The Life Cycle by Kate Rawles. Book review

​Kate Rawles cycles for thirteen months following the spine of the Andes in South America on a bicycle she built herself from bamboo. She does this journey to explore biodiversity, its loss, its importance, and the people and places trying to protect it. 

Why a bike made of bamboo? Kate Rawles wanted to do this journey as sustainably as possible. She sourced the bamboo as locally as possible- from the Eden Project in Cornwall. She learned how to make it herself and it took 5 days. She also travelled to South America by cargo ship, rather than flying. She stuck to a vegetarian diet.

The route takes the author from Colombia in the north, through Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia and Argentina, down to Ushuaia in Chile. On the way she crosses rainforests, cloud forests, high Andean grasslands salt flats and deserts. She meets activists, indigenous people, conservationists, scientists, and communities facing environmental challenges.

The combination of cycling adventure and environmental investigation is unique and gives the book depth. The bicycle journey is not just about scenery and on the road challenges, but a means to explore ecological and social issues. That’s the main subject of this book, not the cycling aspect. The descriptions of the lush landscapes are vivid. Her meetings with people on the front-lines of conservation are fascinating. The biodiversity message in the book can sometimes feel repetitive and at the expense of a cycling adventure, but then the main purpose of this book is to relay those environmental themes.

The environmental harm done by the mining industry is a sobering and depressing read. The book is also full of hope because of the extraordinary people trying to save our planet. For example, Kate visits a school in Columbia whose entire curriculum is built around turtles- their ecology, and the threats they face. The school does all kinds of turtle-based learning. The children then nag their parents to reduce litter, to use less plastic and to care about the habitats.

The Life Cycle is an enjoyable read that teaches us a lot about the efforts of ordinary people in South America to protect the planet’s biodiversity. Most of the book’s focus is environmental. There is still plenty of bicycle drama to keep it interesting for the lovers of adventure cycling books.