $53 billion for transit, to San Diego. Amanda saw Climate Ride as an opportunity to further promote sustainable transportation and captained the eleven member Team NRDC during the 5 day, 320 mile adventure down the California coast.

“Climate Ride is the perfect marriage of my passion for creating sustainable communities to help fight climate change and my love of bicycles. The weather tried to throw us a curveball, but these 120 riders were undeterred. The unwavering resolve I saw from Climate Riders determined to reach their goals, in spite of pouring rain and very tough terrain, is exactly the same type of intensity that we need, and what we are indeed creating through events like this, in the fight against climate change.” 

Amanda is an alumna of Dartmouth College and U.C. Berkeley’s Department of City and Regional Planning. She is also a Category 1 competitive cyclist and was California’s Elite Road Racing Champion in 2008.  Amanda grew up in New York City in a car-free household and her earliest memories are riding on the back of her father’s bicycle to preschool. 

Check out Amanda's blog for her personal Climate Ride recap!

Rider Profile: Bridget Erlikh

When asked what her primary fundraising strategy was, Bridget replies with a grin: “Desperation. Desperation and panic.”

It’s a strategy that seems to have worked, as Bridget raised the necessary funds to do Climate Ride California in less than a month.

“I signed up for the California ride right after the New York to DC ride,” she says. “They had a special one day promotion in early summer. I didn’t really start my fundraising though until September 2nd.”

Bridget, Compliance Coordinator of Conferences for IEEE, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (the world’s largest professional association for the advancement of technology), says the primary impetus for doing her second Climate Ride in a year was to combat despondency.

“I really want to do something to address the global problems of pollution, extinction, overpopulation, and so on. It’s hard not to be despondent sometimes. Climate Ride gives me a great chance to feel like I’m making a difference. It’s galvanizing.”

We couldn’t agree more, Bridget. 

Beneficiary Profile: 350.org

Here's Jamie Henn, 350.org's Co-founder and Communications Director, talking about his organization and Climate Ride experience:

Beneficiary Profile: 1% for the Planet

Here's Brodie O'Brien, 1% for the Planet's Membership Marshall, talking about his organization and Climate Ride experience:

Rider Profile: Deb Janes

For Deb Janes, rider #320, Climate Ride California 2010 was a life-changing experience that brought her back for more on the 2011 California ride.

 

 

A professional fundraiser and professional vegetarian chef, Deb found that Climate Ride was just what she needed to make a lot of changes in her life: "The Climate Ride changed my life last year," she says. "I lost thirty pounds, renewed a love of cycling, got inspired by other riders' activism, and gained new friends."

 

Deb says she’s riding for three reasons:

1. The number one reason is selfish and for pure joy: I love to ride my bike, particularly with a bunch of other like-minded people.
2. The second is for political activism: my fundraising for and riding in the Climate Ride has been an impetus to talk with friends, family and colleagues about the climate crisis. The more we talk about it, the more people hopefully will be galvanized to call for the drastic changes on the political and corporate fronts that are necessary.
3. The third is appreciation: I passionately appreciate the work of beneficiary nonprofits that tirelessly promote bicycle advocacy and solutions to the climate crisis.

Deb has felt strongly about protecting forests since she was a kid but realizes that the climate crisis is the overarching environmental issue that trumps all others because of its scope and potential for calamity. “I am disheartened by climate discussions," she says. "From experts like Bill McKibben to popular media, there is little or nothing said about the contribution that meat production and consumption play in the climate crisis. They actually generate more greenhouse gasses than all the world's vehicles.”

You can't miss Deb's presence on a ride and if by day two you haven't yet met her it is only a matter of time...and you will be all the richer for it.