The Bicycle Diaries: Meet the Man Who Has Ridden Over 30,000 Miles to Save the Earth

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By Gale Hemmann

oly ortho logoHave you ever dreamed of doing something big? Have you ever wondered how you, as one person, can make a difference in our world? Well, if you’d like to get inspired, you want to come meet David Kroodsma, the man who has ridden over 30,000 miles on his bicycle to save the earth. Kroodsma, who spent two years riding his bike from his Palo Alto, California home to Tierra del Fuego in South America, is visiting Olympia to give a multi-media presentation about what he learned along the way.

Kroodsma will be showing photos and videos from his journey, talking with the audience, and sharing from his new book, The Bicycle Diaries, on Thursday, April 3 at 7:00 p.m. at Traditions Fair Trade Café. The event is free and open to the public, and it’s a great way for kids and adults alike to hear about the real-life impacts of climate change from a person who has experienced them directly.

bike travel
David Kroodsma and Olympia native Lindsey Fransen rest their bikes after a day of bicycling through Eastern Europe on their recent bike tour to discuss climate change with Europeans.

Kroodsma, a Stanford-trained scientist who left his work to talk about climate change around the world, is a man with a vision. Starting in 2005, he set out on his bike, armed with only the necessities he could carry, and visited 16 counties in Latin America, talking with locals about how climate change affects their lives. He gave over 100 presentations at local schools, and was featured on international media. He then flew to Massachusetts, where he embarked on a 5,000-mile ride back to California, stopping in Olympia along the way. (You can view an interactive map of his tour and read about his travels through Washington on his Ride for Climate blog.)

Kroodsma has several connections to Olympia, proving that it really is a small world after all. He is married to Lindsey Fransen, who grew up in Olympia. Also an avid cyclist, she accompanied him on his Europe tour and plans to trek to Asia with him later this year. (She now works as a Coastal Planner at the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission). Lindsey has contributed to David’s blog, and states about her Europe trip: “As I discovered, bike touring is in a class of its own, with a unique mix of independence and reliance on strangers different from anything I’d experienced before…I might say this is my favorite part of bike touring – turning myself into a physical entity, a machine with no purpose other than pedaling, pushing my wheels across miles of pavement (or dirt, or gravel, as the case may be), covering ground, being in the world, on the move, eyes open, taking it all in.” Clearly, Kroodsma and Fransen share Kroodsma’s thought that “the people who we share this planet with are just a bike ride away.”

bike travel
Olympia native Lindsey Fransen, wife of David Kroodsma, accompanies him on his bicycle journeys. Here, she is riding through Eastern Europe on their 2013 1,000-mile ride.

Another Olympia connection is that Kroodsma’s mother-in-law, Kris Fransen, works at Intercity Transit (IT). It’s not just a family connection, but an ecological one too: IT promotes eco-friendly transportation options, and sustainability is a key part of everything they do. IT sponsors several programs to support bicycling – check out their annual Bicycle Commuter Contest in May and their “Smart Moves” program for youth. They also offer bicycle safety tips and an online Bike Map of Thurston County, and feature bike racks on most of their buses.

I caught up with David and Lindsey by phone while they were on the road, making their way to the Pacific Northwest for The Bicycle Diaries tour (Kroodsma told me they were passing Mount Shasta as we talked). Olympia will be one of seven stops on the tour, and Kroodsma is excited to visit the city, a place he finds to be very eco-minded and “a great town.”

In talking about his book, Kroodsma shares it has been a labor of love. It took five years to put the book together, including editing, revising, reviewing scientific facts, and creating maps (done by cartographer friend John Kelly). He funded it entirely through a Kickstarter campaign. The book was officially celebrated with a launch party in San Francisco just last month to a standing-room-only crowd.

So, what are David and Lindsey up to next? As mentioned before, they are getting ready to embark in a bicycle tour of Asia in April 2014. (You can learn more about the trip here.) Kroodsma told me that planning the 6-to-9 month trip while on the road for The Bicycle Diaries tour is challenging, but they wouldn’t have it any other way. This dynamic couple is excited for their trip, both for the bicycling adventure and the chance to converse with communities in Asia about global warming. As Kroodsma notes in his book, “Each of us has incredible potential to make a difference in the world.”

bike travel
David Kroodsma’s stop in Olympia will be part of his Pacific Northwest book tour to promote The Bicycle Diaries.

To learn more about David Kroodsma’s work, and to stay up-to-date on David and Lindsey’s travels, visit the Ride for Climate website or follow Kroodsma on Facebook or Twitter. His book is available for sale on Amazon (in both paperback and Kindle formats) and will also be available at the talk.

David Kroodsma Bike Journey Talk

Thursday, April 3, 2014

7:00 p.m.

Traditions Fair Trade Café

 

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