Race Across America Green challenge...

[indigoiis]

Next month Eric Goetz and his Xtreme 4 team of cyclists will attempt to bike from coast to coast in six days as they compete in the intense Race Across America. You can help them raise awareness about alternative modes of transportation by making a pledge to go carbon neutral the week of June 11.

http://xtreme4.com/

[hipersons]

My friend Pam is on the crew team! I bought a day's worth of food to support them.

[indigoiis]

I just think it's way cool. I found out because one of the team members went to school where I work.

Nice website, too.

[redrhodie]

I found out because one of the team members went to school where I work.

Which one?

Hey, nice runnin' into you yesterday!!! Sunday's supposed to be gorgeous!

[DebW]

Why do they call this the green challenge? Wouldn't it be greener if they were self-supported, without a carbon-burning support crew?

[hipersons]

Their aspiration is to inspire others to ride to work through their example; if they can make it 1000+ miles in a week, your 10 mile ride to work looks like a tiny feat.

[indigoiis]

I agree in many ways, DebW. They better be supported by an EV.

But the intention is good.

(RR, it's Eric Goetz Rivera, and he's about your age, so you might know him.)

[supersonique]

Hey there! I'm the crew member on xtreme4 that hipersons mentioned earlier in this thread.

DebW brings up great points in regards to carbon-neutrality. For Race Across America, according to the rules, each racer/team must start the race with a minimum of two four-wheeled support vehicles, one of which follows the rider, so with the exception of short essential stopping, it pretty much has to be running 24-7.

Having vehicles that do not output any pollution would be ideal, however, there are currently no electric vehicles that can run 24-7 and we need the vehicles for safety on the roads (especially at night), a place to sleep and to carry our food. So, we are offsetting the team's carbon emissions by using carbon credits through Native Energy.

As far as how we will achieve carbon neutrality, after determining the amount of CO2 that we will be producing ourselves in the race, Native
Energy is going to offset that. The offsetting is done by either putting power into the electricity grid using non-polluting forms of energy production, or putting the money towards present and future projects such as wind/water/etc power. The former being more of a direct, immediate, and measurable impact. There is information on Native Energy's website that illustrates this. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6eSE...w.xtreme4.com/

So, even though there are certainly improvements that we can make, we are doing the best we can to champion alternative modes of transportation with current available technology and while abiding by the rules of the race. In order to facilitate some improvements, we have talked to race organizers so that in coming years, the entire race could be carbon neutral. At the time we spoke to them, they felt is was too late to pull that off, however, they are considering it for future years.

As hipersons mentioned, we would like to show that it is humanly possible for four people to ride across the country, so riding much shorter distances to go to work is very feasible in addition to being good for the environment and for your health. For those of us who live in the city, quite often, it even saves time to ride your bike (hipersons and I know that here in Boston, with the lack of parking spots and the heavy traffic, it takes half the time to ride our bikes compared to driving in!)

Since this is a cycling-related forum, many of us probably ride to work already, but we have a pledge you can take to go green the week of the race. Check out http://www.xtreme4.com/pledge/index.cfm

Happy Riding