I got back into town late last night from an AMAZING 6 days in Toronto for Ladies Army. I want to write all about it right now, but instead I need to unbury myself from work, be a good host for the 4 ladies I brought back from Canada with me, and catch up on sleep.
I’ll write more this weekend, but in the meantime I’ll leave you all with this photo of my great teammates – thanks for playing with me!
I’m off to Toronto until Monday for Ladies Army 6, a women’s bike polo tournament! It has been a long time dream of mine to go to Ladies Army, but the timing has never been right. But that is all about to change! My friend Gitti and I are teaming up with Sabrina as team Butcherettes. Follow us on Podium!
I AM SO EXCITED I CANNOT STAND IT.
Before I start Friday Link Love I want to tell you all a story from my week. Wednesday night after polo and after watching game 4 of the Stanley Cup playoffs I rode home through Allston, and as it was 11:30 and I hadn’t eaten yet I stopped for some dinner. I locked up my bike, and when I stopped to lock it up a rather inebriated person stopped too and just sort of stood there. It caught my attention, but I was hungry and I didn’t really care, so I just went inside, got some food, and came back out to go eat at home. When I went back to my bike I noticed the same drunk dude there, and I didn’t care until I looked down at my seat.
That is when I saw it. A HUGE GLOB OF GUM ON MY SEAT. Now after my initial reaction of being pretty pissed off, I then took a closer look at the gum and realized that this was no regular spitting of gum on a bike seat – this was a HUGE glob of freshly chewed baseball gum. Someone had chewed up that gum with the intention of spitting it out on my seat. Seriously, the gum covered a good third of my seat with gum juices oozing everywhere. I was both really pissed and kind of impressed. Anyways – I wiped it off with my ulock and then muttered to myself the rest of the way home.
So that’s a story from my week. Hope yours did not include anybody spitting gum on your seat.
Now to the links!
A few weeks ago I posted a video and of Chelsea Fietsgodin tearing it up on a BMX bike. This week she gave an interview on The Come Up about what it’s like being a trans woman BMX rider, solidarity between trans and cis women, amongst other topics. I can’t stress enough how awesome this interview is, and that everyone should read it!! I want to quote this whole interview here, but instead I’ll just include this one quote:
As an example of sex being a spectrum and not a binary system, compare my body to someone like Stevie Churchills; we were both assigned male at birth, but look at how much muscle mass he has compared to me. Then look at Amanda Carr for example, I’m pretty sure she is stronger than I am despite the fact that she was assigned female at birth. She and I are both strong because we spend countless hours building our strength so we can be better at our sports. I don’t have strong legs because I was “BORN A MAN!!!!!” but because I ride my bike to work and school 7 days a week on top of riding for fun for several hours a day every day. Proof of this forced subordination of female strength is seen in the female runners that were required to have their hormone levels altered because they run “too fast”. And those were cisgender women that this was done to. Still, keeping in mind that strength is not determined by gender or sex the differing socialization of the genders results in physical differences with current societal beliefs and I was socialized as a boy for a part of my life. Due to this I’ve spent many years making sure that I did not receive credit for being a girl rider because I didn’t want to make other women feel cheated, but after meeting, riding with, and talking to other woman and girl riders who so far with the exception of one, have been nothing but supportive of me riding I have come to accept that I too am what a woman rides like.
But really. Read the whole interview. It’s awesome.
The Guardian posted an article on their blog called ‘Where’s the voice of female cyclists in campaigns, forums and politics?‘ which I think is always a relevant question.
Even among the more thoughtful commentators, we hear that women are ‘an indicator species’ for safe cycling in a city. While I understand the sentiment, I find the wording grates; really, a whole different species? Certainly nothing illustrates better that the public debate about cycling is one largely conducted by men, and on men’s terms and that women are a ‘problem’ to be talked about, rather than people to be actually listened to.
I had just read this article when another article popped up in my email from BiciRed in Mexico announcing the launch of a new world cycling initiative and when I looked at the picture for the article this is what I saw…
Yup. Looks typical.
And lastly because this is the cutest thing I’ve seen in a while:
The other day my co-worker and I were joking about how we only own bike t-shirts, and after I went home I rummaged through my dresser to confirm that it’s true. I more or less own two types of t-shirts: bike t-shirts and plain shirts with very few exceptions. And within that my bike t-shirts more or less fall into three categories: bike polo, bike feminism, and Bikes Not Bombs. I clearly have very specific interests. It’s also sort of funny to take these photos and blog about this now considering that I threw out/donated a bunch of my t-shirts a few months ago, and these were the shirts I decided I couldn’t part with.
I’m also now realizing I missed a few that are at work/in the laundry/in that drawer of my dresser that I always forget I keep my overflow t-shirts in. This is at least a good sampling.
Woman On a Wheel 