This article was sponsored by Easton Cycling. Click here to check out their EA70 AX dropper post for gravel and off-road bikes.

Twenty-two years have passed since a white girl tried to ride off with my bike. My Black mother had brought me to the neighborhood park to ride the Looney Tunes-themed bike that my grandmother purchased for my 4th birthday. I was having a hard time figuring out how to ride it and I threw a fit. I gave up. That’s when the other child took it upon herself to show me up and ride my bike without permission. I do not have the clearest memory of my childhood, but I can remember the rage I felt in that moment. When my mother tells this story, she says that moment is when she saw a clear shift in my attitude—a shift that would define my character forever. My frustration with my inability to ride turned into a rage-driven motivation to prove that I could do what the white girl did. Twenty-two years have passed, and I am still driven to prove that I can do what white folks do, but I have only recently discovered why. 

Only in the last few years, since my passion for cycling has grown exponentially and my mother has retold this story, have I become self-aware of this drive to prove myself. Initially, I was very conflicted by this truth. I thought, “Why have I allowed myself to be tested by white culture?”, and “Do I even really enjoy these ‘white’ activities or does my enjoyment mask a desire to fit in?”.  I recall all the times my Black relatives would dismiss my interests in camping, hiking, cycling, and geology. Even so, I still felt an instinctive nature to test the waters that they refused to and find out for myself what the hubbub was about. 

My understanding was always that I was simply risking being the human test subject in these ‘white’ experiences so that I could make sure Black folks are not missing out on anything good. What I failed to account for was the fact that our low participation in ‘white’ outdoor activities is not due to thinking these activities are uncool. We have convinced ourselves that they are uncool because they were never accessible to us in the first place. The story about the white girl riding off with my bike reminds me that my love of the outdoors is complicated. I can’t ignore my curiosity or desire to test boundaries and explore limits that have been placed on Black people, in the same way that history can’t be unwritten. As long as we—as Black people—are missing out, there is still work to be done, and my participation in the outdoors is an act of revolution towards getting the work done. We must find a way to make outdoor recreation accessible for future generations so we can annihilate the stigma that Black folks don’t recreate outdoors. 

I play outside in a city with a population that is less than 3% Black. I don’t have to be the best mountain biker or the fastest road cyclist; my presence alone is daring and unconventional. My Black body is political. So riding while Black can be incredibly alienating, but here’s the thing. All the scowls and blank looks I get from white people are worth the smiles I get from other Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC). Eight years ago, I refused to ride more than the few miles that were required for my daily commute. Three years ago, I was telling myself that I could never ride off-road. Now I'm sending dirt jumps and single track! From training wheels on a Looney Tunes bike to dropper posts on gravel bikes, I continue to venture into unfamiliar territory so that future BIPOC generations will consider their presence in the outdoors as normal rather than unsafe or uncool. Keep taking risks. Keep trying new things. Keep the rage alive so that our children won’t have to.