To Ryer Hesjedal And Michelle Dumaresq On Canada Day

It looks like I have a pretty fair number of readers in Canada.  So, dulce et decorum est...Sorry, wrong country.  I mean, it is sweet and proper to point out that today is Dominion Day, a.k.a. Canada Day.

We here in the US tend to compare other countries' greatest national holidays--like Bastille Day in France--to our Independence Day.  Truth is, Canada Day is as different from our 4th of July holiday as it is from the French grande fete.  

I am no expert in these matters, but as I understand, Canada did not fight a war to gain "independence" from Britain.  Rather, Canada--which then consisted only of Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick--gained autonomy under the auspices of the British Crown.  It sounds to me like Queen Victoria was saying, "Well, they're still a colony, kinda sorta"--if Her Majesty would have ever spoken in such a manner.  (Tsk, tsk!)

Canada's de facto national flag until 1965, when the familiar maple leaf banner was adopted.

Actually, "independence" happened gradually, over more than a century, rather than with an American-style revolution.  The Westminster Act of 1931 gave Canada autonomy over most of its affairs.  But it wasn't until 17 April 1982, when Queen Elizabeth II signed the Canada Act, that the country become fully autonomous.  Until that time, there were still actions, such as signing UN resolutions, that Canada could not do unilaterally.

(Interestingly, the Canada Act might have deepened the rift between the country's Anglophones and Francophones, as it was recorded as a statutory instrument in both French and English, cementing Canada's status as a bilingual country.  Some scholars have argued that if the Canada Act had not been ratified in both languages, it might not have been possible, for example, for Quebec to pass its language laws.)

Anyway...Canada is interesting, to say the least.  So are Canadians: They're not just Americans who live in a colder climate.  So, it's no surprise that the country has its own distinctive cycling history and, while a few, like Steve Bauer, rode for US-sponsored teams, they forged their own way in the racing world.

One example is Ryder Hesjedal, the first Canadian to win one of the major European Grand Tours:  the 2012 Giro d'Italia.  Two years earlier, he placed fifth overall int he Tour de France.

Ryder Hesjedal

An interesting--and, to me, somehow Canadian--aspect of his story is that he started off as a mountain bike racer and turned to road racing.  I say that it sounds Canadian to me because, among American cyclists, the trend has been the other way.  That may be a result of history:  the first professional mountain bikers from the US, and most of them started off as road riders because, well, that's what most racers were in those days.  On the other hand, Canada produced an impressive list of riders who started off--and, in some cases, remained--mountain bikers.  This is particularly true of female Canadian cyclists such as Michelle Dumaresq, of whom I've written in an earlier post.

Michelle Dumaresq

So, I am dedicating this post to her and Hesjedal, who are emblematic of their country's cycling history--and, I believe, its history, period.

Michelle Dumaresq: 100% Pure Woman Champ

Today is Transgender Day of Remembrance.  

This day was first observed in 1999, one year after Rita Hester was murdered in her Allston, Massachusetts apartment.  She was killed just two days before she would have turned 35 years old.


Her death came just a few weeks after Matthew Shepard was beaten and left to die on a cold night in the Wyoming high desert.  Their deaths helped to bring about the hate-crime laws now on the books in the US as well as many state and local statutes.  Moreover, Hester's killing--while not as widely publicized as Shepard's--galvanized transgender activists all over the world.

Because I am--at least to my knowledge--the only transsexual woman with a bike blog, I am going to use this post to honor one of the greatest transgender athletes of our era.

Michelle Dumaresq was born in 1970.  In 2001, she entered and won her first competitive mountain biking event--the Bear Mountain Race in British Columbia, Canada.  After she won two more races, her racing license was suspended in response to complaints from other female riders.  The cycling associations of British Columbia and Canada, after meeting privately with race organizers, tried to pressure her into quitting.  Of course, she wouldn't, and after a meeting with UCI officials, it was decided that she could continue to compete as a female.

Other female riders felt she had an unfair advantage.  Their resentment was, not surprisingly, based on a common misunderstanding.  Dumaresq had her gender reassignment surgery in 1996, five years before her first victory, and had been taking female hormones--and a male hormone blocker--for several years before that.  By the time she started racing, she no longer had any testosterone in her body (Biological females have traces of it.) and she had lost most of the muscle mass she had as a man.

I know exactly where she's been, as I also had the surgery after six years of taking hormones and a testosterone blocker.  A few months into my regimen, I started to notice a loss of overall strength, and I noticed some more after my surgery.  Trust me, Ms. Dumaresq, as talented and dedicated as she is, had no physiological advantage over her female competitors.

I remind myself of that whenever another female rider (usually, one younger than I am) passes me during my ride to work!

But I digress.  Michelle Dumaresq had the sort of career that would do any cyclist--male or female, trans or cisgender, or gay--proud.  She won the Canadian National Championships four times and represented her country in the World Championships.  That, of course, made the haters turn up the heat.  When she won the 2006 Canadian National Championships, the boyfriend of second-place finisher Danika Schroeter jumped onto the podium and helped her put on a T-shirt that read "100% Pure Woman Champ."

Ms. Dumaresq would have looked just fine in it.