Kate is a keen 'adventure plus' rider, riding to help raise awareness and inspire action on the most urgent environmental issues, highlighted in her first book The Carbon Cycle. In 2017/18 she rode, The Life Cycle, an 8288 mile route from Colombia to Cape Horn. The ride focused on biodiversity loss and has inspired her next book, The Life Cycle due in 2022.

Kate Rawles said…

"I started cycling as a way of commuting to a gap year job at a riding stables, utterly unfit. Forty years on and I have a passion for ‘adventure plus’ - using adventurous bike rides, preferably in mountains, as a way to help raise awareness and inspire action on our most urgent environmental issues.

"In 2006, I cycled from Texas to Alaska along the Rockies, exploring climate change in two of the most oil-dependent countries on earth. Back in the UK, I used the journey as the basis of The Carbon Cycle slide show and, eventually, The Carbon Cycle book (a much tougher challenge than the ride!). The book was shortlisted for the Banff Mountain Festival Adventure Travel book award 2012.

"In 2017/18, having quit my job as a lecturer in Outdoor Studies, I rode The Life Cycle, an 8288-mile largely solo affair, following the spine of the Andes from Colombia to Cape Horn. My steed for this adventure was Woody, a bamboo bike I built myself; and the focus of The Life Cycle was biodiversity loss, an issue every bit as important as climate change but one that gets much less press.

"I cycled for thirteen months and crossed the Atlantic at each end of the journey by cargo ship, significantly reducing the carbon footprint of my adventure compared with flying. I’m now working on The Life Cycle book, which is due to be published by Icon Books in the Spring of 2022.

For me, a bike is a magician, transforming all journeys into adventures and making adventures possible for non-athletes, like me

Kate Rawles

"For me, a bike is a magician, transforming all journeys into adventures and making adventures possible for non-athletes, like me. And cycling offers a fabulous contribution to the aim of living high quality lives with low environmental footprints, key if we are to achieve the sustainability we urgently need on our single, beautiful planet."

Nominated by…

Kate was nominated for the 100 Women in Cycling by Giles Cooper, who said: 

"Kate cycles for life on this planet, the only home we’ve got! She has already inspired numerous others to take the Climate Crisis most seriously and she continues, along with the other women of The Adventure Syndicate, to be a long term inspiration to all who come across her. Thanks Kate!"