'All bodies on bikes'

After struggling to find riding kit in her size, Marley Blonsky made it her life's mission to make cycling more accessible and welcoming to riders of all shapes and sizes

- By David Bradford

“There’s a lot of gatekeeping in cycling, a lot of ‘If you don’t look like a typical cyclist, you’re not welcome on our group ride’ and ‘If you can’t keep up, there’s no place for you’,” Marley Blonsky paints a damning picture of a cycling scene awash with judgement and petty rules. “But it doesn’t have to be that way.” The 36-year-old knows that change is possible because for the past five years she has been blazing a trail for plus-sized riders.

Blonsky grew up in Dallas, Texas and has fond childhood memories of long, joy-filled days pedalling around her local neighbourhood. After college, she moved to Seattle, Washington for work, and cycling took a back seat. “My life was fairly sedentary right through my 20s,” she says, “but after getting divorced [in 2013] I moved to a part of Seattle where driving a car just didn’t make sense.”

Blonsky bought a bike and within a few weeks had not only embraced the convenience of commuting but was also riding for fun at weekends and had even begun planning bike-packing adventures. It was at this point she began hitting barriers. “I didn’t have a rain jacket or cycling kit that fitted me. As I hit more and more of these frustration points, I was thinking, ‘I’m not the only fat person out here – this must affect others too’.”