Dom is a (former) mechanic and (go)karter who lives in the UK.
Five months ago, Dom posted his first Drum & Bass on the bike video.
Dom has a DJ deck set up over the handlebars of his bike, then he turns on his speakers, streams his live set (including him talking on a mic), and cruises around his local surroundings.
He has ridden Cambridge, Uxbridge, Manchester, Marlos, Windsor, Cardiff, Brighton, and several other English cities.
And each time, he is being joined by more and more people for the party ride-along.
Events like this make me happy.
*BOILER ROOM ON BIKES* Drum & Bass On The Bike 10 – LONDON CENTRAL
In a world that is increasingly divisive and exclusionary, having free, public events that people of all ages and stages can enjoy is critical.
While I acknowledge initiatives like this are not perfect and come with issues, I also appreciate the effort and work that goes into making these rides happen.
I love the grassroots, quasi-critical mass, flash mob, bicycle-focused, positive vibe of Dom’s rides.
Kids, families, dogs, and all kinds of people going for a ride together.
Yup – big smiles.
One of my favs is his start of the London Hyde Park Special.
This is one of his earlier ones. Just Dom…. going for a cruise.
I like the gentle lead-in (see video above) where he starts out by himself. He takes his time setting up his gear, he has a chat to a passer-by and then pushes off for an ‘off-the cuff’ roll around London.
This post goes out to lil’ Nina Sarah Divine Kamara!
Happy 1st birthday!!!
Your Aussie extended family is sending you lots of love!
Last year I was in Ghana and Sierra Leone for my girls’ bicycles-for-education PhD fieldwork. I spent most of my time in Lunsar, Sierra Leone riding, living and learning with my fantastic hosts and friends Stylish and Francess (read more here).
She loves eating and playing – and she keeps the whole house on its toes.
The family always mentions how chatty she is – and that she loves to dance!
Hells Yeah!!
Francess says she is like her namesake.
Heaven help the family if that’s true!
At 12 months, Lil Nina is super active and curious about everything and everyone around her.
I couldn’t be prouder!
Francess and Lil Nina. Sierra Leone July 2021.
It is such a delight watching Nina grow up.
We use WhatsApp video calls to stay in touch and there is always something new to report. I love getting updates, short videos and photos of the kooky things she is into – or some new mannerism she is practising.
…and now she is 1!!
Incredible!!
A big shout out to Francess. You are amazing! Being a new mum and completing your thesis at the same time cannot be easy. I’ll have a word to Lil’ Nina to go easy on you. You are a superwoman and most treasured friend!
To Stylish and the rest of the family – congratulations! Thanks for sharing your incredible family and journey with me.
To Lil’ Nina. Happy Birthday, Dynamo! Stay curious, strong and connected. Congrats on an amazing first year and we wish you many more to come!
I appreciate the sentiment of Mother’s Day (and Father’s Day) in taking time to recognise and celebrate the hard work parents do.
I like to think that mums are always appreciated as much as they are on Mother’s Day (ie for the other 364 days of the year as well) – not just one day a year … I hope …
Traditionally Mother’s Day is celebrated with breakfast in bed, flowers or lunches out with loved ones.
With much work needed to address systemic gender inequities, I’m proposing that this Mother’s Day is an opportunity to recognize such issues and think more carefully about how we celebrate mums and other (female) carers.
Mother’s Day is an opportunity to consider more critically the presence and presents we are giving to mums and what these ‘gifts’ communicate, expect and perpetuate.
Keep in mind that Mother’s Day (and other similar commemorative events) are overwhelmingly driven by corporate advertising and marketers who don’t give a shit about mums – they just want to sell more crap.
Such ‘gifts’ are not very honouring, nor are they particularly thoughtful.
So for Mother’s Day 2021, consider doing things a little differently.
Consider talking to a mother (key person) in your life – and dig a little deeper. Have a D & M (deep and meaningful). Be curious about their life (if they are willing to share) listening to what they have to say – and take your time. Go beyond the superficial and every day. Ask them more probing questions and listen to their experiences. Take time to really listen to what life is like for them – to be a mum/carer and a woman-person in the world. Ask them what their life is like – all the ups and downs. Tell them you notice all the small, thankless, important things they do – and that you know there are thousands of other hidden things that you are not aware of, but you know they do anyway, to make your life easier. Explain how you are aware of how hard they work – for you, in the home, at work, in the world.
A conversation like this is something a box of chocolates can’t achieve.
Oh… and if you do want to get them a present, ask them what they really want. Something just for them – and when they tell you what it is, don’t question it, discuss it or negotiate it- just do it.
And maybe you might want to add in something else – something more thoughtful and personal. Something just from you – that you think is an adequate tribute to that special person in your life.
But not many people know that March 21st was the UN International Day of Forests.
So to commemorate both Women’s Month and Day of the Forests, I put the call out to three inspiring female friends (Nix, Alex and Wendy) who work to improve gender and environmental imperatives – and invited them to come for a night-time ride along our bayside foreshore to visit the ‘Tree of Light’ to honour the ‘every tree counts’ key theme for this year’s Day of Forests.
And so we did – and we had a great time!
It was low-key, colourful and super fun.
I let them know I was dressing up and they were welcome to join me if they wanted to. I know dressing up is not everyone’s jam – but they all arrived at my place dressed up as well! Not only was this a way to have fun, but it was also a subversive ‘up-yours’ to social expectations of what is ‘appropriate’ for a woman to wear in public and traditional views of women dressing ‘properly’ and ‘conservatively’.
My idea was to go for a night ride ‘reclaim the night/bike path’ style. I deliberately arranged our departure for 7.30 pm – when it was ‘darkly’ – and after dinner – a time most women are socially trained to stay in as it is ‘not safe’ to be out at night.
There were four of us for this ride. On the ride were myself and the formidable Nix (who you might remember from the New Materialists Garden – PhD Retreat), as well as Wendy and Alex, who are two of ‘Green Aunties’ from my community garden. Both Wendy and Alex are in their legacy years and rode pedal-assist bikes.
Nina & Leki (L), Nix, Alex and Wendy (R)
Time for a chat
Alex cruising in style
Wendy and her ‘climate emergency response vehicle’ (bike)
Nix was resplendent!
Nina and Leki (flower bike) en route
Celebrating Women’s Month and Day of the Forests at our local ‘Tree of Light’.
Bight bike path lights
Leki’s caboose in the gloaming
Not so darkly female bike riders!
As if the aunties weren’t brave enough doing this ride, I also found out just before we left that Wendy and Alex had never been for a night ride before. This was a big win for women-them-us-community claiming public space – at night – in a super positive and direct way!
It was a stunning evening – clear, warm and inviting. The moon was out and our community was safe and welcoming.
We saw a few people as we started out, but the more we rode, the less people there were about until we saw no one on our return trip at all. We had the whole place to ourselves! While we rode we discussed what it felt like to be ‘out alone’ and ‘roaming the streets.
It was brilliant!
We rode 6kms along the foreshore, then stopped at the ‘The Tree of Lights’ to have a break where we joked, enjoyed, paid homage to women’s month – and trees and forests. Then I rode my guests happily home.
Our ride was a small, but wonderfully personal way to honour and celebrate sisterhood, forests, and being free to ride our bikes wherever and whenever we want to.
If you have not been out for night ride recently – I highly recommend it.
Grab a mate and your bikes and go visit a tree in your area!
Happy riding!
Key messages of the UN International Day of Forests
The UN are promoting 8 key messages for the 2021 International Day of Forests:
Healthy forests mean healthy people.
Forests provide health benefits for everyone, such as fresh air, nutritious foods, clean water, and space for recreation. In developed countries, up to 25 percent of all medicinal drugs are plant-based; in developing countries, the contribution is as high as 80 percent.
Forest food provides healthy diets.
Indigenous communities typically consume more than 100 types of wild food, many harvested in forests. A study in Africa found that the dietary diversity of children exposed to forests is at least 25 percent higher than that of children who are not. Forest destruction, on the other hand, is unhealthy – nearly one in three outbreaks of emerging infectious disease are linked to land-use change such as deforestation.
Restoring forests will improve our environment.
The world is losing 10 million hectares of forest – about the size of Iceland – each year, and land degradation affects almost 2 billion hectares, an area larger than South America. Forest loss and degradation emit large quantities of climate-warming gases, and at least 8 percent of forest plants and 5 percent of forest animals are at extremely high risk of extinction. The restoration and sustainable management of forests, on the other hand, will address the climate-change and biodiversity crises simultaneously while producing goods and services needed for sustainable development.
Sustainable forestry can create millions of green jobs.
Forests provide more than 86 million green jobs and support the livelihoods of many more people. Wood from well-managed forests supports diverse industries, from paper to the construction of tall buildings. Investment in forest restoration will help economies recover from the pandemic by creating even more employment.
It is possible to restore degraded lands at a huge scale.
The Great Green Wall for the Sahara and the Sahel Initiative, launched by the African Union in 2007, is the most ambitious climate-change adaptation and mitigation response under implementation worldwide. It seeks to restore 100 million hectares of degraded land, sequester 250 million tonnes of carbon and create 10 million green jobs by 2030, while greening landscapes in an 8 000 km belt across Africa’s drylands. Vast areas of degraded land elsewhere would also become highly productive again if restored with local tree species and other vegetation.
Every tree counts.
Small-scale planting and restoration projects can have big impacts. City greening creates cleaner air and more beautiful spaces and has huge benefits for the mental and physical health of urban dwellers. It is estimated that trees provide megacities with benefits worth USD 0.5 billion or more every year by reducing air pollution, cooling buildings and providing other services.
Engaging and empowering people to sustainably use forests is a key step towards positive change.
A healthy environment requires stakeholder engagement, especially at the local level so that communities can better govern and manage the land on which they depend. Community empowerment helps advance local solutions and promotes participation in ecosystem restoration. There is an opportunity to “rebuild” forest landscapes that are equitable and productive, and that avert the risks to ecosystems and people posed by forest destruction.
We can recover from our planetary, health and economic crisis. Let’s restore the planet this decade.
Investing in ecosystem restoration will help in healing individuals, communities and the environment. The aim of the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, which starts this year, is to prevent, halt and reverse the degradation of ecosystems worldwide. It offers the prospect of putting trees and forests back into degraded forest landscapes at a massive scale, thereby increasing ecological resilience and productivity. Done right, forest restoration is a key nature-based solution for building back better and achieving the future we want.
March is Women’s Month. March 8th was International Women’s Day and throughout the month there are many other events highlighting a range of social and gender justice issues.
There were major March4Justice protests organised in all major cities (and elsewhere) around Australia on March 15th.
It was epic!
So I headed to the Brisbane protest to march!
Nina (with her subtle placard) and JenNina with inclusive side of her placard
I brought my own two-sided sign.
One side was super inclusive, the other a little more ‘confrontational’.
A friend called the controversial side the ‘the thinking person’s sign.’ GOLD!
Heaps of people said the loved the sign (both sides) and I go lots of COVID Hi-5s.
It uses bicycle inner tubes, wheel spokes and bike parts, broken jewellery, second-hand objects and curb-side barbie dolls. The sash is reminiscent of a beauty pageant, yet echoes the idea that even though women may feel free to move (the barbies bodies swing – but only as I move), they are in many ways still ‘keep in line’ (strangled by the confines of the sash’). The blondes are at the top, while the brunette (representing any/every ‘other’) is at the bottom of ‘the beauty hierarchy’. The headpiece mixes themes of gender expectations, worship, money, sex, religion, plastic surgery and armour together into a quasi-tiara-cum-pagan headdress which is deliberately a little ‘off'(-set) and awkwardly constructed.
It was very challenging hearing so many stories of disadvantage, abuse, injustice and oppression – difficult, but also very important.
There is so much that needs to change.
To find out where, when and why the protests were hitting the streets, Alicia Nally (ABC) here.
And some good commentary, Like Hayley Gleeson’s for the ABC looking at what happened after the protests as well.
Alyx Gorman wrote a good outline of the Australian protests for The Guardian wrote:
Across Australia, survivors and their allies will be calling for gender equality, and justice for victims of sexual assault, through a series of protests under the banner March 4 Justice.
The focal point of the protests will be a rally outside Parliament House in Canberra on 15 March, which many people have stated they are travelling from interstate to attend.
There, March4Justice organiser Janine Hendry alongside Dr Anita Hutchison and Dr Kate Ahmad from Doctors Against Violence Towards Women, will be presenting parliament with two petitions outlining both broad and specific requests for further action.
Outside of Canberra, there will be approximately 40 local events around Australia, starting in Perth on Sunday 14 March. Organisers are projecting that 85,000 people will participate across the country.
The protests follow a wave of allegations of sexual assault, abuse and misconduct in some of the highest offices of Australian politics.
Start of Brisbane Protest
Nina and friends
Source: ABC News
Brisbane March 4 Justice
Brisbane March 4 Justice
Source: March4Justice
Brisbane protest
Source: March4Justice
Nina and friends
Source: ABC News
All Brisbane protest march and ‘Nina with friends’ photos by Nina Ginsberg.
Image: NIH Office of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion
Internationally, March is known as women’s history month.
The aim of this initiative is to redress previously omitted women’s participation and achievements from being known by celebrating women’s contributions to history, culture and society.
There are many exhibitions, projects, protests and events run during March that raise awareness for the significance, roles, struggles and issues of women and girls.
So to kick off ‘Women’s Month’, here are three more-than-usual initiatives that are exemplary in celebrating a range of women’s achievements.
This page celebrates March being Women’s History by highlighting a range of Australian women and the diverse contributions they’ve made to Australia’s history.
What I like about this particular page is that it is inclusive and immediately understandable in what it is trying to achieve. Having a simple photo album-style layout showcasing significant women (with names and dates) makes it quick and easy to get a sense of the range of cultural backgrounds (Indigenous, Australian-Chinese, European immigrants, white) and their contributions (politics, literature, arts, sport, law and many others) over time – ranging from Fanny Balbuk Yooreel (1840) to Everly Scott (2017).
I think it is imperative to not only name the person but also to give each woman just identity. Consider how many times you’ve seen historical male figures of significance. There is ALWAYS a photo of them to reinforce their status as ‘important’ and that ‘this individual is not only someone you should know the name of, but you should know what they look like.’
Including images of women is a political move in this regard. It’s a critical move to shift past erasures of significant women from not just naming them (whereby their name is ‘listed’ and therefore at risk of being yet again ‘lost’ in the density of descriptive discourse), but so that the uniqueness of each woman is also recognised – as well as their name.
Photos are especially important given that surnames are patrilineal (assigned by fathers and husbands) so it is usually only first names that distinguish individuals from others. Linking women to their first and surnameswith their photoshelps to identify AND personalise these women beyond a perfunctory mention by name in passing. This is what the RAHS site does well.
There are so many incredible women listed on the RAHS – and many that most Australians have probably never heard about. For example: Muruwari Community worker and filmmaker Essie Coffey (otherwise known as the Bush Queen of Brewarrina), or Ruby Payne-Scott who was Australia’s first woman radio Astronomer, or one of Australia’s first great actors Rose Quong, who was a breakthrough given her Chinese heritage during the Australian White Policy, or WWI war correspondent Louise Mack.
I’m following Dr Katie Phillips’ Twitter account for all of March.
In an act of radical generosity and support, each day, Katie uploads a different post each day that shares the voices, work and contributions of highly influential, but lesser-known Native, First Nations and Indigenous women from what is now called the USA.
This project was a real eye-opener for me. Not only did I appreciate the forethought, planning and process that Katie applied to make this happen, but it was also an incredibly educational initiative that has far-reaching scope and implications.
Twitter’s limited text allowances meant that each day, Katie provides the name, image and brief synopsis about ‘the woman of the day’ and her significant contribution. I not only learned about these incredible women (which, as an Australian, I would have not have been exposed to), but this approach is also an invitation (and reminder) to keep learning about amazing women elsewhere around the world.
I found myself following up on many of the women Katie posted, wanting to know more about their conditions and experiences.
As a teacher, researcher, creative, and someone with half a brain and a heart, I was impressed by Katie’s approach. It showed a genuine commitment to decolonizinghistory and better accounting for diverse women’s experiences.
F@*king incredible work!
Dr. Kat Jungnickel – Bikes and Bloomers
Image: Kat Jungnickel’s book cover “Bikes and Bloomers”
Kat’s specific interest area is reinvigorating Victorian women investors and their amazing cyclewear. She published a book based on her PhD research called Bikes and Bloomers. Here’s a description of the book from Kat’s portfoilo:
The bicycle in Victorian Britain is often celebrated as a vehicle of women’s liberation. But much less is known about another critical technology with which women forged new and mobile public lives – cycle wear. Despite its benefits, cycling was a material and ideological minefield for women. Conventional fashions were inappropriate, with skirts catching in wheels and tangling in pedals. Yet wearing more identifiable ‘rational’ cycle wear could elicit verbal and sometimes physical abuse from parts of society threatened by newly mobile women.
In response, pioneering women not only imagined, made and wore radical new forms of cycle wear but also patented their inventive designs. The most remarkable of these were convertiblecostumes that enabled wearers to secretly switch ordinary clothing into cycle wear.
This highly visual social history of women’s cycle wear explores Victorian engineering, patent studies and radical feminist invention. Underpinned by three years of in-depth archival research and inventive practice, this new book by Kat Jungnickel brings to life in rich detail the lesser-known stories of six inventors and their unique contributions to cycling’s past and how they continue to shape urban life for contemporary mobile women.
Talk about raising awareness for previously hidden women’s achievements! Go Kat!
Recently, I attended a very unique opportunity: a 4-part virtual Geography, Art and MemoryWorkshop co-convened by Griffith’s Centre for Social and Cultural Research Dr Laura Rodriguez Castro, Dr Diti Bhattacharya, Dr Kaya Barry and Prof. Barabra Pini.
As a New Materialisms community bike researcher working in Sierra Leone, my work is embedded with post(de)coloniality, cultural dynamics, current-past experiences, gender, geography, mobility and space-time-matterings.
So I was excited about this workshop! Right up my (v)alley! (Get it? Geo joke!)
This workshop invited us to examine and experiment with the cultural and political potentials of ‘memory through art’ in geography inquiry. We looked at creative practices, collaborated and had discussions on some key and pressing issues related to our specific research. There was also the added bonus of an invitation to contribute to a Special Issue of Australian Geographer(2022).
In this session we asked:
What does art do to geographies of memories?
Image: Memories Through Art
A workshop in 4 parts
The workshop was structured in four parts:
Part 1 – 1st February 2021 by 5:00pm: In the week leading up to the event, workshop participants submitted a 1 page (A4 portrait or landscape) response to the question: ‘What does art do to geographies of memory?’ The response could be written, creative, drawn, mapped, photos, collage, text, prose, or more. We will share these on our website, and will form a key discussion point for the interactive workshop event.
Part 2 – 4th February 2021, 3:00pm-5:00pm: We attended the keynote presentations by Libby Harward (Australia) and Virgelina Chara (Columbia). These two artists (see below) work with the current pressing issues of geographical research, treating them as a threshold point for their own creative responses and provocations that they may choose to share during parts 3 and 4. We focused on artistic interventions from Southern epistemologies as these continue to be underrepresented in Australian geography.
Part 3 – 5th February 2021, 9.30am – 12:30pm: Each participant gave an informal 5-minute talk about their creative response which they submitted prior to the workshop. (See my submission is at the end of this post).
Part 4 (optional) – 5th February 2021, 12:30pm – 1:30pm: In the final hour, we collectively discussed how to take these ideas and discussions forward as a Special Issue ofAustralian Geographer integrating some of the workshop themes.
Keynote speakers
Virgelina Chara
Virgelina Chará is a human rights defender, educator, embroidery artist and protest music composer from Colombia. She coordinates the ‘Association for the Integral Development of Women, Youth and Children’ (ASOMUJER y Trabajo) which works with forcibly displaced families and victims of the armed violence in Colombia. She is also the leader of the Embroidery Union at the Memory Centre for Peace and Reconciliation in Bogotá, Colombia. She is a world-renowned educator on the pedagogy and power of memory for the construction of peace.
She was born in Suárez, Cauca, which is a region where armed conflict, extractivism and neoliberal development have meant many people, including Virgelina and her family, have had to confront violence and displacement. Since 2003 Virgelina has resided in Bogotá. In 2005 she was proposed as a nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize.
You can read more on Virgelina’s work here (left click to Google Translate to English).
Libby Harward
Artist Libby Harward is a descendant of the the Ngugi people of Mulgumpin (Morton Island) in the Quandamooka (Morton Bay Area).
Known for her early work as an urban graffiti artist under the pseudonym of ‘Mz Murricod’, and her performance-based community activism, Harward’s recent series, ALREADY OCCUPIED, engages a continual process of re-calling – re-hearing – re-mapping – re-contextualising – de-colonising and re-instating on country that which colonisation has denied Australia’s First Peoples.
This political practice engages Traditional Custodians in the evolution of ephemeral installations on mainland country which has become highly urbanised and calls for an artistic response that seeks to uncover and reinstate the cultural significance of place, which always was, and remains to be there. Her current place-based sound and video work engages directly with politically charged ideas of national and international significance.
You can find on Libby’s work here and read more on her project DABILBUNG here.
Workshop foucs
During this workshop we discussed themes of memory, art, and geographical knowledge in order to motivate a creative dialogue among geographers, artists, and activists.
We talked about the key question and looked at how to move beyond methodological debates and how to use art mediums as approaches to bring to light the affective and political forces of place speaking to timely and important issues such as colonialism, climate change, migration and peace and conflict.
There was a strong focus on Indigenous and Southern epistemologies and discussions on how to decolonize feminist research involved with geography, power, labour, art, and memory.
Image: Still taken from Virgelina Chará’s keynote.
Workshop convergences, notes, artifacts and ideas
I was heavily invested in the discussions, which were provocative, rich and challenging. Out of respect for the content and participants present, I have chosen to deliberately deviate from the traditional blog ‘reportage’ style of summarising the workshop. Instead, I am using a non-linear, fragmented, messy, (in)process(un)complete, more New Materialist approach to ‘throw up’ a few random snippets, thoughts and connections I noted during these sessions. The below content is a deliberate post-human shift from presenting content as if it is ‘right’, ‘accurate’ or ‘makes sense’ to humans-participants-knowers. While some content may make sense – some may not. There are no mistakes or errors in these notes. So for the below notes, you dear reader, are implicated in the reiteration and (re)co-creation of the workshop ‘matters’ ….. here we go!
This story is ‘sew’ important …memory, history and life for so many, but new information for others (like me) elsewhere..truthtelling, invasion, pollution, academic violence and extractivism…The ‘Justice ‘ dept, The Memory Centre, the Power of Memory, parent-teacher-adult time with student-children-learner, ‘education is so square now’, pedagogy of memory, to the teachers: ‘do you realise you are the useless ones here?’… we don’t do it through writing, we do it through sewing and food, they have had massacres in every country, ‘ (Duque) he’ is just the model..creative outputs that help us think about these issues…
Some participants linked Virgelina‘s keynote to other textile protests, work and exhibitions, such as:
Libby shares with us her visionary bloodletting, deadstream and saltwater reflections. Flow. Sand Crunch. Lying in grass. Forms and textures. Listen (more) carefully. Birds-eye views. Film as experiential documentation. Art that moves and breathes. Unexpected. Tasmanian salvaged timber. Art(work)s. lying – lying. Post-colonisation – Decolonisation.
Mike is a chairmaker and researcher. Listening to Mike makes me think about how the ideological state apparatus presents a ‘version of collective memory-truth’ (ie statues & iconoclasts) – that is literally set in concrete (or other material) and associated forms of patriarchal, colonistic (tee-hee..get it?! not now, stay focus(ed), be serious!), political issues that go along with that kind of art …and that the artist is rarely? clearly? identified or acknowledged….after all it is their output/work/….
BI re(views) the memory artifacts produced: Proserpine Ambulance Depot (1990), Proserpine Hospital Outpatients Department (1939-1999), Proserpine RSL Club (1950-1990), and the Eldorado Picture Theatre (1927-1985).
Janis literary maps and remaps the Queensland Wollen Manufacturing Company floorplan(s) with mill(field)work, mill(i)visits, millscapes and milieus. Overlaying Coral’s draft interpretations of Mud Maps. Ron’s List across the ages – staff payroll (50?) years on.
Embodiment -moving through time-space-places
Public art
Art, bike, memory and geography
Institualization of memory – academic violences – uni mapping vs uni tracing
In 2018, I did my own Happy New Gear! review looking at key moments related to international events, human rights, the environment and, Health and Science.
It’s been a very challenging year for all. While most people have time off over the holiday and new year period, this year I am working on a Summer Intensive course called Gender and Literacy for undergrad teaching students at Griffith Uni. It’s a great course and I am thoroughly enjoying discussing gender common Australian identity, Shakespeare and how to have more generative conversations in classrooms about gender.
but it also means no break for me and I’m right in the middle of marking major assessments. so unlike previous years where I would go hell for leather, this year I am living vicariously through other riders’ ‘year in review’ and conserving my energy.
Having said that the end of the year is a big deal!
Doing a year in review
Many people like to do a year in review.
It a great way to look over the past 12 months and take stock of accomplishments, challenges and key aspects that stood out. Some riders do it with Strava, metrics and statistics to gauge overall riding results. Others like to do a more qualitative approach and look at what they learned from a year of riding.
Go to any mainstream, popular cycling blog and it will be filled with news, events and highlights that are no doubt collated into an overall ‘year in review’ consumerscape post.
Personally, I like the annual reviews that are not mainstream…the more personal, relatable or unusual ones.
Other riders: 2020 A year in review
So, to celebrate the end of 2020, here’s four few less common bike-centered 2020 year in reviews that made me smile and feel good about riding bikes. Enjoy!
Image: pbandbagels.com
pbandbangles. The first is an older, but heartfelt entry about getting back into biking by Peanut Butter and Bagels. I love the conciseness, simplicity and personalization of this post. We all have our own ‘Dennis’ who encourages us to ride and this post reminds me of the humble beginnings of riding a bike and the love and dedication many have in making it more accessible for others.
Image: Firstpost
2. The year 2020 in a bike ride. This is a thoroughly entertaining (cringe-worthy?) rant by Harsh Pareek. In this review, Harsh shares the finer points of getting it right (and wrong) when it comes to bike riding, teenagers, city living and early morning rides at 3C when it just isn’t ‘your day’. I love the humour, detail and ever-unfolding litany of calamities that Harsh has to content with – we’ve all been there!
Image: BikeIOWA
3. BikeIOWA year in review. For something a little different, this post is written by Scott Sumpter and Jess Rundlett from Bike IOWA. BikeIOWA is a bike advocacy and network hub. I like this bike-themed year in review as they broke the year up into digestible highlight chucks: wowsers, anniversaries, the year ‘by the numbers, a restatement of their bike commitment and finish off with a month-by-month audit. I like it – very comprehensive!
Image: David Trumpore (pinkbike)
4. Photo Epic – Homebound. If a picture is worth a thousand words, then sports photographer and writer Dave Trumpore’s 2020 collection speaks volumes. Given COVID impacted EWS and so many international MTB (and other sporting) events, this photo collection of the year in review pays homage to not only Dave’s skill and range of work – but foregrounds the riders in some of the most stunning locations we don’t usually see. It’s also great to see Kori Gargano, Laura Slavin and Anne Henderson featuring prominently seeing as female riders are often severely underrepresented in mainstream cycling news/blogs ‘year in review’ articles. For me, this collection takes me straight back to my EWS competition days – good times! Great work Dave.
However you are finishing off 2020 – be it a ‘year in review’, goal setting for a killa riding year ahead, going for a few final bike rides before the NYE clock ticks over, or any thousand other ways to close out 2020 – may yours be generative, nourishing and always-already with you smiling, with bikes, in nature, and alongside beloveds.
This year, I‘ve signed up to ride the #Festive500.
The #Festive500 is an international annual bike riding challenge that takes place over the Christmas-New Year period.
The premise is simple: registrants ride 500 kilometers over the eight days from Christmas Eve to New Year’s Eve.
Where I live and ride (Brisbane, AUST) it is summertime – with endless warm days that are perfect for long early morning/late afternoon (and night) rides. But, elsewhere in the world, (like the US and UK) it is peak Winter – freezing cold and snowing. I spare a thought for these riders and the extra seasonal challenges they face.
Considering the festive time is often one of excess, overeating and recreation, this event is a genuine challenge for those who want to try something a little different.
It’s the first time I’ve done this event. Each year, I have a different festive focus: one year we indulged, another we retreated like hermits to a bush hideaway, another we used bikes to visit family and friends in another city. Given its still COVID-ish, this year we are staying close to home and minimising social contact. Instead, we are spending our time together riding bikes around our local area – so the Festive500 fits perfectly with our plans.
It also conveniently overlaps with our riding a century (100kms) each full moon for a year (13). We started riding full moon centuries in November 2020. On Tuesday, Dec 29th there will be a Gemini Wolf full moon (which we would be doing anyway), so that will count towards our Festive500. That, plus riding every day and cycling to-and-from the one and only Christmas dinner party we are going to (the long way round) will definitely clock up the kilometers needed. No worries here!
Each rider needs to consider how they want to achieve the 500. Some, (like Beloved) will go all out and smash themselves and do a few super long days in the saddle, others will pace themselves and work on an average of 63kms per day, and others will mix up days and distances depending on time, energy, weather and family commitments.
Nina with some of the under-21s Men’s Lunsar Cycling Team. Feb 2020.
Earlier this year I was in Lunsar, Sierra Leone undertaking my PhD research. While there, I worked and rode alongside the Lunsar Cycling Team – and I had a great time! What a team! They are an incredible group of highly motivated cyclists.
I have stayed in contact and support them where ever I can.
One way to support the LCT is by supplying them with reliable road bikes so they can compete.
Currently, LCT has a very worthy fundraiser on GoFundMe which is inviting supporters to help them get 8 bikes for the team to use for competitions.
The Lunsar Cycling Team is based in a town of 30,000 people where there is no electricity and limited resources. Bikes are a popular way to get around, but having your own bike is out of the reach for many locals. The team have a few donated bikes they rotate between riders to get some training in – but there are not enough reliable bikes to take them to the next level.
The riders are strong, keen and motivated and they need reliable, well-performing bikes to match.
The riders have already made a name for themselves in the local, regional and national races – and now they want to take on neighbouring countries in West Africa.
Two LCT riders have already represented Sierra Leone internationally, competing at the Tour de Guinee in 2019. All riders who ride for the national team must compete on their own bikes. LCT would like to change that, so they can achieve a greater consistency at national competitions and give the Sierra Leone Team riders a fighting chance when they next compete abroad.
To do this, the Lunsar Cycling Team need to buy eight carbon fibre road bicycles on which to compete. They have a road bike supplier in Holland who is willing to give them an incredibly generous discount – which means they can get each bike cost around £600 where they would retail at £2,000.
The team need support because although they can get these new bikes at a discounted rate, it is still considerably more than most people in Lunsar earn in six months.
Currently the team has raised £3, 557 of the total £5, 000 needed.
Please support the Lunsar Cycling Team by giving generously.
I can’t wait to see them kick arse internationally!
