"I usually go into things without knowing what I'm getting into," Ayesha McGowan tells me as she dumps a pile of flour into a bowl without measuring it. "And I'm fine with that." She is in her apartment kitchen just outside Girona, Spain, attempting to make pancakes while converting imperial measurements to metric in her head. "Close enough," she says, eyeballing the mound. "If it was my grandma, she wouldn't do the math."
It is fall 2022 and I have made the trek from California to Spain to spend time with a person who is one of the only African American professional women cyclists on the planet. Which is amazing when you consider that 12 years ago, she was a commuter who just liked riding her bike around and found that she was good at it. Working as a preschool teacher in the Bed-Stuy neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York, it began to occur to her that Black women were practically nonexistent in professional cycling.
Most people would have left it at that. That's stupid. I hope that changes one day. Perhaps some of us might have followed an Instagram account, or donated to a Black-girls-on-bikes type program. But Ayesha McGowan is not like most people. She decided ("overnight") to remedy the situation herself and set out to become the first African-American woman professional cyclist in modern history.
This morning, the 5-foot-3 McGowan is lounging at the apartment she shares with her husband, William Loyd, wearing a cycling cap, a sleeveless tee that reads "representation matters," and a pair of statement glasses of which she seems to have an endless supply (today's feature square rims with a rainbow pattern). She exudes an easygoing confidence.
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Esta historia es de la edición Fall 2023 de Bicycling US.
Comience su prueba gratuita de Magzter GOLD de 7 días para acceder a miles de historias premium seleccionadas y a más de 8500 revistas y periódicos.
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A Celebration of Junk Miles
No longer dreading my next bunch sprint, I felt like I belonged on my bike again.
THE 92-MILE FAREWELL
THE SEA BREEZE OF THE LONG ISLAND SOUND FELT DELIGHTFUL, AND I WISHED I COULD RIDE WITH MY EYES CLOSED AND TRUST THE REST OF MY SENSES TO STEER ME BACK HOME.
CHECKING IN ON MY CYCLING SELF
BUT, TODAY, PEOPLE OF ALL SORTS OF WONDERFUL, COLORFUL CULTURES WHO LOVE THE WIND IN THEIR HAIR HEAR THE SOUND OF A MILLION ANGRY HORNETS ON THEIR TAIL.
EVERYONE KNOWS 52x11 IS BIGGER THAN 48x10. EVEN THOUGH IT ISN'T.
THE HUMAN THRESHOLD FOR 'LEAST NOTICEABLE DIFFERENCE' IS GENERALLY ON THE ORDER OF 10 PERCENT CHANGE OF A VALUE.
I RODE THROUGH PAIN. YOU SHOULDN'T. HERE'S WHY.
AND WHILE \"PAIN\" AND \"SUFFERING\" ARE OFTEN THROWN AROUND IN THE SAME BREATH, WHEN IT COMES TO THE BODY THEY'RE NOT, IN FACT, THE SAME.
THE RACES ARE FASTER. ARE THEY CLEANER? AND DOES IT MATTER?
THE LAST TWO EDITIONS OF THE MEN'S Tour de France were among the three fastest.
BRAYDON BRINGHURST VERSUS THE BEAST
THIS FORMER POLE VAULTER IS THE RARE ATHLETE WHO CAN BLEND EXPLOSIVE POWER WITH PRECISION AND CONTROL. BUT HE'D NEED A LOT MORE THAN THAT TO RIDE HIS BIKE UP THIS INSANELY TECHNICAL DOWNHILL TRAIL.
THE TRUTH SHALL SET YOU FRICTION-FREE
CONSIDER THE HUMBLE LIKE CHAIN. IT'S AN OFTEN OVERLOOKED BICYCLE PART COMPARED TO FLASHIER COMPONENTS WHEELS, CRANKS, AND DERAILLEURS. BUT THE CHAIN IS THE CRITICAL LINK IN THE DRIVETRAIN BETWEEN THE RIDER'S POWER AND THE BIKE'S REAR WHEEL.
MOLLY'S LAST RIDE
Twelve-year-old Molly Steinsapir crashed onto the pavement from a Rad Power e-bike and never woke up. With a poorly regulated electric-bike industry, WHO IS RESPONSIBLE WHEN A CHILD DIES?
WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU COMBINE AETHOS WEIGHT, VENGE AERODYNAMICS, AND BUTTERY SMOOTHNESS?
Building a great bike is hard. Making a great bike better is even more challenging. Yet every three to four years, brands that make race bikes for their professional road racers take on this challenge.