In late May 2021, the Center for Sustainable Climate Solutions (CSCS) will help lead 15 cyclists across the United States, traveling the 4000 miles from Seattle, Washington to Washington, D.C. with the goal of engaging in climate justice and promoting a better relationship with the earth.

The CSCS is the brains behind the trip, coordinating most of the logistics. They are a coalition focused on climate action and justice, engaging these topics from an Anabaptist perspective. Doug Graber Neufeld, an EMU Biology professor, is the CSCS leader and is also helping to organize the Climate Ride.

Participants will be riding for about 60 days, coming to an average of 65 to 70 miles of cycling per day. The trip will be van supported, meaning a crew will help the riders in carrying food, supplies, spare equipment, as well as helping with navigation and the inevitable bike breakdowns. 

Despite it being a cycling trip, its priority is to engage in dialogue with people and land, to see how climate change is impacting the country, across a variety of communities and landscapes. “We especially want to understand the perspective of diverse groups, and to learn from their lived realities – ranging from African American, immigrant, and Native American communities, to the Anabaptist agricultural communities of the midwest,” Neufeld said. 

“You’re going to experience both physical highs and physical lows as well as emotional highs and emotional lows,” Joanna Friesen said, one of the trip leaders as well as an EMU Track and Field coach and seminary student.

Friesen, who biked across the country in 2017, did not skip over the difficulties the ride will present. Whether it be the physical strain of the West Coast mountain ranges or the monotony of the Midwest plains, riders will have to face a variety of mental and physical barriers, but with a team of 15 riders and two leaders, the hope is there will always be the necessary support. 

Though the trip seems daunting on paper, Friesen assures potential applicants about their own ability to see the trip through. Once accepted, leaders will help the students to make sure they have adequate equipment, as well as giving them advice on how to physically prepare. So long as students have the right gear and “trust the process” of training, most will be able to ride coast to coast, Friesen says. 

Despite the glaring challenge of moving oneself 4,000 miles across the United States, the trip is meant to challenge participants in other ways. “We’re not just biking across the country, the whole ride is designed to spark conversation, learning, and experience around the intersections of climate change, climate justice, sustainability, and storytelling,” Friesen notes. Each day, through conversation and cycling, riders will be learning and growing, physically, spiritually, emotionally and relationally. 

The ride will also raise questions about faith and its role in climate justice, looking at it through an Anabaptist lens as well as through other faith practices. “At CSCS, we often say that we envision the church responding to climate change as a moral equivalent to peacebuilding.  I love that thought because it expresses how climate change is a moral issue, and that means it’s an issue for our faith,” Neufeld said.

David Landis and Anna Ruth Hershberger have also been working with Friesen and Neufeld to help get the concept on the road, meeting since early 2020. Landis is an EMU alumni, and experienced veteran of cross-country cycling, completing the trip a number of times. Hershberger is the Advancement Director at CSCS and has a history in working with faith-based nonprofits. 

In regards to the COVID-19 pandemic, the leaders are “working to keep things as safe as possible. We are working on making contingency plans and what we would do if someone got sick,” Friesen said. 

The leaders feel relatively comfortable with the trip, considering the group will be traveling in their own little bubble, spending most of their time together in open air. There will be more restrictions on socializing along the way, but the group still plans to find safe ways to interact with different communities along the way. 

Applications for the ride can be found on the CSCS website and are due Dec. 1.