The Ciclo Vida (Life cycle) Go Local Tour is designed to bring together the Earn-a-Bike program with other community groups through promoting local, organic food as part of a sustainable lifestyle. This collaboration will be accomplished by organizing weekly summer bike rides to visit local food projects such as community gardens, farmer’s markets, and organic farms. Each ride will concentrate on one or two issues (for example: youth empowerment/community supported agriculture) and be documented on video for distribution on the Internet.

This project was inspired by a TV show called “Feasting on Asphalt”, featured on The Food Network and starring Alton Brown. The basic idea for the show was that Mr. Brown and his crew would travel by motorcycle across the USA, stopping to eat at local, non-chain restaurants where the owner was the cook. After viewing a couple of episodes of the show, it becomes clear that the food being offered in many of these small restaurants is neither healthy, organic, or, for the most part, local. So, the idea was born: instead of motorcycles, bicycles! Instead of fried pork on a buttermilk biscuit, sautéed kale and collards with yams! Instead of frozen food from 3,000 miles away warmed up in a microwave, a raw food extravaganza prepared with local, organic ingredients by chefs who know the farmers who supply their restaurants! Wow, is your mouth watering yet? All of this and more put into a series of video documentaries as a way of inspiring people to think about their choices: choices in transportation, food, local economies, and lifestyle. At Earn-a-Bike we believe in making a difference in our community at the grassroots level, and this project will bring that message to people in a way that everyone can relate to whether they ride a bicycle or not: Food!
Our rides will include family-friendly, short distance rides in the city of Worcester to visit community gardens and connect with other projects such as the Regional Environmental Council’s YouthGrow program and the Worcester Roots Project’s Toxic Soil Buster’s group. We’ll also offer some challenging rides, such as going from Worcester to Natick to visit the Natick Community Organic Farm and then even further afield to see the amazing Land’s Sake Community Farm in Weston. The rides will be promoted and publicized to get as much participation as possible, with an emphasis on getting people (especially youth) onto bikes who might never have attempted longer rides. And, since we’ll be offering many different trips over the summer, everyone will have a chance to be part of it.

More details, dates, and destinations coming soon! If you would like to help in the planning, please call or email Gray at 508 579 9093 or gray@worcesterearnabike.org. Check the calendar for meeting times, and come on down. We’ll try our best to actually have some kind of local food at the meetings.