I started my first ever long distance bike trip from San Francisco to Los Angeles on Friday May 31, 2019. The approximately 500 mile trip took me six days to complete and on June 5th I arrived in Los Angeles in one piece, though there were times along the way when I thought I might not make it intact.
I had signed up and planned to participate in the AIDS LifeCycle from June 2-8th. I raised $1000 but they require a mandatory $3000 to ride with the group. As a recent college grad with early 20 year old friends making donations of $20 or under, I couldn’t come u with another $2000 so I could give up on doing the trip or plan and execute the trip on my own. I chose the latter. Personally, I feel that this fundraising policy is exclusionary of low income and young members of the LGBTQ+ community, such as myself. There is a huge barrier to entry for events like this as well as to the cycling community in general which is partly why I consider myself a transportation biker instead of a “cyclist.” I only had a bike because I couldn’t afford a car then I realized biking was pretty fun so I thought I’d try it as a sport.
There was a steep learning curve to planning a solo self-supported bike tour last minute and while I had the physical endurance and ability to complete the trip as a distance runner, I was still a novice cyclist with no cycling community to ask questions to.
When training for this trip I found a few free rides to do with groups but the people I met were, in my experience, over forty, wealthy, white, and not particularly friendly to a young and ignorant cyclist such as myself. I accepted conquering these obstacles alone and taught myself everything before this trip which as you might guess, left some critical gaps in my knowledge. Luckily these pitfalls make for some good Type 2 fun stories you will read in this blog series.
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