We did it!! This past May, my partner made a suggestion, “Let’s try to put more miles on our bikes than we do our cars between Memorial Day and Labor Day this year.” To some, this may seem like an impossible task, but when we bought our home a few years ago, we chose a place with a bike path in the back yard. I am an environmental educator, and our family values reflect a constant consideration of how our actions affect the other species around us. Back to the challenge… As I considered the reality of this situation, I made a pros and cons list to see if this could actually work. First, we both work from home, so our daily commute consists of walking upstairs to our office. If I have meetings, they are generally within a 5-6 mile radius from my home. Both pros for making this a reality. I love my bike, my partner got it for me as a birthday/Chanukkah present a few years ago. It also helps that my partner rides 3x a week with a local cycling club, and they average about 40 miles per outing. This was also a great year to […]
Topic: Rider Spotlight
Rider Spotlight: Maddy Yasner and Yossi Hoffman
When someone comes on a Hazon ride for the first time, it usually turns out that it’s just the first of many rides they will join us for, and often returning with friends and family. Maddy Yasner and Yossi Hoffman are a perfect example of how this happens. Maddy’s family loves Hazon – her father, Michael Yasner, did the Hazon Arava Institute Israel Ride in 2008, and her mother, Val, is Co-Chair of the Hazon CSA is South Jersey. In 2010, Maddy, her sister, and both their parents decided to do the New York Ride together. As part of their training over the summer, they rode Bike to the Beach, and convinced Yossi Hoffman, Maddy’s boyfriend, to come along. Yossi hadn’t been on a bike in quite some time, and even though they did the shortest 15 mile route, he found it to be difficult and challenging. After Bike to the Beach, he began to train with Maddy almost every weekend (renting a bike each time) and found that riding quickly got easier, and a lot more fun. After Maddy experienced her first New York Ride, which she found to be very rewarding, she and Yossi were both set on training […]
Rider Spotlight: The Jacoby Rosenfield Family
The Jacoby Rosenfield family first came on the New York Ride and Retreat three years ago, when Paul was looking for a way to get more involved with exercise, and biking seemed like a good option. Rachel is very involved in the Jewish environmental community, and works as the director of the Jewish Greening Fellowship at Isabella Freedman Jewish Retreat Center. The New York Ride seemed like the perfect way to bring together the family’s passion for the environment and Paul’s desire to get back into biking. Paul rode that first ride on an old bike (that he had had since high school!) and loved every second of it. Rachel and their kids, Maayan, 11, and Yonah, 8, attended as part of the Ruach (Spirit) Crew, and Rachel and Paul were both amazed at the community and environment the ride created (dynamic and pluralistic, in Rachel’s words), and how much their family enjoyed being a part of that community. After the family’s first ride, Paul bought a new bike, and they have attended the ride every year since. Last year, Paul completed the century ride for the first time, a huge accomplishment! The whole family has made friends that they […]
Rider Spotlight: Donna and Makayla Kahan
When Donna Kahan first read about Hazon’s New York Ride, she thought it sounded like something she would love to do, but didn’t see how it would work because leaving her kids and husband for Labor Day weekend just seemed too complicated. A resident of Demarest, NJ, Donna had been on the lookout for a new group to bike with since her cycling group had recently broken up. She decided to check out the Hazon training rides. On her first training ride, she met Ezra Weinberg, one of the chairs of this year’s New York Ride. When Donna mentioned to Ezra that she would love to do the ride with her daughter Makayla, she wasn’t sure that, Makayla was quite old enough. Ezra was very motivating, and was able to convince Donna that she and Makayla could definitely do the ride together. The pair got some tips on training a friend who had ridden in the New York Ride before. Since then, mother and daughter have been riding together every weekend in Hazon’s training rides. Makayla is going to be a freshman at Northern Valley Regional High School in the fall. (more…)
