Alpha Bicycle Groove Silverthorne | Leaving The World a Better Place
[Editor’s note: Adam Rachubinski is the founder and team director of the Denver, Colorado-based, Alpha Bicycle Groove Silverthorne Cyclocross team.]
If there is a silver lining about the pandemic it is that it gave all of us some time to reflect on truly what’s important. One morning, the Alpha Bicycle Groove Silverthorne team mechanic Doug Sumi and I were having a chat. We were a bit confounded with cycling’s public image of being an environmentally friendly way of transportation and outdoor recreation, while the racing community produced a large amount of waste and has an inherent carbon dependency. We thought our team could make a difference and help create a blueprint for other teams to follow.
We have big long-term goals for the Alpha team. But just a few steps will help us start the journey.
For the 2021-22 season, we have identified four key points to reducing our carbon footprint.
Many of our partners are already leading the way in sustainable manufacturing and business practices.
DNA Cycling takes great pride and effort to make our clothing in the most sustainable way possible. The factory in Italy in which they create amazing cycling soft goods has invested in independently produced power and also has monitoring systems in place to save heat, recover water and minimize pollution. The factory is Bluesign certified which ensures that the dependence on water, chemicals, and energy is minimized all while allowing workers to operate in an ethical workplace in which emissions are reduced.
Rooted Bicycle Co. is manufacturing our team bicycles in our home state of Colorado. This allows us to keep a focus on recycling our manufacturing excess and reducing the emissions put into the environment due to shipping. Our ceramic coating finish, locally applied by Flux Customs, doesn’t contain any heavy metals and is VOC exempt in all 50 states. In addition, the durability of a metal bike will allow us to race them for multiple seasons.
Shimano has just announced a movement in their newest products to reduce and pivot to 100% paper-based packaging. A new standard for their future.
Secondly, we will reduce our race day energy consumption by over 70% in year one. We have partnered with local company Enduro Power to install six residential solar panels on our new trailer. On sunny days, the excess is then stored for future use in a battery bank similar to what you’d find in an environmentally conscious home. To make all that sunshine-created power stretch as far as possible, our setup is entirely lit by LEDs. This was a huge investment for our team and one that we hope to expand in the future to be entirely solar supported.
We then created a goal to reduce our landfill use by over 90%. We have eliminated all single-use water bottles and plasticware from our program. While building the team’s new bikes for the upcoming season we were able to recycle almost all of the packaging. We have a plan to continue to recycle and compost our waste on the road. We are also replacing aerosol cleaners and lubricants with more environmentally friendly options.
While supporting a team of athletes at the highest level and traveling to races across the country, there are certain impacts that are impossible to eliminate. We have coined these “unavoidable emissions.” We will track things such as fuel usage and Co2 output from flights and purchase carbon offset credits through CoolEffect.org that directly benefit the sustainability efforts at May Ranch. May Ranch is a 15,550-acre conservation in Lamar, Colorado that has been vetted as part of the Audubon’s Ranching Conservation Initiative. This means it can’t ever be developed as many of the surrounding areas have been and is dependent on small-scale, grass-fed, free-range cattle ranching and those offset credits to allow it to be financially sustainable.
In August, we had an opportunity as a team to visit the ranch and meet with Dallas and Riley May. It’s an amazing natural grassland filled with an abundance of birds, thousands of different plants, and even unexpected wildlife such as beavers. We are extremely proud to be a part of the continued prosperity of May Ranch and make a difference right here at home.
This is just the beginning. It was important for our team to make substantial and positive changes toward environmental impact while creating a scalable plan for the future. We are excited to do our part in leaving the world a better place.