Ride Bikes Save Earth

Welcome to A Ride for Roots!

A 5,000 mile journey on bicycles to discover, learn from, and thank the small and natural farmers who are protecting individual, community, and global health.

Thank you for joining us on this journey.  Read on to learn what has prompted us to take this ride.

In 2004, I biked from Kittery Point, ME to Vancouver, B.C. for Bike and Build, a non-profit organization that raised money and awareness for affordable housing. When this trip ended, Marian, a close friend I met on the ride, and I did not want to stop and so, continued south along the coast from Seattle to San Diego. This trip secured my passion for bicycles as well as opened my senses to the diverse beauty of the North American environment and its people. Even when I finished the ride and was looking forward to settling down with an actual roof over my head, I knew, another bike adventure would call to me in time…that time has come and I am on a new quest.

The U.S.A. is often referred to as the melting pot of the world, a beautiful collection of people coexisting in an environment as diverse as its people and its customs. On my ride in 2004, I got to witness a fraction of this diversity, cycling in the quaint northeast, around the great lakes, through the plains of the middle county, and over the mountains of the west. I met myriads of people who opened up their doors to us as we helped build homes for those less fortunate than us. However, one constant remained apparent from state to state: food. At almost any time, we could find a Dairy Queen, McDonalds, Taco Bell, or any of the other countless fast food restaurants that exist. Even the supermarkets were chains and if they weren’t, they still carried the same brands of foods shipped from all over the world and manufactured from products that are more likely to be found in a chemistry classroom than in a garden. We had many delicious meals from people welcoming us to their town so we had no reason to frequent these places, but it still bothers me that so many of these food places exist and that they are so constant. Do they really represent our food culture here in North America? Perhaps their consistency and frequency are signs of some sort of progress and success, but I struggle with the sight of so many people enjoying the food of a “fast food nation,” and not just for the obvious health issues. Are they really enjoying it? I want to know, where is our deep-rooted culture of food? Is there not a literal melting pot for food in the U.S.A.? Where are the recipes, the home grown meals, the culture of food that does not start with “Mc” (as so many non-Americans and even Americans identify as “American” food) or that does not contain the huge amounts of non-identifiable ingredients labeled on the side? On this bike trip, I don’t want to do just another adventure ride; I want to find a food culture. I have always been interested in the issues of health, food, and the environment, but having recently read works by Michael Pollan, Barbara Kingsolver, R.J. Ruppenthal, Eric Schlosser, and my brother James, who is studying for a PhD in Environmental Studies at CU-Boulder, I am inspired to not only learn how intricately connected these topics are, but to make a healthy food culture a way of life.

This summer of 2009, my best friend and partner in life, Darren, and I will ride in search of roots. We hope to find a food culture rooted to the land on which we will be cycling and to learn some of the most basic understandings of life that have been hidden to us we as have grown up in a supermarket, fast-food nation, Darren in Canada, myself in the U.S.A. I saw the diversity of the land before, so I know cultures of fresh, nutritious, and delicious food are hidden off the highways and deep within the soils of this land. We want to discover these places and learn from them, sharing the knowledge with our families as they start to lay their own seeds, and to others who, like us, are wondering where is our food culture? Darren’s parents have recently acquired land in northern B.C. and my sister is moving north to Maine where mature, fresh, and clean soil waits to be planted with new seeds.  Perhaps our course in local food culture from the Pacific to the Atlantic will provide a wealth of knowledge so they too may become rooted to their land. We will depart from the acres of boundless opportunities that reside at Tulani Ranch in Topley, B.C., head south and then east to visit all the small farms and local markets we can, fueling our bodies and our minds and giving thanks to those people who have continued to grow food in ways that benefit the health of their neighbors, their lands, and the environment. We will be dedicated locavores, eating foods from the places we visit and staying away from foods that have traveled hundreds of miles, have been robbed of their vital nutrients, and have been part of a process emitting unnecessary pollutants into our environment. These local roots we consume will finally carry us to River Berry Farm in Fairfax, VT, my aunt and uncle’s beautiful farm where I have enjoyed the most fresh, nutritious, and delicious meals I have ever had.  We will discover local foods across the continent, learn what food grows where and the ways it is grown, and how best to grow food to benefit the biodiversity of the environment. We will find a food culture, we will eat it, we will thank those who have preserved our health, and we will share it with anyone who wants to listen, or rather, taste! We ride for roots.

But why go by bicycle? This trip is about health: the health of our soil, our land, and our bodies. We aim to learn about the cycle of life while fueling ourselves with the most nutritious and delicious energy. To pedal, we have to eat. To eat, we need food. For food, we need soil, sun, and water. We will live in the elements that will provide the food that will fuel our bodies. Further, we are in a critical time of making the right choices to alter humanity’s effects on the environment or we are in danger of drastically altering and destroying parts of our environment and in turn, our ways of life. All of us must be conscious of our personal impacts on internal, local, and global environments. The bicycle is perhaps the most environmentally friendly mode of transportation that is also a vehicle of personal health. As H.G. Wells is quoted as saying, “Every time I see an adult on a bicycle, I no longer despair for the future of the human race.”

We look forward to this educational journey and sharing it with others, so they too, may discover, learn from, and support their small, local, and natural farmers.