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!