My Hopes for the Climate Ride

Joanna Friesen, 6 days before the journey’s start; May 25, 2021

The Climate Ride is nearly upon us! On Monday May 24, the support truck and trailer, meticulously packed with bikes and team gear, began its journey to Washington D.C. (Keep assistant leader Tyler Goss, and rider Caleb Schrock-Hurst, who are driving the vehicle, in your thoughts over the next few days.) A few days after that, David Landis and I will fly to Seattle ourselves and will be joined a couple days later by the rest of the riders.  

This week leading up to the trip, I find myself reflecting on the support and encouragement that so many people have already shown for the ride and I am filled with gratitude, excitement and hope. 

I also find myself reflecting on my own experiences bike touring in the past. I love bikes; I love traveling via bicycle. Through my past rides, I have seen how interacting with the world via bicycle has the potential to connect me with my body and spirit, and connect me with the landscape in a very real way.   Bike tours are a chance to build deep friendships, and have taught me a lot about navigating friendships when things “get real” like when it downpours or when riders get hungry. 

My hope for the climate riders this summer is that this will be a ride full of deep and rich experiences, new perspectives, fulfilling accomplishments, deepened friendships – and maybe even lead to a life-long love for cycling and bike-commuting! 

Having been on the planning end of this ride for months, I am eagerly anticipating seeing these plans realized: climate riders riding together, meeting with different communities along the way, connecting with people and seeing and camping in all the beautiful places on our map. 

Pairing bike touring with learning about climate change and climate justice to me is a match made in heaven. I am incredibly excited to be a part of the CSCS Climate Ride this summer.

Is It Worth It?

Tyler Goss, 13 days before journey’s start; May 18, 2021

If you, dear reader, are of the Anabaptist variety, you likely have a special place in your nonviolence-loving heart for any quote, scripture, or story that embraces the peacebuilding way of Jesus.

“Love your enemies” Oh, yes please!

Conscientious objection? Sign me up!

“No matter where you’re from, we’re glad you’re our neighbor.” Slap that on some corrugated plastic, and make me a yard sign!

We love the nonviolent way of Christ because we love…love. It’s like Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once said (and don’t we love to quote him), “Hate cannot drive out hate. Only love can do that.” We embrace the nonviolent life of Christ because we are convinced that the best way to change others for the better is to invite them into a better way…a way rooted in love. 

As I have been gearing up for this Climate Ride, I find myself constantly wondering, “how are we, in all reality, actually doing any substantial good for the environment?” Sure this Climate Ride will promote pedal power, but what about all the fossil fuels used to make this trip possible? Plane rides out west, gas for the support vehicle, all the extra food we will be consuming. It still depends on fossil fuel. Then, on top of that, can we really expect lasting change to come from such short stays with various communities? Maybe we, the riders, are the ones who will be changed? But still, all this for a handful of environmentally-minded folks to become slightly more environmentally conscious? I find myself stuck on the same question that pesters me everytime I think about my choices in regards to climate change, “is anything I do even worth it?” 

Eat less meat, consume less single-use plastic, drive a hybrid vehicle.  Is it really worth it when really huge corporations need to change, the collective mindset of our nation needs to change, entire systems and societies need to change? 

As I pedal through Harrisonburg and the surrounding Shenandoah Valley during my training, I find myself growing more in love with this place I now call home. The bustling hum of a college town, the rhythmic trotting of the horse and buggies, and even the fresh scent of manure (I suppose one can learn to appreciate it). It is this growing love for the people and land that surrounds me that helps me reframe my question. Instead of asking, “is it even worth it?”, I am slowly learning to shift to a question of, “where does change begin?” 

For the way of Christ, we don’t strive to love our enemies because we think it will immediately give us the results we want. In all likelihood, I can turn my cheek all I want, and I will still get beaten up and abused over and over again. However, just like the nonviolent way of Christ, if we ever do want positive environmental change to take root, then it has to start from a place of love. We have to learn to love the land and people we call home. 

This bike ride, for me, is not about reducing my carbon footprint or even really about encouraging others to be more “green.” Instead, this Climate Ride is about falling in love with the land and people that make up this “home” of ours. Because, “is it worth it?” sounds like a question focused on results, when, in reality, it is a question lacking motivation. Once love is at our core, then the question of “is it worth it?” sounds rather silly. Of course it is! These are my people, my home, we are talking about. 

This trip is about reorienting myself toward the people and the land once more. This trip is about cultivating love.

Overcoming “Lost”

Sierra Ross Richer, 20 days before journey’s start; May 11, 2021

I was on a bike ride one Saturday this spring, when the animated voice that had been directing my route became suspiciously quiet.  I pulled over and grabbed my phone to see what was going on.  Black.  

I was two hours from my house and at least another hour from my destination; where I was at the moment was on a dirt road by a lake, that was all I knew.  

You could say I was lost. But after months of cycling in the countryside of northern Indiana, that prospect didn’t scare me as much as it used to.  Riding is helping me become more comfortable on the land and helping me become less lost in another way too. The second kind of “lost” is the condition of being disconnected from the natural world, and it can block people from taking action against the climate crisis.  

After a break for a Cliff Bar and some black coffee, I got back on my bike.  I knew which direction I had come from and which direction I needed to go.  Most importantly, I didn’t feel lost, so I decided to keep going.

The feeling of “lost” is something most people have experienced.  A knotted stomach; quick breathing; sudden overwhelming fear.  It’s the feeling you get when you realize you don’t know where you are, you don’t know if you’re safe and you don’t know if you’re going to get out okay.  It’s a feeling that, unfortunately, many of us experience when we’re outdoors.  

I’m not talking about being in your backyard, or at a park, or even on a developed hiking trail.  I’m talking about being out on the landscape, in the undeveloped spaces between buildings and parks and cities.  These places make many of us uncomfortable, and that, I think, is a problem.  

The roads of Elkhart County, where I’ve been doing most of my training for the Climate Ride, offer plenty of things for a biker to worry about.  In addition to getting lost, there are the barking dogs, storm clouds and pickup trucks that rev their engines as they pass. These are all valid things to be wary of.  But I don’t think they account totally for the feeling of unease that I used to feel when I first started biking. The real culprit was that I simply wasn’t familiar with the countryside.  

The anxious, panicky feeling we get when we’re in a situation or a place that we’re not familiar with is probably a helpful defense mechanism, but when it’s connected to being outdoors, that feeling can be part of a cycle that makes us avoid undeveloped spaces more and more. 

In a system where so much land is privately owned, we are constantly being reminded to stay on the trail and off the private property. This phenomenon, combined with a fear of the many potential dangers “out there,” makes for a society that spends very little time on the land in its natural state. It creates a society that feels lost in what should be our own home.  

There’s a saying that says you can’t love what you don’t know. And when it comes to the climate crisis, not loving this planet is about the most dangerous thing we can do.  If we are going to take care of the planet and learn to live within its limits (which we will have to do if we are going to survive the climate crisis), we will need to learn to live in community with all of the other organisms that also inhabit it. That can’t happen unless we feel comfortable in nature.  

As I pedalled through the country that Saturday morning, along dirt roads and paved roads, by lakes and woods, barren corn fields and farm houses, I was reminded of the poem “Lost” by David Waggoner.

“Stand still,” the poem begins. “The trees ahead and bushes beside you are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here.”  

At that moment, Waggoner’s words felt true.  I didn’t know where I was, but I was definitely somewhere, and it felt good to be there.  

Waggoner’s argument seems to imply that we can never be lost because we are always somewhere.  But later in the poem, he reveals that there is a way that humans can be lost: “If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you,” he writes, “you are surely lost.”

It’s that second type of loss that should terrify us way more than the first one. It’s a condition that threatens both us and the future of the entire planet. And it’s a condition that many, many Americans, even those who think of ourselves “outdoorsy,” are affected by.  

For me, biking has become a way to face my fear of physically getting lost and become more comfortable out on the land.  Through my biking, I’m realizing that the country isn’t as forbidding as it sometimes feels.  The feeling of “lost” I experience probably has more to do with my unfamiliarity with the area than the actual hazards, and the only way to overcome that feeling is to spend more time out on the land.  

“Stand still,” Waggoner advises at the end of his poem. “The forest knows where you are. You must let it find you.”