On April 22, 2010, the brother and sister team, known as The Green Riders, embarked on a journey across the country on electric bicycles.  We pedaled away from our childhood home in Palo Alto, Ca and headed southeast on our journey to meet and share stories with champions of sustainability.

We undertook this journey with the goal of exploring the sustainable solutions being created all across this country.  Our trek linked sustainability champions together.

Through our blog, we shared exciting stories that we hope will inspire increasing numbers of folks to get on the road towards a sustainable future.

We chose recumbent electric bicycles  for a few reasons.

The first one is that our old bones protested mightily when we proposed the idea of crossing the country on upright electric bicycles.  Our necks, backs, butts, hands and shoulders all shouted “NO WAY” in harmony.  As we’ve gotten used to recumbents we’ve become converts, discovering that the increased comfort is only one of the advantages.  Recumbents are also more stable, give the rider a better view and are really fun!! 

The reason we chose electric bicycles, aside from the fact that we wouldn’t consider taking this trip on pedal power alone, was to demonstrate to the people we encountered that electric bicycles are a practical and fun low carbon form of transportation. 

Our very cool looking bicycles also intrigued the people we met and their curiosity helped us start conversations about the sustainable future we believe in.

For a couple of older, none too tech savvy people, we also challenged ourselves with a leap into the Social Media palette of tools available for building an electronic presence that hopefully provided entertaining, educational and inspirational content for the “Cyber Riders” who joined us.

The final chapter of this journey was in Washington DC where we  met with our Congressperson, Anna Eshoo who said, “You are like a Vitamin B shot!”  We gave her a real boost.

People also signed our petition that declares that a sustainable future demands that each of us must be agents of change in our personal lives, in our communities and in our engagement with democracy. 

We are convinced that time is not on our side.  As a species, we need to discard destructive behaviors and rapidly implement the technologies and behaviors that will leave a livable planet for our children.

Catherine and Oliver Bock