A New Regime Ushers In A Bike Boom For Half Of The Country

According to the stats for this blog, most of you, my dear readers, live in what policy-makers call "advanced" economies with relatively stable political systems.  Thus, I would surmise, many, if not most, of you are cycling by choice. You know that it's good for your health.  Or you're trying to reduce your carbon footprint, or simply your energy bills.   Pedaling to work or school may be more convenient than other forms of transportation, especially if you live in a large city or don't have to commute long distances.  Finally, you might be riding just because you enjoy it.

There is at least one place where, for understandable reasons, I have few, if any readers.  One of those reasons has to do with access to Internet content:  Whether or not its rulers have restricted it through censorship and other forms of subterfuge, as has been rumored, many people simply have no way to connect.  That has to do with a second reason:  poverty.  Not only do many people not have the means to pay for access, the ways they use bikes--if they have access to them--are very different from what I often discuss. And, finally, I suspect that the authorities might block or scramble this blog, not only because of some of the opinions (some not bike-related) I express, but because of who I am.

In that locale, some might be pedaling for their health, though I suspect that, relative to the United States, few are fighting "the battle of the bulge" and its attendant diseases like diabetes.  I doubt many are riding for environmental reasons, not because the people aren't conscious of climate change, but because their carbon emissions, currently and historically, barely register at all.  And I don't think they're cycling to work, school or the market as an "alternative" form of transportation because, really, there aren't many alternatives for them.

So what place am I talking about?  It's literally on the other side of the world--socially and economically, as well as geographically--from where I am.  That place is the capital of one of the world's more remote countries:  Afghanistan. Whether or not it was their intention, the Taliban have loosed a surge of bicycles on Kabul's streets.  

Over the past thirteen months, since the Taliban took control of the nation, sanctions have seized up banking and trade. At the same time, aid from Western countries has disappeared. As if those things weren't bad enough, Putin's invasion of the Ukraine have sent fuel prices skyward.   Owning and driving a private car was prohibitively expensive for most residents even in the best of times.  Now it's all but impossible, and the dire economic situation has put bus and shared taxi rides out of reach for many.

Photo by Diaa Hadid

So, workers and students have taken to cycling and bike shops are popping up all over the city.  While they, and the more established shops, may have new bikes for sale, most people buy used bikes or fix up old ones, not only because they are less expensive, but the condition of many streets and roads ensures that new bikes won't look that way for long.

While some may return to taking buses or cabs if the economy and their incomes recover, some say they enjoy riding and have found other unanticipated benefits.  Ahmad Fahim, a 25-year-old radiologist, observed that in addition to weaving through traffic, his bike "gets me through Taliban checkpoints" where motor vehicles are typically stopped and searched. 

There is one dark side to this new Afghan bike boom.  It, too, was sparked--if not directly, then almost certainly intentionally--by Taliban rule.  If you know anything about the Taliban's fundamentalist Islamic beliefs, you might have guessed it:  The cyclists are all of one gender.  

The Taliban doesn't explicitly forbid women from cycling.  It doesn't have to.  It simply tells women to stay home and, if they step outside, to cover up and be in the presence of a male guardian.  Those edicts effectively ended the mini-bike boom Shannon Galpin helped to create among Afghan women for more than a decade.  She recalls, "It was like popcorn.  It just took off."  There were women's bike clubs and teams, and even a coed multi-day race in the relatively liberal province of Bamiyan.

When the Taliban took power, Galpin helped dozens of female cyclists flee the country.  The ones who couldn't now watch, with sadness, depression and anger, male cyclists.  "When you see men can do that and you can't do that, it feels like  injustice," laments a woman who asked that her name not be used because she's seeking asylum in the US.

It's a sad irony that she has to seek a new life in an unfamiliar country to enjoy something the Taliban have enabled in her own. I hope she finds the refuge she seeks--and that she continues to cycle, by choice.

Blame The Bicycle

For the half-century or so that I've been a dedicated cyclist, every few years, new life has been breathed into a long-discredited claim.  The only difference was that back in the day, the oxygen for the myth came from word of mouth, print media and, less often, radio and television.  These days, like almost every other false rumor, it's spread through the "air" of the online world, specifically social media.

What is that claim? Cycling causes male infertility.  Fortunately, every time it's echoed, someone who knows way more than whoever started or resurrected the story shoots it down.  To my knowledge, no study confirming a link between a man's cycling and his inability to produce progeny has been published in the New England Journal of Medicine, Lancet or any other peer-reviewed journal.

Interestingly, such a connection is not the most ludicrous one ever made with cycling.  As I've mentioned in an early post, the pseudo-phenomenon of "bicycle face" was reported (in women, of course) during the "bike boom" of the 1890's.  Around that time, bicycling was also blamed for a decline in marriage because "the young men go off on their wheels and leave the young ladies to themselves."

In that vein, another columnist wondered "What does Juliet care for a sofa built for two when Romeo has his tandem?" in blaming bicycles for a decline in furniture sales.  If IKEA had known that, would they have sold bicycles, if only briefly?

(IKEA ceased selling the bikes because some of the belt drives--which substituted for chains--snapped, resulting in rider injuries.  The company said they couldn't find a way to remedy the problem and recalled all of the bikes sold in the US.)

A List of Things People Blamed on Bicycles

🧵

— Paul Fairie (@paulisci) August 22, 2022

It seems that cycling was linked to an increase in appendicitis. The doctor who made the connection noticed only a coincidental rise in the disease and cycling.  He didn't offer a cause-and-effect explanation, so I am guessing that he, with all of his training, missed something that I--who haven't taken a science class since Donna Summer did her version of MacArthur Park (as if we needed a cover of that song!)--understand:  Correlation does not equal causation.

Oh, and cycling has also been implicated in--are you ready for this?--women smoking.  Of course, that claim was made in England, decades before the US Surgeon General's warning on the dangers of smoking.  We've all seen that famous image of 1920s Tour de France riders taking a smoke break:  at the time, it was commonly believed that puffing on Gauloises or Gitanes (or Marlboros) "opened up the lungs."  Also, at the time of the "cycling causes women to smoke" claim was made, in much of "polite" society, "proper" and "Christian" ladies didn't drink, show their ankles, swear--or smoke or ride bikes.  

(The last dedicated cyclist whom I saw smoking was a guy I met when I was working at American Youth Hostels. Any time we were about to climb a hill, he stopped to smoke.  He claimed that it made the ride up easier.  And it seemed that when we stopped at a deli or cafe, he'd order its most unhealthy sandwich or dish and wash it down with the drink containing the most sugar.)

Of course, given what I've said about blaming women smoking on cycling, it's no surprise that cycling has been blamed for mental illnesses and moral decay--"the erosion of the Christian family," as an example.

Do you know of any other personal or societal maladies that have been blamed on bicycling?

The Monday After The Overturn

Last week, I wrote a post on the 50th anniversary of Title IX becoming enshrined in U.S. law.

The following day, the Supreme Court struck down Roe v Wade.

I am writing about that now because I fear that so much of what Title IX made possible can be reversed--or, at least, the law could be rendered all but meaningless.

One thing enslavers know is that keep people servile, all they have to do is restrict the movements of the people they want to keep in bondage and take their bodily sovereignty from them.  The Taliban understands that lesson quite well:  They didn't have to close schools or bar women from opening businesses or practicing professions.  All they had to do was make them wear clothing that inhibited their movements and make it all but impossible to leave their homes without a related male escort.  In a matter of months, they reversed all of the gains Afghan women and girls made during the previous two decades.  Until recently, a similar situation prevailed in Saudi Arabia (enforced by a royal family that, ahem, the United States props up) until women were allowed some elementary rights like riding bicycles and driving cars.

One result of the restrictions in Afghanistan and Saudi  Arabia is that women's health deteriorated.  Women's bodies were seen, as they are in all fundamentalist and orthodox religions, as incubators:  Their health care is seen as important only to the extent that it allows them to bear and rear children.  Because women could not go anywhere without a related male escort, they could be denied care because their husbands didn't want them to take off their clothes in the presence of a male doctor (never mind that a female doctor may not be available) or simply decided the women didn't really need care.

So how does this affect us, in a country where we don't have to wear burkas and can come and go as we please? (Well, OK, there are some areas where  we don't go alone.) As a transgender woman, I often think about bodily autonomy:  What if I'd been told I couldn't take hormones or have surgery?  Or what if there wasn't a therapist and social worker available who understood my situation and could guide me into my transition?  If abortion can be denied, what else can a government--whether national, state or local--tell us we need or don't need, or can or can't have?

For that matter, could politicians and judges tell us what we can and can't do in our free time--or as a profession?  Think about it.  In some states, women have been arrested for having miscarriages or stillbirths.  Why?  Those miscarriages and stillbirths were considered as manslaughter or even homicide on the grounds that some behavior--drug use, drinking, smoking or even diet or activities--induced them.  What if some accident or injury in cycling--or some other sport--were considered as "causes" or "contributing factors?"

You might say that I'm being hysterical or alarmist.  In the days before Roe v Wade, girls were discouraged from sports with this admonition: "It'll tip your uterus."  Or our other "tender parts" would be irrevocably damaged, or the effort of pedaling or running or jumping or whatever would contort our pretty little faces. (They obviously never saw mine!)

And I fear that women's health care--which is still nowhere near the level it should be--will revert to its pre-Roe state.  Of course, I'm not talking about the technology.  Rather, I mean that an attitude Roe engendered--that women, as sentient beings, are worthy of health care in their own right--could revert.  If it's harder to obtain care, and care for ourselves, it will be more difficult to not only particiapate in sports, even recreationally, but also to determine our careers and other areas of life.

Our journeys take many unexpected turns.  I know mine has.  I just hope ours don't go off a cliff with the Supreme Court overturning Roe v Wade.

 

Why Don't They Protect Us?

 Helmets are for sissies.

I actually said that once.  Of course, that meant I would soon don the best head protection available at the time:  the Bell "turtleshell."  At that time, I told myself that a real man can indeed wear something more substantial than a Team Peugeot cap on his head.  But, of course, that wasn't the real reason why I--a manque transgender woman--wore a cranial shield.

In time, most cyclists I'd ride with in clubs, training or races would wear them, too.  Women, it seemed, were more willing, even if they were worried about messing up their hair.

Well, I just learned something I never expected:  Women may have less reason to wear helmets.  Now, I'd like to think because we're tougher and more resilient, or because we have so much more brain matter that we can afford to lose a little.  

From Femmecyclist

The real reason, though, is that helmets may do less for us than they do for men.  According to a recent study, although we're more likely than men to wear helmets, we have higher rates of serious head injury (in spite of less head injury overall).

What accounts for this difference? The study posits that it can be one of two things:  sex disparity in helmet-testing standards or "intrinsic incompatiblity between available helmets and female anatomy."  

This reminds me of the "female problem" in medicine:  Most of what doctors and other medical professionals learn is based on studies done on males.  So the data is biased; so is the perspective of doctors. Most standards for everything from blood pressure readings to medication dosages are thus based on data gleaned from studies done on men.

I know that many women have difficulty finding helmets (and other apparel and equipment) that fit them.  I wonder whether the helmet issue has to do, not only with the differences in size and shape between women's and men's craniums, but also in the ways our heads move and balance on our bodies.

She Didn't Pass Me! I'm Drafting Her! Really!

Given the life I've lived, it's no surprise that I've seen "both sides" (or all sides) of many issues and situations.  For example,  I have "mansplained" and been "mansplained" to.  And I have "chicked" and been "chicked."

I'm making that last confession for the first time. (If you are chicked and no one is there to see it...) When I was living as a dude named Nick, it's something I never, ever would have wanted anybody to know.

So what does it mean to get "chicked?"

From Bikeyface.

It is perhaps the worst affront to the ego of a cyclist who's running on testosterone.  The truth is, though, that I didn't like being passed by anyone--unless, of course, I was "drafting"* them. 

Believe it or not, in my current life, I've chicked a few male cyclists.  These days, though, when I'm passed by another cyclist, it may have as much to do with an imbalance in age as in a gender difference!

*--or wanted to look at them from behind.  (Pretend you didn't read that! ;-))

Moving Forward To 2021

Happy New Year!

The past year was difficult for many of us, for all sorts of reasons.  I have no idea of what this year will bring--well, all right, I think the first few months, at least, will be difficult as the COVID-19 pandemic rages. However and whenever the pandemic ebbs, all we can do is to move forward.

That is what we, as cyclists, know how to do. Even--actually, I would say "especially"-- those of us who like vintage or "retro" bikes are forward-looking:  We are riding toward a landscape free of the encumbrances of fossil fuels, social and economic hiérarchies and the tyranny of companies that dictate what we can and can't use. 

Pioneering female cyclists Violet Ward and Daisy Elliot, 1895.  (Alice Austen, collection of Historic Richmond Town.)

One thing I can't help but to notice is that social progress--which is to say, equal access to dignity--comes as more women and girls ride bicycles.  (Why do you think I underwent a gender transition? ;-)) Think of the bike booms of the 1890s and 1970s:  Those are, perhaps not coincidentally, when the first and second waves of feminism washed over American society.  I would like to think that we are in another boom and that it will result, current setbacks notwithstanding, long-term gains for women.

Women cycling in Davis, California, 1967

If nothing else, if we see more women (and people of all other gender identities) on bikes in 2021, things have to get better.  I hope so.

We're Riding. How Many Of Us Will Keep It Up?

Early in the history (all 10 years) of this blog, I wrote about the ways some people reacted to me, a woman on a bicyce.  It was particularly interesting to me because I started this blog a little less than a year after I had my gender reassignment surgery and was, at the time, was taking my first rides as a post-transition after nearly four decades of cycling as male.

The reactions ranged from encouragement to hostility and rage; a few folks--Hispanic men, mainly--admonished me to "be careful."

In the neighborhoods where I encountered such men--in the Bronx, eastern Brooklyn and Queens neighborhoods like Corona (a less-than-ten-minute ride from my apartment), I was also the only female cyclist in sight.  On the other hand, in communities like Brooklyn's Park Slope, Manhattan's Upper West Side and my own neighborhood of Astoria, I encountered other women on bikes.  Some were riding to stores, classes, jobs or yoga classes; others were riding for its own sake.  But even in those neighborhoods, we were distinctly in the minority.

The pandemic is changing that picture, however slowly.  Even the Times is taking note, but what I've heard from Transportation Alternatives and WE Bike--two organizations of which I'm a member--corroborates my observation.

According to the Times, the new COVID-inspired "Bike Boom" has been fueled largely by female cyclists, not only in New York, but in other cities.  The author of the article, however, asks two of the questions that have been on my mind:  Will the "boom" continue once things return to "normal?"  And will women continue to ride.

As the article points out, a lot of people started cycling, not only because they didn't feel safe in taking subways and buses, but also because the lockdown-induced decrease in automobile traffic made people feel safer in riding a bike.  But now that some people are returning to their offices and other workplaces, their distrust of mass transit is also causing them to drive more---or even to buy cars for the first time.  

I have noticed the increase in traffic--and agression of drivers.  It's fair to wonder whether new cyclists, female or otherwise, will continue to ride if traffic continues to increase in volume and hostility--especially if this city (and other US communities) continue to build a disjointed system of poorly-conceived and -constructed bike lanes and other bike infrastructure.  

R.B.G.: Hearing The Shofar As I Pedal

As you know by now, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg passed away on Friday night.

I heard the "breaking news" on the radio that evening, as members of an observant Jewish family were returning from shul to their home just up the block from me.  Rosh Hoshannah had just begun.  In times past--and in some Orthodox communities--it's heralded by sounding a shofar:  a horn made from a hollowed-out ram's tusk.

The shofar was, and is, still used to call attention to significant events, and to warn of danger. RBG's passing seems like a shofar blast.

She didn't single-handedly keep women from living out the nightmare of The Handmaid's Tale. But very few people did more to bring the status of women and girls--and, by extension, others who have been disenfranchised--closer to equality with that of men and boys.

While I didn't know her personally, I have the sense that she did what she did because of something she understood, perhaps viscerally, and which I came to understand during my gender transition:  Anyone who doesn't have agency over his or her body and mind is a slave.  

When I understood that, I believe, I truly became a feminist.  Before that, I supported a woman's right to choose, in all areas of life (including reproduction), and equal opportunities.  But, until I started living as a woman, they were merely "issues."  Once I began my transition, I realized they were matters of my own life:  Even though I never have been, and never will be, pregnant--and, thankfully, do not have to worry about having a hysterectomy without my consent--  I realize now that I could choose to take medications and undergo medical procedures to align my body with my psyche without having to ask permission from any man--or worrying about being imprisoned for violating a law written and enforced by men.

I could also continue cycling for the same reasons.  Until recently, women weren't allowed to ride--or drive--in Saudi Arabia.  In other societies, women and girls are discouraged, or even intimidated, away from such things.

My life--which includes cycling--is possible, in part, because of Justice Bader Ginsberg's work.  Her passing is, among other things, a warning, or at least a signal, that I cannot take it for granted:  a shofar blast, if you will.

On Two Wheels To The 19th

The United States became an independent nation in 1776.  I would argue, however, that it took nearly two centuries for it to become anything like democracy, and that this evolution came in stages.

The last of those stages came with the Voting Rights Act in 1965.  Before that, the most important event in this evolution came one hundred years ago yesterday, when the 19th Amendment became part of the US Constitution.  It was written to guarantee women the right to vote.

(Interestingly, a few states, mainly in the western part of the nation, gave women the franchise while they were still territories.)

I mention the 19th because, well, it matters to me and because bicycles figure into it.  Although Susan B. Anthony didn't live to exercise the right she fought for, she did see changes, however gradual, in what was considered proper and sometimes even legal for women.  

As I've mentioned on other posts, she acknowledged the role of two wheels and two pedals in emancipating us:  

Let me tell you what I think of bicycling.  I think it has done more to emancipate women than anything else in the world.  It gives women a feeling of freedom and self-reliance.  I stand and rejoice every time I see a woman ride by on a wheel...the picture of free, untrammeled womanhood.

She beautifully described what kept me cycling during and since my gender transition.  I feel free and happy on my bicycle. Perhaps most important of all, I feel complete autonomy over my body and person.  If that is not a definition of becoming a woman, a full human being--or of feminism--I don't know what is.

Girls Rule--The World!

Half a century ago, Beryl Burton broke the 12-hour time trial record.  Not "just" the women's record, mind you:  She broke the record by a full eight kilometers (five miles), which is something like a runner shaving five minutes off a marathon record.  

Almost two years ago, Denise Mueller-Korenek rode faster on a bicycle than any woman--or man--before her.  She beat a then-23-year-old record by 27.3 kilometers, or 17 miles, per hour.  At 296 kilometers per hour (183.93 mph), she rode faster than an Airbus A340 taking off.

Now, here's another addition to the pantheon of women breaking men's records:  Cat Dixon and Raz Marsden pedaled a tandem bicycle around the world in 263 days, beating the previous record by 18 days.

Cat Dixon (l) and Raz Marsden (r)

Their 29,391 km (18,263 mile) route took them through 25 countries, where they encountered everything from a continent-wide heat wave in Europe, monsoons in Asia and brush fires in Australia.  

But perhaps their most daunting challenge was one they couldn't have anticipated.  They caught one of the last ferries back to their native England--where they began their ride--on the day, in March, when the COVID-19-induced travel ban began.

Oh, and they're only a few years younger than I am!

Their feat has been recognized by the Guinness Book of World Records.

(Thanks to "voyage of the eye" for alerting me to Ms. Dixon's and Marsden's story.)

When You're In Sierra Leone, Look For Stylish

Go to your local bike shop and ask for "Stylish".

Depending on the shop, you might be shown an elegant city bike or colorful jersey.  But it's not likely that someone in the shop will answer to it.

That is, unless your shop is in Sierra Leone.

Well, Stylish's (I never thought I'd use a possessive form of that word!) workplace isn't exactly a bike shop.  But it does connect people with bikes.  To be exact, he's the country manager for Village Bicycle Project, a US-based charity that focuses on sustainable transportation in Africa.  

Stylish.  Photo by Tom Owen

He has a workshop where he fixes bikes, and he does workshops in which he teaches people--particularly women and girls--how to ride bikes.  In his country, and others, women aren't taught how to ride because of notions that we can lose our virginity to a bicycle saddle. (Hmm...I guess it's a good thing I learned how to ride when I was still male!)  This not only robs them of the joy of cycling, it also limits their freedom and time they have to themselves, as they are often balancing family duties with outside work and/or school.  Having a bicycle increases their mobility, and options.

In addition to his bicycle-related work, Stylish has also, for the past six years, run a feeding program in the town of Lunsar.   In August, torrential rains make it impossible to harvest crops and a lot of people go hungry.  Last year, during that month, he provided meals for 80 neighborhood kids; in return, they had to attend English and Math lessons.  "I don't want to just create another thing where I am giving and they are taking," he explains.  This project, he says, is funded entirely by donations from people he has met personally, both in Sierra Leone and abroad.

With all he does, is it any wonder that 26-year-old Stylish has won his country's Young Philanthropist of the Year award?  

Although he was given the award as Abdul Karim Karama, the name he was given at birth, if you ever go to Sierra Leone, don't ask for him by that name. Remember, he's Stylish.  

Where Have We Gone In The Last 130 Years?

I have to admit, once or twice...well, okay, maybe three or four times...I've attended concerts, readings, plays, lectures or other events because I liked the advertisement for it.

Now tell me you wouldn't attend a lecture after seeing a photo like this.  Of course, it combines topics as close to my hearts as my Mercians:  cycling, history, women's history and gender identity.  Tessa Hull, who gave the lecture, didn't come to her topic--summed up in the lecture's title, "Women, Trans and Femme Riders in Early Cycling History"--through a women's or gender studies program.  Instead, she encountered it while on her own journey, literally:  She's cycled alone from Southern California to Maine and in Alaska, Cuba, Ghana and Mexico.  She said that, wherever she went, people were generous, but she heard the same warning:  "You know, a woman can't travel alone."

Well, I know that's not true!  And so did some women in the late 19th Century, during the first "Bike Boom."  Although there probably are more women cycling now than then, she believes that the culture around women and bikes has retrogressed in some ways. In the old bicycle ads, she explains, "you see packs of women riding bicycles, and women riding on the front of tandems," none of which is "really a norm now."  She feels we are "trying to get back to where we were in the 1890s " and warns, "[I]f you don't keep pushing for the advancement of culture, things can quietly digress."

I have to admit, even I--who, if I do say so myself, knows a thing or two about the history of women and cycling--was surprised to see women attired as they are in the photo. And they have rather athletic builds.  These days, it seems that most women in bike ads are there to entice men and look as if their limbs would break if they actually tried to pedal.

She Wants Girls To Have Fun

It's hard for us to believe, perhaps, that in the early days of cycling, a woman astride two wheels was seen as provocative or even transgressive almost everywhere.

These days, it's hard to picture any major European city, and even a few American cities, without women pedaling to work, to school, or even for fun--sometimes alone, other times in the company of friends and, often, with a baby or toddler in a rear seat or trailer.

In much of the world, however, the situation for women and bicycles isn't much different from how it was in the western world in the 19th Century.  If anything, in some places, the sight of a woman on a bike can incite outrage, revulsion or even violence.

Pakistan is one of those places.  It's one of the more conservative Muslim countries, where women aren't even welcome to sit at tea stalls, congregate in parks or ride a bike for fun.  In fact, a woman in a public space without a purpose--like going to the market or school--is viewed as a threat to public morality.  It's uncommon even to see a woman riding a bike for a purpose, as straddling a seat is seen as a vulgar and sexlike act.

One woman who dares to challenge this social taboo is Zulekha Dawood.  The 26-year-old activities organizer at a community center organizes and leads rides through the streets and alleys of Karachi.  A year ago, when the weekly rides began, only a few young women participate; now as many as 30 women and girls join Dawood.

Zulekha Dawood leading a ride in Karachi.

What makes her efforts all the more remarkable is the part of the city in which the center is located, and where most of the rides go.  It's not a leafy enclave of professionals who were educated in London or New York or Toronto; rather, it's Lyari, a gritty working-class area in the southern part of Karachi.  

This illustrates a criticism that's been made of women's equality movements in Pakistan and elsewhere:  They're usually led by affluent or upper middle-class women, who have access to the education and networks that make it more possible for them to bring their visions into reality. On the other hand, the girls and women who participate in Dawood's rides face more opprobrium because their poorer and less-educated families tend to be more religiously and socially conservative.  

And, to be fair, many such families see marriage as the best hope for their daughters.   They believe that a woman who isn't "modest", or is simply "too independent", will make her less desirable to the "good" families of young men who could provide for her.

Although Dawood's rides are for the sake of riding, she understands that for participants--some of whom she herself has taught how to ride--riding a bicycle is mobility, pure and simple.  If a girl or a woman can ride just because she wants to, she is also more likely to ride to the school or job that will allow her to live a more independent life.  

Surely she understands something my favorite Woodhaven native sang in her best Queens English:  Girls just wanna have fun.  And her critics are upset that she and those who join her rides are doing just that.

Good Thing They Didn't Call It The "Jockbra"

In several posts on this blog, I've mentioned that Susan B. Anthony said, in essence, that the bicycle has done more than anything else to liberate women.

Since women started riding bikes, there are probably two things that have done more than anything else to encourage girls' and womens' participation in cycling and other sports.

One is Title IX, the 1972 US law that prohibits sex discrimination in educational programs--which include school-based sports programs.  Since then, the number of girls' and womens' sports teams in colleges and schools has expanded greatly.  As a result, more girls were encouraged to participate in sports, whether in their schools or outside of it, and one could argue that the subsequent increase in the proficiency of American female athletes has spurred other countries to improve their women's sports programs.

The other is what we now call the sports bra.  Before it was created, girls and women--if they weren't flat-chested--had to live with the pain of their breasts bouncing or the chafing of a bra's wires and straps.  Or they improvised support from duct tape and other items.  Or they simply didn't participate in sports at all.

The last option simply wasn't an option for Hinda Miller.  She had just started working for the theatre department at the University of Vermont and taken up jogging.  She used two bras which, I imagine, restricted her breathing and was probably only somewhat less painful than bouncing breasts.  

Across campus, Lisa Lindahl was dealing with the same problem.  She and Miller reached out to Polly Smith, who made costumes for the university's theatre department.  They bought some bras and tore them apart. "I was taking notes; Lisa was running," Miller remembers.  She was always asking Lindahl, "Does that feel good?"

None of them did.  They tried to come up with a solution when Lindahl's then-husband came downstairs with two jockstraps slung over his shoulders.  He was teasing them, but the proverbial light bulb lit up in Miller's head:  "That's what we want to do," she remembers thinking.  "We want to pull everything closer to the body."

She ran to the store, bought two jockstraps and brought them to the costume shop.  "The waist band became our rib band," she explained.  "We crossed the straps in the back because we didn't want them to fall and it went over our head.  And that was it."

So was the Jogbra born, 40 years ago this month.  It became a national brand and, two decades later, Brandi Chastain cemented its place in our collective consciousness.

Hinda Miller with a bronze plaque commemorating the Jogbra at the University of Vermont.

Today, Lindahl is an artist based in Charleston, South Carolina.  Miller served as a State Senator in Vermont from 2002-2013 and ran unsuccessfully for Mayor of Burlington (Bernie Sanders' old job) in 2006.  These days, she serves on the boards of a number of organizations as diverse as the Green Mountain Coffee Roasters and the Vermont Youth Orchestra.

If I do say so myself, few people in this world can appreciate the story of the Jogbra's origin as much as I can.  After all, I am a cyclist and someone who's participated in other sports--and someone who's lived on both sides of the aisle, if you will.  In other words, I am a transgender woman and one of (I assume) very few people who has used both a jockstrap and a sports bra!

Across Siberia, To The Extreme

Some say the Tour de France is the world's most difficult bicycle race.  Some have even called it the world's most challenging sporting event.  It's not difficult to understand why:  Nearly every day for three weeks, cyclists pedal through all sorts of conditions, climbing mountains, sprinting across flatlands and fighting heat, wind and fatigue.

Others might say the Giro d'Italia and Vuelta a Espana are as unforgiving as the Tour.  After all, each of those races is, like the Tour, a multi-day, multi-stage event that presents similar challenges.  

I can't help but to wonder, though, how each of them compares to the Red Bull Trans-Siberian Extreme Race. This year's version began on 18 July in Moscow's Red Square and ended on 10 August in Vladivostok, a port city near the Chinese border.

At the starting line

Over the course of 24 days, the riders pedaled 14 stages covering 9211 kilometers (about 5700 miles).  That's nearly three times as long as any of the Big Three races in Western Europe.  And, because it goes across Russia--in contrast to the other races, whose courses are loops or rings--the riders cross seven time zones before reaching the finish line.

That feat was accomplished by only three of the ten riders who started.  Russia's Alexey Shchebelin won the general classification for covering the stages in the shortest time, followed by Pierre Bischoff of Germany and Florentino Marcelo Soares of Brazil.  They did what none of the riders could accomplish in last year's edition of the race, and what only one rider did in 2015, the first year of the Trans-Siberian Extreme.  

Interestingly, the race is open to women as well as men.   Shangrila Rendon, a Filipina and Thursday Gervais Dubina of the USA were the only two female contestants.  Paul Bruck, a race organizer, says he wants to make the race "more attractive" for women but is not sure of how to do it.  

One option he might explore is one used in the Race Across America, in which women are given 21 hours more than men (who get 12 days) to complete the 3000-mile course from California to Maryland.  Riders who do not complete the race in the required time frame are listed as "Did not finish" although they are allowed to complete the ride if they wish.

Another option might be to allow the women to compete in two-person teams rather than solo, which would give them the opportunity to hand off and get more rest.  Rendon and Gervais Dubina found that as they fell behind, they lost time for meals and recovery between stages.  

Whatever the race organizers decide for next year, the riders--whatever their gender--will have to prepare for the same sorts of weather and topographical extremes riders encounter in other big races, in addition to the roads themselves.  From what I've been reading, I gather that the road conditions are even worse than in any of the three major Tours.  If anything, they seem like the pave of the Paris-Roubaix after an earthquake.  

No, Alexey, we're not in "Breaking Away"!

Worst of all, those roads aren't closed to traffic for the race.   That, rather than the speed of the race, the weather or the mountain climbs, is what caused Gervais Dubina to withdraw from the race.  "I had three instances in which traffic was coming straight at me on the shoulder," she explained.  "It just got too much for me."

I'm not so sure changing the qualifying times or other rules would have kept her, or very many other riders, whatever their gender idenities, in a race with such conditions.

Who Are We?

We're white.  We're male.  After our training rides in the park, we wheel our flashy carbon-fiber machines under canopies of luxury condo buildings.

We're male, too.  But we're brown and black.  We pedal dilapidated-looking-bikes--or bikes that we're not supposed to be able to afford because, well... We don't speak English well, or at all.  We're probably undocumented, to boot,

We are also male--and could be white, brown or black--but we're not likely to be yellow.  We are riding bikes because...we can't afford to drive.  Or we can't drive because we've lost our licenses, or couldn't get them in the first place.

The Rev. Laura Everett describes each of these stereotypes about cyclists in her Daily Beast editorial, "We Need To Ditch All The Old Cliches About Cyclists."  She makes a very good case against each of those cariactures, using data (e.g., that the majority of cyclists are indeed poor, but don't necessarily fit into the second and third stereotypes) from various studies I have mentioned in some of my earlier posts.

She also makes a very interesting point:  During the two previous "golden ages" of cycling in the US--1890-1910 and the 1970s--cycling was seen as a pastime of the leisured class.  And, once it lost that status, cycling fell into a steep decline.  The first "boom" ended when automobiles became affordable to average working people. (Interestingly, during the 1890s, a bicycle cost what an average worker earned in year!)  The second declined with a deep recession fueled by a spike in petrol prices and suffered its death blow when the election of Ronald Reagan ended the first major environmental movements in the US.

She sees that we are in a third "golden age" of cycling. In order to sustain it, she says, all of the stereotypes have to be shattered. Cycling will never become mainstream if it is not seen, by planners and the general public alike, as a vital link in the transportation system.  That, in turn, will not happen if cycling is seen only as a leisuretime activity of the privileged or as the "last resort" of the poor, nonwhite or criminal classes.

For her part, Rev. Everett says she began cycle-commuting because she was a poor recent graduate who was just starting her career.  Seven years later, she continues to ride because, as she says, it really is the best transportation option for her--and because she enjoys it.

To me, she sounds like the kind of cyclist the public needs to know more about if cycling is to become mainstream  And, I must add:  She's a woman.  Thus, she can't help but to break the stereotype.  I  like to believe that I am, too.

Into, And Out Of, The Chaos

Now I'm going to tell you a secret:  You see, there's this place where we all meet and it's gonna change the world.

Someone told me I should write about a conspiracy or two--or at least hint at them.  According to that person who is an expert on what, I don't know, conspiracies and conspiracy theories draw viewers to websites the way free food draws, well, just about anybody to any place.

So...about that place and the meeting that will shake the earth--or modern society, anyway--to its foundations:  I'll tell you about it.  In fact, I'll even tell you who "we" are.

No, we're not the Illuminati or the Carbonari.  We're way more secret than that.  In fact, we're so secret that we don't even know who we are, let alone where we're meeting or why--let alone what the outcome will be.

But we exist, and we're holding such a meeting because, well, people who know better (or should) say that we are.  To wit:

The "they" in this snippet are female cyclists.  Specifically, it referred to the women on wheels who had emerged from whalebone corsets and hoopskirts some time around 1897, the peak of the first Bicycle Boom.  Now we were wearing shorter skirts or--shudder--bloomers with--gasp--socks!  Worse yet, we were setting new standards in fashion.

Now, all of you women who are reading this know that when we dress, we are doing it for each other.  I mean, when the Duchess of Cambridge wears one of those beautiful dresses for a gala or whatever, no man (well, OK, almost no man) pays as much attention to it as any of us.  I recall now a holiday spent with my brother and sister-in-law a year or two after they had their first child.   It was around the time Wheel of Fortune became one of the most popular game shows.  Watching Vanna White slink across the stage, my sister-in-law exclaimed, "I would love to wear that dress!"

The funny thing is that the bicycle, in a way, abetted this attitude.  When women started riding bikes, they weren't seeking approval from men.  If anything, they got scorn or derision from their husbands, fathers, pastors and other males in their lives--as well as some of their female elders.   We were riding and dressing for comfort and (relative) ease of movement--and to impress each other.  Since the men weren't going to approve (well, most of them, anyway), we sought encouragement from each other. 

Equally funny is that as we were mocked and scorned, we were also commodified.  At least a few businessmen saw that as we got on our bikes, we had more mobility--which meant more freedom to do all sorts of things. Like go to work and earn our own money.  And we could buy all of those outfits we would wear as we rode to our "grand rendezvous" where we got the "wobbly old world to wake up" and "adjust itself"--if, perhaps, not in the way the writer of that editorial intended. 

(At least they're not meetings of this organization.)

If you want to see a wonderful graphic story about how the bicycle changed women's history, check out Ariel Aberg-Riger's piece, posted yesterday on Citylab.

Speaking of late 19th-Century urban America, Aberg-Riger says, "Into this chaos came the bicycle."  And out came the modern woman.

Does that sound like a conspiracy, or what?