Movement

Guest blog post written by Maggie Lowe, one of our SBT GRVL 2022 team members.

Movement (Noun) – an abundance of events or incidents.

“This can’t be real.”  If I had a dollar for every time I thought that while cycling through the mountains of Colorado…I’d have the money I need to move to Colorado.  It always seemed like the mountains couldn’t get taller.  Until they did.  It always seemed like the sky couldn’t be bluer.  Until it was.  It’s easier to use the phrase “as far as the eye can see” if you haven’t been in a place like Steamboat Springs.  Get yourself out there on Routt County Road 44, and that takes on a new meaning.  Out there, your eye can see as far as you can imagine.  

Steamboat Gravel boasts the “champagne” of the gravel world, and anyone lucky enough to ride this route has no choice but to back up the claims.  With the exception of some washboard sections and the mud pit that the last 10 or so miles become in a mountain thunderstorm, it is the sweetest gravel your bike will ever taste.  It makes for some delicious riding.  Or walking if your legs decide that those big climbs are not actually going to fit on the menu for the day.

And no matter what, you find yourself still smiling by the time you get to the end.  It’s the joy of the sun, the joy of the camaraderie, the joy of movement.

Photo credit Tory Hernandez/@evrgrnphoto

Movement (Noun) - Usually movements. actions or activities, as of a person or a body of persons.

A lot of people say that you can’t make “old friends”.  Those people have never ridden a gravel bike.  They also were not members of the All Bodies on Bikes team that rode SBT GRVL this year.  Fifteen athletes from all over the U.S., as well as Canada, and Uruguay who took on the thin air and thick hills.  Fifteen athletes who had only ever met each other via zoom before August 11th.  Fifteen athletes who rolled into Steamboat Springs shared their first hugs…and were immediately old friends.  

We came to show what was possible and no one saw it as clearly as we did.  Fifteen athletes crossed the start line and fifteen crossed the finish line.  We had athletes on every course, no injuries, no mechanicals, a teammate on the podium, and a teammate who got out on the 60-mile course and thought, “Actually…it feels like a 100-mile day”! 

We pedaled, we climbed, we cried, we climbed, we caught up with each other, we took selfies, we climbed, and we cried.  And then we climbed.  Through it all, we learned something very valuable about ourselves and the other cyclists around us.  We can overcome anything that stands in our way, as long as we stay diligent in movement.

The 2022 All Bodies on Bikes Cohort. 1st Row (left to right): Yasmin Boayke, Flor Dumas, Moniera Khan, Ally Johnson, Marley Blonsky

2nd Row: Zach Hyer, Cathy Ji, Tsitsi (Mai) Merritt, Kate Madden

Back Row: Maggie Lowe, Sarah Pape, Andrew “Bernie” Bernstein, Tim Buda, Brian Benavente, Bobby Arispe.

Not in person (but on the phone screens): Daniela Ochoa Diaz, Sarah Deemer, Kailey Kornhauser

Photo Credit Tory Hernandez/@evrgrnphoto

Movement (Noun) - a campaign undertaken by a group of people working together.

Speaking of the cyclists around us.  Whew.  The sheer monument to humanity that stands on those dusty gravel hills…I hope the thunder atop Mount Butter was paying attention.  This is real power.  I was lucky enough to ride along with a group of people on a shakeout ride that simply overflowed with stories.  We talked about gravel, and bike packing, and Iceland, and podiums, and hard things, and pedaling through hell, and finishing broken and in tears only to realize that you cannot wait to do it again.  Alyssa, you should know that I have not ever felt as connected to my bike and the world of gravel as I did talking to you.  I have listened and read about the West Fjords way during some of my hardest rides and even some of my hardest days.  To ride along with you, hearing about how that experience was hard for you made the hard days okay.  Thanks for the ride.

Alyssa and Maggie during the Chamois Butt’r Shakedown Ride. Photo credit Hannah Simon

I was lucky enough to meet a virtual friend in this real world of ours.  We talked about inclusion, and diversity, and how both those words mean more than we give them credit for.  We hugged and said our goodbyes.  We have since retracted our goodbyes and look forward to fighting for these words.  Fighting for our sport, our places, our world, and each other.  Olivia, your passion is tangible.  You are here for cycling, you are here for our planet, you are here for each person on it.  I am excited to get in the saddle with you and start climbing.  These meetings and so many more happened because we are a group of people motivated by movement.

Maggie and Olivia (Photocredit Alisha Zellner)

Movement (Noun) - a musical piece that can be performed on its own but is part of a larger composition.

If you were lucky enough to see Marley Blonsky and Alisha Zellner cross the SBT finish line, well…then you were lucky enough.  Marley is the co-founder of All Bodies on Bikes and Alisha is on the board for the Ride for Racial Justice team that was at SBT.  These two women represented, in their hand-in-hand finish line crossing, an openness to all in the gravel world.  The two of them are quickly and frequently equated with the organizations they operate.

Marley & Alisha cross the finish line of SBT GRVL. Photo credit: Tory Hernandez/@evrgphoto

And yet.  If I, or anyone, could hope to learn anything from their story of riding, and aid rendering at Steamboat this year, I think this is the thing they would want us to learn.  They stand for what they ride for but they don’t ride for Marley.  Or Alisha.  If they did, they might not get as far.  

They know this is not a moment.

It’s a movement.

You, or I, or anyone else in the world can 100% sit on the couch following along, liking Instagram posts, and thinking to themselves, “Yes.  Representation matters.”  But if none of us are inspired to follow after them, ride beside them, and most importantly get out in front when they get tired so they can grab our wheel…then the first time they stop pedaling the bike falls over.  If we let the picture of these two powerhouse females crossing the line, hands clasped above their heads remain as just a moment captured in time then we have failed them, failed ourselves, and failed the movement.

IT IS A MOVEMENT.

May this movement stand the test of time.  May the perseverance and power we learned in the mountains of Colorado seep into our world like cold mountain rain through a thin jersey.  May the unity found in the gravel world stick to our hearts like the Cow Creek mud on a 42c tire.  May the power to change our world overflow like the starting line of the 60-mile course.  We are not spectators of our sport and we are not made to be spectators of our own lives.  We didn’t come here to passively observe other riders and we should not passively observe what they are doing.  Find something you believe in as much as you believe in riding.  Find yourself some good people to storm the climb with.  And before you realize it, you’re out of the saddle, swaying, pedaling with every ounce of strength you have.  Do you know what that is, my friend?

Movement.