California Mountain Bikers Are Asked to Ride in the Name of Science
California Mountain Bikers Are Asked to Ride in the Name of Science originally appeared on BikeMag.
Love the outdoors? Love mountain biking? Love science? Conservation nonprofit Adventure Scientists has teamed up with the Calirado Kid (AKA Joe Foft) to enlist mountain bikers in California to collect soil and insect samples to better understand California's biodiversity.
The samples will be used as part of California's 30X30 Strategy, in which the state hopes to conserve 30 percent of California lands and coastal waters by 2030.
Foft, a mountain biker known for his humor who has hundreds of thousands of followers across Instagram and YouTube, is asking anyone who mountain bikes in California to enroll in the project. Volunteers take a quick online training class, and will be sent a collection kit. During rides, they'll collect soil and bug samples. The samples are then returned and analyzed by the California Institute for Biodiversity.Some of the National Forests the program is interested in sampling through mountain biking, hiking, trail running and backpacking are Shasta Trinity, Six River, Pluma, Angeles, Lassen, Los Padres, Humbolt-Toiyabe, Eldorado and Tahoe.
There are no costs incurred by volunteers and all supplies are free. Mountain bikers were specifically requested due to the amount of remote terrain they access in a short period of time.
"By enlisting the help of volunteers, the project is able to collect vast quantities of biodiversity data across a wide geographic region that would otherwise be too expensive and difficult to collect," Adventure Scientists says. "Athletes are uniquely positioned to help protect California's biodiversity because they can access remote parts of the state that would otherwise go undocumented."
Data collected and processed will be used to help develop statewide conservation efforts. California is one of the most ecologically diverse states in the nation, Adventure Scientists says, but is increasingly under threat from factors including climate change and wildfires.
The volunteer program is open now through August 31, 2025. For complete information, visit the Adventure Scientists project page.
This story was originally reported by BikeMag on Jun 20, 2025, where it first appeared.
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