Salt Lake has some die-hard cyclists. I met some of them at the SLC Critical Mass meeting/ride last week while conducting research for a Momentum Magazine assignment. The weather conditions that day weren’t particularly brutal, but the participants told me they stayed true to their bike commutes even through the bitterness of the Utah winter. One rider vowed to ride to school every day. And he had, even when the snow-covered ground required a unicycle equipped with a mountain bike tire. Another cyclist recently sold his car and instead tackles snowy paths with a studded bike snow tire.
SLC Critical Mass in March
I don’t envy the chilly weather conditions the SLC Critical Mass folks cycle in for a good part of the year. But I do envy the city they get to navigate. I think I would have a richer appreciation of Salt Lake if I could experience by bike more often. The brightly-lit, snowy Wasatch Mountains were dead ahead of us when we started out. As we passed by an Eastern Orthodox church, a bagpipe rendition of “Amazing Grace” pumped out of the stereo of one rider’s homemade tall bike (like a horse, but with less stability). The stone and stained-glass Cathedral of Madeline was on the right as the mass headed west.
My photographer, McKenzie, was a hardcore as the cyclists she was following. Still, she and her driver, Austin, had trouble keeping up with the speedy pack because Critical Mass doesn’t have a set route. Simultaneously using my mobile and riding urban streets required more coordination than I had in that moment, so I had to pull over to update McKenzie on the riders’ location. Given my difficulties, I was pretty sure McKenzie would have had an even greater struggle managing both handlebars and an SLR. At least in the car she could leave the driving to someone else. Thanks, McKenzie, for your stealthy cameras kills and to Austin for chasing down the pack!
Keep your eye on this blog for more updates on my Momentum article research.
Woollen bloomers at their best
The first bikes were manufactured in America circa 1878. It took over 15 years of women experimenting with these new devices, breaking their bones trying to ride them with full, ankle-length skirts, before fashion began adapting to the self-propelled women. Even then society resisted the look and function of the woollen bloomers that allowed the female rider to bike safely and modestly.
This reaction born of the 19th century, Western mentality doesn’t surprise me. However, it does surprise me that only 10 years has passed since major bike companies began seriously accommodating female cyclists.
A recent Deseret News article “More attention being paid to women’s biking needs” quotes this figure. However, the article doesn’t address the huge time lapse between the bike’s inception and the establishment of the women’s cycling market.
As the DN article explains, 21st century designers are developing ways to make bike equipment and paraphernalia better fit the female anatomy and active lifestyle. Too embarrassed to go to the grocery store with your Lyrca shorts? Throw on a matching sarong! Leave your woollen bloomers at home! Even the statistics show that cycling women, who occupy 42% of the world’s cycling arena, deserve such attention from the cycling marketplace.
Still, you can’t fully appreciate this achievement without knowing at least a little bit of its arduous back story. Annie Londonberry, for example, finished riding her bike around the world a year before the first Olympic cycling event took place in 1896. Ironically, it took 98 more years for women’s cycling to become an official Olympic event.
This era is the most convenient one in cycling history to be a female cyclist, but not entirely because of progressive designers. The women who caught their dresses on their bike pedals, who competed in the first women’s Olympic cycling event and who dared to wear Lycra shorts into the grocery store deserve the bulk of the credit for this victory.
Mimi McDonald holding her daughter, Mia, post-op
Mia McDonald spent her first few months in the world with congenital heart defect. Fortunately, on Nov. 10, four months after her birth, Mia underwent a successful heart transplant. Mimi and John McDonald are overjoyed about their daughter’s recovery and at the same time overwhelmed with steep medical expenses associated with it. Friends of the McDonald family have collaborated to create the Mia McDonald Fund to help the family deal with its financial burdens.
Though the McDonalds are based in Seattle, their friends in Provo, Utah have planned the “Help Baby Mia Bike-a-thon” to give baby Mia supporters a per-mile opportunity to donate to Mia’s cause. The riders will travel between 40 and 60 miles in two hours, starting in Provo and ending at the Alpine Loop by the Sundance Resort. For more information about the ride, visit the Facebook group: “The ‘Help Baby Mia’ Bike-a-thon” or email Dane at gdanesmith@gmail.com or Abbie at abbierufener@gmail.com. You can read more about Mia’s story at http://helpbabymia.blogspot.com/.
For more bike-related advocacy opportunities, visit the Bikes for Kids Utah website to learn about a non-profit organization with a mission to provide free bikes to underprivileged children in Salt Lake County.
