The Life Cycle | biodiversity bike ride

The Life Cycle biodiversity bike ride

The UKs first home-grown bicycle has successfully crossed a continent, reaching Ushuaia, Patagonia at the tip of South America; a town known as the end of the world. Former University of Cumbria Outdoor Studies lecturer, Dr Kate Rawles, who is sponsored by Heart of the Lakes, built the bike at the Bamboo Bicycle Club in London from bamboo grown at Cornwalls world-renowned Eden Project..

Kate and her bike, Woody, left Northern Colombia at the beginning of February last year. They then cycled a total of 8288 miles, following the spine of the Andes mountains across Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Chile and Argentina through an astonishing variety of landscapes and ecosystems, from Pacific Ocean to high Andes paramo; from cloud and rainforests to Bolivian salt flats and the Atacama desert.

The goal of The Life Cycle journey was to explore biodiversity: what it is, whats happening to it, why that matters and, above all, what can and is being done to protect it and then to use the adventure story to help raise awareness and inspire action on this hugely important but relatively neglected environmental challenge.

Biodiversity loss is an issue every bit as serious as climate change but much less well publicised and understood, said Kate. I aim to help change that. We are losing species at a terrifying rate because of deforestation, the loss and degradation of other habitats, climate change, pollution, invasive species, etc.

The Life Cycle | biodiversity bike ride | Heart of the Lakes

This really matters. Biodiversity loss has enormously negative implications for people via its impact on ecosystem services that we cannot live without, like soil fertility, pollinators, clean water etc. And, of course, for other species too. Its life-threatening, literally.

En route, Kate, who rode most of the journey solo, visited a wide range of projects and met many inspiring people. From a school whose entire curriculum was based on turtles to a group of young people standing up against one of the largest gold corporations in the world; from a woman who bought millions of acres of Chile and turned them into nature conservation reserves to an organisation protecting endangered monkeys by showing local people how to earn money by turning waste plastic into handbags rather than by catching monkeys for the illegal (but lucrative) wildlife pet trade.

Kate will share pictures and stories of her adventure, the highs and lows, the challenges, the people and places and of course, the bamboo bike at a talk sponsored by Heart of the Lakes at the University of Cumbrias Ambleside campus on the 20^th September 2018. You can visit Woody before then at RideBikes bike shop in Ulverston, who were generous in their help getting Kate and Woody get ready for the journey.