At a very young age, Blake Holiday saw the future and it was on two wheels.
“I’ve always loved bicycles,” he says. “When I was 6, my dad taught me how to ride a bike in our front yard. I remember quite clearly the feeling of riding across that yard after my dad let go and hearing the wind in my ears and experiencing that feeling of being free. Then I ran right into a thorny bush and got cut up pretty badly. But I was hooked. And here I am 40 years later, still in love with riding my bike.”
Except now he’s riding for a cause and helping thousands of others do the same. After working for five years as a guide at Backroads Bicycling — an adventure company where he led biking, hiking, and multi-sport trips in Utah, Hawaii, Italy, the Pacific Northwest, and the Napa Valley — two of his friends from Backroads, Caeli Quinn, and Geraldine Carter, had what Holiday, now 47, calls “a crazy idea.” They wanted to stage a multi-day bike ride from New York City to Washington, D.C., to raise money and awareness for climate change. In September 2008, the three organized what they thought would be a one-time event and had about 100 people sign up to ride and fundraise to benefit climate-related organizations — something that no one else was doing at the time.
Read more: Pedal power: Palm Springs cyclist rallies support to counter climate change with international rides
