Climate Ride

Our very first Wine Country Edition ride rolled out last weekend in stunning Santa Rosa, CA, and it was a massive success! A huge shoutout to the 375 cyclists who raised over $160,000 in just one day. Now that's a win for the planet and bikes! 🎉 Saturday morning saw an early start as riders geared up to tackle one of four routes, ranging from the family-friendly 11-mile piccolo to the epic 80-mile grande. A special round of applause for our top fundraisers who absolutely crushed it: David Arkin, AIA and Julia Jackson. That’s some serious impact, and we’re beyond grateful to have all of you as part of the ever-growing Climate Ride family. It was also fantastic to see Victoria Norman and Kristen Lease, PE, LEED AP, and others standing proudly on the podium with their #climateride wooden medals 🥇. A heartfelt thank you to Jackson Family Wines and Kendall-Jackson Wine Estates for being incredible hosts and treating everyone to an unforgettable afterparty at their winery. Thank you 🔌 AY Young for your electrifying musical performance, powered entirely by renewable energy! I’m still in awe of Jojo Mehta from Stop Ecocide International, who delivered a powerful talk about the global movement to make ecocide an international crime. And Nemonte Nenquimo's deeply moving speech on protecting the Amazon, respecting culture, and strengthening Indigenous guardianship left a lasting impression on us all. (She is a founder of Amazon Frontlines.) Thank you to all of our Climate Ride volunteers who helped make the magic! We can't wait for next year.

I've never had so much fun being a tester for a challenging bike tour. Our Climate Ride group tackled what is considered the hardest gravel challenge in Europe...the Andulusian Badlands route. It was extremely difficult but the skills we gained from pushing ourselves to the limit are unforgettable. **Climate Rides are not intended to be sufferfests (we always have multiple options and support to accommodate a variety of cyclists!), but on this one, we knew we were taking on a crazy challenge. We sweat buckets for every dollar raised. These types of experiences are transformational and convince me that we are capable of so much more. We rode through washes that seemed too sandy to ride, climbs that seemed too steep to pedal, and deserts that seemed too hot to travel through. But we persisted and we can utilize this strength to champion the cause of people and the environment. You can learn more about the Badlands and the ReWild project here: https://badlands.cc/ Note: We did this with support. But for the truly rugged, it is an unsupported ultracycling gravel ride: 800km +16.000m across the only deserts in Europe, the wild coast of Cabo de Gata, and the highest Col in the continent, Pico Veleta at 3.396m.