Bike wheels keep on turning for clean air

Paula Eber of Bainbridge Island has had asthma her entire life.

So if she can make the transition to riding a bicycle to get around, she figures you can, too. “When you ride your bike – you just did something for the environment,” she said. “I also want people to realize that if I can bike, carrying a bag full of inhalers due to my asthma, anyone can ride a bicycle.”

And ride she does. In 2002 her family went on a 10,000-mile bike trip around the world to raise awareness about asthma and the need for clean air and sustainable transportation.

After finally finishing a book about that trek 20 years later — and realizing people still aren’t taking Climate Change seriously enough — she and husband Lorenz Eber are setting off on another 2,000-mile trip. This one will take them along the West and East Coasts to promote their book, and raise awareness about asthma and clean air.

“This isn’t a done project,” she said, adding that even though they’ve done 100 newspaper, TV and radio interviews, “climate choices are worse, not better. Things are not improving.”

However, while many people were just learning about the problem two decades ago, “It does feel like people care,” she said. “It’s urgent, critical.” Eber said everyone can do their part. “Maybe not 2,000 miles. But at least to the park or grocery store or work.” Eber, an anthropologist and University of Washington professor, rides her bike to work in Seattle.

She said she’s not a bike snob. She’s all for people riding e-bikes if that will get them out of cars. “The number of people on e-bikes is just wonderful,” she said, adding those folks were likely driving cars in the past. She did say there needs to be different infrastructure in BI for electric bikes because some of the riders “don’t have the same skill set” as experienced cyclists.

During their world tour, she said they saw lots of couples, families and grandparents on bikes. She said they saw more bicyclists in almost every other country.

“The poorer the country, the more bikes on the road,” she said. As countries become more developed, people advance to mopeds and then cars. But even big cities can be bike-friendly. “In Beijing, the bike lane is bigger than the car lane. And Europe has an amazing network of bike paths.”

Because other countries are more bike-friendly, she said safety was not a huge concern on their trip. They saw no bike accidents, but five car accidents. “It was hard to miss us. We’re big. We were very cautious with yellow or orange” vests on. She said it’s more dangerous around here, with so many people driving while on their cell phones.

She said while it took forever to get the book done, they feel it’s more important than ever for people to know about asthma, which was a contributing factor to serious health problems during COVID-19. She said few have taken up the cause but 400,000 people die each year from asthma.

She said allergies also are a problem. “Climate change is moving north,” she said, adding people who never had allergies before are having them now up here.

World tour

Lorenz Eber, an aeronautical and civil engineer, left with his wife and daughters Anya, then 13, and Yvonne, then 11, on their long journey and ended up raising $65,000 for the BI nonprofit they helped start called World Bike for Breath.

They started in Greece and stayed on off-roads whenever they could for safety. In Eastern Europe and Asia “conditions aren’t very good,” Eber said. They dealt with language barriers everywhere and learned a lot about foreign cultures. They camped many times in farm fields and playgrounds.

One of her favorite stories about their trip was when they got lost amid the series of islands of Japan. They were caught in traffic on an urban coast so they decided to go inland. After going over a mountain they headed back toward the coast and came upon a desolate valley.

They saw a postman and figured he could help with directions. “It was before Google translate, and we did not speak Japanese.” It ended up they were in a sacred valley. They camped in freezing temperatures and were awoken by “jingling sounds like bells.” They looked up the mountain and saw a pilgrimage of Buddhist monks in white robes hiking up to the temple. “That’s what I love about bike touring. You’ll never have experiences like these with a guided tour.”

They ended their trip in Washington, D.C., and moved there for awhile before returning to BI in 2015. “Where you live matters,” Eber said, adding BI’s fir trees are “fabulous” for her.

To deal with her asthma, she uses an inhaler every morning and night taking preventive doses. “I don’t get on a bike” without taking another dose and bringing more along in case she needs it on the ride.

She said “Bainbridge is a fabulous place to train” for their long bike rides with all of its hills. “That’s what we like to do. It’s part of our life. But it never gets easier.”

This trip

Now that their daughters are in graduate school, the Ebers are heading off again to finish the work they began when Yvonne and Anya were fifth- and seventh-graders at Sakai and Woodward middle schools on BI.

They planned to set off July 3, catch the ferry to Seattle and start pedaling down the coast to San Diego. On the way, they plan to talk at their former sponsors’ stores—REI and Patagonia—about ways to promote clean air and reduce our carbon footprint by traveling by bicycle. They will ride along the East Coast then end their three-month trip.

The decision to go on a carbon-free bike and book tour seemed obvious to Eber. “It doesn’t make any sense to drive up in a car to a book talk about sustainable transportation and clean air. It doesn’t seem ethical.

“By biking, we show that it’s possible to travel and have adventures without using high-carbon forms of transportation like driving or flying. We make our point by living it.”

Fast facts

-The world trip took 480 days, from May 7, 2003 (World Asthma Day) to Aug. 28, 2004.

-It spanned four continents: Europe, Asia, Australia and North America.

-It spanned 25 countries: Greece, Turkey, Italy, Austria, Germany, Holland, England, France, Sweden, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Russia, Mongolia, China, Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Thailand, Australia, New Zealand, Tonga, Canada and U.S.

-They rode on two tandem bikes, with the parents in front for safety’s sake. The girls were clipped into the pedals and helped the whole way. “They had to stay up with us. They were tied to us,” mom Paula Eber said.

-With all the gear and both riders, each bicycle weighed up to 350 pounds.

-Falcon Guides recently published their book, Breathtaking: How one family cycled around the world for clean air and asthma. For details go to www.bike4breath.com