Below is a guest post by Anne Marie Drolet talking about the beginnings of the Gender Expansive Ride: CalBike is excited about the opportunity to connect with the work of others who are working to build a bicycle movement.
Gender Expansive Rides take place the first and third weekend of each month (Saturday and Sunday differ). Meet at Grand Park in Downtown LA at 9 AM. For more information on how to join the ride and the latest updates, follow @genderexpansiveride on Instagram.
Contrary to popular belief, Los Angeles is a cycling city. There are so many group rides happening in Los Angeles, it's amazing. Every night of the week, you can find a group ride to join in any part of the city.
It’s a very car-dominated city, so riding a bike, even if it’s only for a short time, becomes a political act and a way of resisting car culture.
Creating a safe space for gender non-conforming riders to build community
Cycling is truly a means to create community. Group rides can claim to be welcoming spaces, but this claim means little without the intention. Like many places, the cycling community in Los Angeles is predominantly cisgender male. So after a stint riding with the bike community ride Trash Panda Cycling, a small group of us founded Gender Expansive Rides in response to a need in our community. Our first ride was much larger than we expected, with about 20 people attending, so we felt we had an audience right away. People were excited to have a space. There aren't many rides in Los Angeles specifically geared towards riders of marginalized gender identities, which makes it unique in itself.
To create a welcoming space, we can’t just say “everyone is welcome” and assume that a culture of compassion and mutual respect will magically form. Groups don’t function in a vacuum. The power dynamics we experience in the world will be replicated on a smaller scale unless we acknowledge and proactively address those dynamics. The cycling scene is no exception. While it felt like a welcoming space overall, it’s also a male-dominated space that comes with its own challenges if you don’t identify as a man. This includes the assumption that you’re physically capable and the assumption that you’re (often instantly) a dateable person. Gender Expansive Rides provides a space for women, transgender, and non-binary people to experience the joys of cycling in Los Angeles without those pressures. Like anyone else, we join group rides because we want to hang out and ride together.
It's important that spaces like this exist; they're separate from typical group rides, but with the goal of promoting connection, not exclusion. Our goal is to create a safe space for people with historically marginalized gender identities to ride bike; a space that centers gender-expansive, genderqueer, gender non-conforming, transgender, non-binary, gender fluid people, and cisgender women. This is especially important in today's world, where the safety and well-being of transgender people is under constant attack.
The ride is for all skill levels, from slow-paced, relaxed rides to faster rides and hilly rides so no rider is left behind. The goal of the ride is to create a space where people feel seen, acknowledged and supported. The concept of riding bikes with friends is simple yet powerful. It is a form of resistance not only against car culture but also against patriarchal culture.
Build a cycling community with your friends
My advice for starting your own ride in or around LA is to reach out to your social networks in every way possible: social media, word of mouth about the bike scene, creating fun flyers to promote your ride, etc. It also helps to provide detailed information about your ride: How long is the ride? How many hills are there? How fast will you be riding?
We also provide detailed information about what our rides are, why we created them, who they are for, etc. For people who are hesitant about joining a group ride or are just getting started, that information can be really helpful in knowing what space they're getting into.
The Gender Expansive Ride just celebrated its third anniversary, which is very exciting. We hope to continue building a supportive community in Los Angeles cycling and providing a space to come together and ride for years to come.
