HNY: This blog continues to celebrate diversity and inclusion

Happy New Year all!

I hope you have been enjoying your time on and off the bike – and gearing up for another productive year!

Regular readers know that BCC is not your average mainstream cycling blog ….. it is anything but!

For my first post of 2021, I am revisiting this blog’s manifesto and ongoing guiding commitment to support a range of bike experiences that celebrating inclusion and diversity.

This blog promotes positive and inclusive bike experiences

This blog’s key focus is to share stories where bicycles create positive community and environmental change.

The content you find here covers my bicycle Ph.D. (readings, research, ideas) as well as awesome bike-focused people, places, groups, and events from Australia and around the world.

This blog’s motto is: Have fun, rides bikes, do good.

Here at Bicycles Create Change (BCC), I talk a lot about gender, sustainability, dogs/animals, community, inclusion, social justice, access for all, recycling, supporting outliers, education, families, kids, modified bikes for diff-abilities, people over 60, people under 15, art bikes, bicycle community groups, returned war veterans, gardening, school/education, mobility, creativity and art, making your own trails and riding around your local community. Type keywords into the blog search to see full posts.

This blog brings you stories from around the world

Over the years we have travelled far and wide: Afghanistan, South Korea, India, Tibet, Ireland, Norway, Iceland, South Africa, China, Papua New Guinea, Indonesia, Uganda, Isreal, Belize, Japan, Gambia, the Philippines, Sierra Leone, The Cook Islands, Laos, Brazil, Sri Lanka, the Netherlands, Iraq, Mexico, Colombia, Pakistan, New Zealand, Argentina, the Himalayas, Finland, Sudan, Ghana, Vietnam, Uruguay, Darfur, Nepal, Ethiopia, Peru, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Cambodia, Tanzania, and internally displaced people (IDP – ‘refugee’) camps around the world….to name a few… type keywords into the blog search to see full posts for these places.

…yes there is an incredibly rich bicycling world outside Europe and North America!

And from around Australia

In Australia, we have visited all the major cities – Brisbane (where I am now based) Melbourne (my home town), Sydney, Adelaide, Perth, Darwin, Hobart, Canberra, Alice Springs) and their awesome bicycling adventures.

We have also traveled more widely in Australia to showcase rural locations and places outside big urban cities like: Kunnanurra (WA), Ballarat (VIC), Adelaide Hills (SA), Lismore (QLD), Dubbo (NSW), Bendigo (VIC), Woodfordia (QLD), North & South Spit Area (Sunshine Coast, QLD), Chewton, (regional VIC), Woodend (VIC), Goldfields district (regional VIC), and bike rides spanning the full East Coast of Australia. (*Epic!*).

This blog is not ‘mainstream’

I have written previously on this blog about the prevailing misogynist ‘unbearable whiteness of cycling‘.

As an alternative to the oversaturation of hegemonic, mainstream, consumer-based, profit-driven, western-English speaking-heterosexual-male-white-wealthy-middle aged-fit-able bodied-road riding-elitist-centric news and blog sites you can get any(every)where, this blog’s purview has always delighted a range of different biking experiences that shows a greater diversity of bicycling experiences.

So on this blog, I talk about ‘biking’ – not ‘cycling’.

At BCC, I’ve covered a huge range of awesome community bike-themed events you won’t find collated elsewhere, like: The Kurilpa Derby, The Yarn Ride, The Brisbane Big Push, Bike Hack, Climate Action Rallies, Bike Art Exhibitions, ANZAC Day Commemorations, 6-Day Brisbane (track sprint competition), Halloween Rides, National Sustainability Festivals, Brisbane Bike Film Festival, 3Plus3 MTB, NAIDOC Week bike events, Ride the Night events, Chicks Who Ride Bikes (CWRB) events, Melburn Roubaix, Bike Rave Melburn: Pink Flamingo Edition, Witches Rides, Alley Cat Races, Animals on Bikes Art Trails, Bayview Blast, the annual, all-female Chicks in the Sticks MTB event, Bike Palooza, Full Moon Rides, National Bike Week, Ride to Work events, Holi Festival, Commonwealth Games MTB, Sustainable Living Festivals, Woodford Folk Festival, Style over Speed rides, Slow Rolls, Zombie Bike Rides … and heaps more (*phew*!). Type any of these keywords into the blog search to see full posts for these events.

This blog goes to the best conferences

And I’ve had lots of abstracts accepted, attended, followed up on, and presented at LOTS of conferences to share our story and learn more from others, like: Australian Walking and Cycling Conference (AWCC) (Adelaide, SA), Reconciling research paradoxes: Justice in a post-truth world (Brisbane, QLD), Bike Hack (Brisbane, QLD), English Australia National Conferences (Sydney, NSW) Bike Week (Brisbane, QLD), Australia Association for Research in Education (AARE) (Brisbane, QLD), Bicycle Network: Bike Futures (Melbourne, VIC), 8^th International Cycling Saftey Conference (Brisbane, QLD), Bike Palooza (Bendigo, VIC), Re-Imaging Education for Democracy Summit (Brisbane, QLD), Freshlines Symposia (Brisbane, QLD), University English Centers Australia (UECA) Assessment Symposium (Brisbane, QLD), Pedagogies in the Wild Conference (Cape Town, South Africa), 10th Annual New Materialisms Conference of Reconfiguring Higher Education (Cape Town, South Africa), Asia Pacific Cyle Congress (Christchurch, NZ), International Cycling Conference (Germany), International Exhibition and Conference in Higher Education (IECHE) (Riyadh, Saudi Arabia)…. and more (*double phew*!!). Type keywords into the blog search to see full posts for these conferences.

Promoting diverse perspectives and bikey lifeworlds

For over 6 years, I’ve worked hard to share a range of stories from around the world that centre on everyday people, community groups and places (not Aust, UK or USA) that are often underrepresented, unknown or unrecognized for the positive impact they are making with bicycles.

And this year, I will continue to share stories that are community-based, diverse, relatable and inspirational.

To kick off 2021 – I have dug into the archives to bring you a showcase of some of the remarkably diverse people and projects I have shared in the past.

Here’s are a few diversity posts you should check out if you missed them:

• 14-year old Ramya Jose (India) who made her family a bicycle washing machine.
• Forbidden women riding bikes in Iran.
• Jean d’Arc the first ever black female UCI RWC competitor.
• Celebrating Isata Sama Mondeh – Sierra Leone’s #1 female rider and first-ever female bike and bike shop owner-manager.
• Becoming Ruby: MTB, Inclusion, Identity & Heros.
• 2018 NAIDOC Week – Where are the Indigenous and Torres Strait Islander cyclists? (AUS)
• The wonderful celebration of older riders: ‘Granny! Wait for me!”
• Rotorua (NZ)’s awesome ‘Dad’s and Lad’s’ bike skills program.
• Happy 2018 Sydney Mardi Gras on bicycles!
• All-women’s Mala Bruja Alleycat Race.
• Assoc/Prof Chelsea Bond (Leading Indigenous academic, Brisbane, AUS).
• Turkey’s Fancy Women on Bikes.
• Mountainbiking in Kampala, Uganda.
• Wadjda – an Arabic girl’s dream to ride a bike.
• Riding for animal rescue.
• The right to feel the wind in your hair – Cycling Without Age.
• The impact of a Girl’s Bicycle Education Scheme in Bihar (India).
• Melburn Roobaix (Melb, AUS).
• Village Bicycle Project (Sierra Leone & Ghana).
• Reflexively crafting bikespiration herstory – Moments of rupture.
• ‘Thought control’ bicycle for spinal injury rehab.
• Saber Houssein – an Afghani teacher who bicycles books to rural villages.
• Two 90-year-old WWII veterans cycle 167kms to commemorate D-Day
• Fairy Houses and Mountain Bikes.
• South African Bicycle Portraits: Stephanie Baker
• Paulus Maringka’s Greencycle Community Bike Research (Indonesia/NZ).
• Chicks in the Sticks: annual all-female MTB race (Brisbane, AUS).
• Bicycles help the Pascua Yaqui community fight diabetes (US).
• Happy ‘Fearful’ Mother’s Day Cycling Mums.
• Reflexively crafting bikespiration herstory – Moments of rupture.
• Increasing returned veterans’ social connection with bicycles.
• Adam’s Happy Bikes Sales and Service.
• Why women in developing countries should have bicycles.

As I was preparing this post and going back over these older stories (and so many more from the blog), it filled me with immense satisfaction. I love that this blog continues to provide a platform for incredible bike stories to be shared and celebrated that would otherwise remain relatively unknown – and I’m looking forward to continuing this mission in 2021!