Latest / Zone2Speak Podcast / Pedaling for Progress: Ayesha McGowan on Diversity and Determination

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Pedaling for Progress: Ayesha McGowan on Diversity and Determination · Zone2Speak Podcast

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Now, let's get into the episode.
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Welcome back to Zone to Speak. Today, I'm honored to chat with Aisha McGowan,
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a trailblazing American cyclist, advocate, and community leader who made history
3:32
in 2021 as the first African-American woman to become a professional road cyclist.
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Her journey began as a college commuter in Boston and evolved into a mission to diversify the sport.
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Aisha continues to redefine what's possible in cycling, not only by breaking
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barriers on the road, but by opening the doors for others.
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Her work through the Abundance Project, her blog, A Quick Brown Fox,
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and her presence in the sport are a powerful reminder that representation matters,
4:05
and that community and purpose can be just as powerful as performance.
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In this episode, I will dive into Aisha's inspiring journey,
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the challenges she overcome, her vision for a more inclusive cycling community,
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and what she's up to now. Aisha, welcome to Zone to Speak.
4:22
Hi. Hello.
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We met at Miles' get-together.
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What's his? The Cycling Culture Club. Yes.
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And I was like, I didn't want to be like a total girl fan.
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But once we left, I'm like, was that Aisha? Was that Aisha? So I'm so glad we're in touch now.
4:45
So tell me, what inspired you to transition from commuting by bike to pursuing
4:51
a competitive racing career?
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I think it was a long transition. It wasn't like...
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An immediate thing. I commuted for a few years before I like found a more like
5:05
underground community and people were just doing all kinds of different things.
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And I was just interacting with bikes in as many ways as I could.
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And one of the options was competitively. And so that's kind of how that happened. Very cool.
5:22
Yeah, because a lot of people are just commuters. Like My dad is a huge cyclist, but only for commuting.
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And the bike for him is a means of transport. And when we ride together,
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he's always like, oh, you ride like a racer. And I'm like, no, I don't.
5:37
We're always chatting about that. But anyways, what are some of the pivotal
5:42
moments that led to your historic achievement as the first African-American
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woman in professional road cycling?
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I don't know if there were so many pivotal moments. I think it was like just
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a collection of a lot of really small victories that led to a big thing.
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I think, you know, doing my first race was obviously a big thing that led there,
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went really horribly, but made me want to do it more.
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Which I always think is really strange that I had such a horrible experience.
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But the takeaway was that I wanted to do it again.
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But like in that horrible experience I somehow
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like saw the potential of what fun could
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be and I I still think
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I was right I've had a lot of fun racing bikes and I
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think it's a great time there's a lot
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of like scary aspects and a lot of less fun aspects to it and training can be
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very grueling at times but racing is there's just nothing like it and so I think
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yeah I think there's just been a lot of really small moments that have led up to my success and.
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Yeah, it makes sense. It's not like overnight thing. What happened on this horrible experience?
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My first race was a fixed gear crit, the Red Hook crit, which they no longer
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hold, but I did it in Red Hook in 2014.
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It was the first year that they had a women's field.
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And so being an advocate for women in cycling and newly inspired to compete in that way,
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I felt like this is something that I just need to do. And so I signed up for it.
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And on the day, it was really cold and it was pouring rain.
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And I don't like either of those things at all.
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Especially on a threat course. Yeah, with no brakes. Yeah. So it's not ideal.
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It's not an ideal situation.
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And I also had never raced a bike in that way before. And so I was just completely
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out of my depth and super overwhelmed.
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And they started the race and I didn't know what was going on.
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And I was moving forward in a very moderate pace and got lapped by the field.
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And there was a crash and they had to stop the race.
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And I didn't want to go back out there. They neutralized it and they started
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it again. But I was like, that's enough for day one.
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We're going to call it.
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Yeah. I don't blame you. I did one crit race and it felt like an FTP test.
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It was a great experience, but I'm like, oh, my gosh, no, I cannot do this,
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even though it was so much fun. But it's full-on racing.
8:39
Yeah, it's just VO2 max for however long the race is.
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And so if you're not prepared for that, I guess I just didn't,
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I don't know what I thought I was signing up for, but I just had no idea what was going on.
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And they started and the women went. They just took off. And I was like, oh, okay.
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Noted for next time.
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My race, there were barely any
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women. So they decided to put us with the man, but like not the top cat.
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So it was kind of fun. I was able to hang on with the guys. But for me,
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the biggest thing was that I'm terrible on turns.
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And, you know, there are no breaks. So I had to make those turns.
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So it was a breakthrough.
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It's scary, but it was a breakthrough. I'm like, look at me.
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I'm doing the, you know, I couldn't care where I was on the race.
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I was just like, I did the turns. No breaks.
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Hey, I mean, I feel like in those in those times when things aren't necessarily
9:35
going your way, there's always something that you can take away from me and
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from an experience. And so like the programs that I run.
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Giving women opportunity to try these criteriums, not the fixed-gear ones,
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the road ones with brakes and gears.
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I mean, if you do find yourself off the back of the race, it's a great time
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to practice cornering and a great time to practice all those little things that
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you just don't normally have the opportunity to do because how often are you
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training on a closed course?
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So, yeah, I think there's always something that you can do and learn even if
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things aren't going your way. Absolutely. I agree.
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And I'm trying not to butcher the name here, but the pronunciation,
10:17
you had a standout performance at the Tour Cycliste Feminine International, the Ardache.
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Ardache. Ardache. Thank you. It was French.
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Oh man, there are so many different accents here.
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Uh-huh but thanks for keeping me honest
10:37
how did that experience influence your
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perspective in professional racing i mean it
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was my first big road race in europe i'd done
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some kermess racing in the netherlands and belgium a few years prior but that
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was like really the first road full-on road race that i had ever done and it
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was seven stages i believe and then the sixth stage i got then break away and finished in the top 10.
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And that was a really cool experience for me because it made me understand that
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like everything that I had done up to then wasn't for nothing.
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I was actually going, getting somewhere. Yeah.
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And, and it was a really nice feeling to be able to like hang in a European Peloton.
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Like, I feel like some people, they come to Europe and they try and it never
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quite clicks, but I feel like it clicked for me pretty quickly.
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And that was really cool very cool
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yeah it's like okay the work you put in you put in started to pay off yeah yeah
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and what were some of the obstacles you had faced as a woman of color predominantly
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in a white sport and how you navigate them oh i think yeah.
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A lot of people never really took me seriously. I think a lot of people thought
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it was a charming idea that I wanted to do this thing.
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And it wasn't super well received that I was so vocal about exactly what I wanted
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to do, exactly what I was trying to do.
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I think a lot of people found that to be, I'm trying to find the right word,
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too maybe egotistical for me to think that this was something that I could accomplish.
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But I feel like for me, a large part of it was creating that representation
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that didn't exist. I thought it was ridiculous that I started racing in 2014
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and there had never been an African-American woman to be in the pro peloton.
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And so I wanted to point that out.
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I wanted to say like, hey, what is going on?
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Why is there so little diversity in this sport?
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So many people ride bikes, and they maybe ride bikes in a different way and
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not in a competitive racing type of way,
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but that doesn't mean that there's not a pool of people that would totally be
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interested in that if they were given access and resources and opportunities to do so.
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And I think for me, I just, I felt alone a lot of the times.
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Like I've had a lot of cheerleaders and a lot of support and a lot of community,
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but it was more outside of the space that I was actually trying to be a part of.
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I don't feel like I had a ton of support from within.
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And so it felt kind of like trudging through thick muddy waters a lot of the
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time, but I figured it out.
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Well, I'm glad you did. And it is mind-blowing that 2021,
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which is like yesterday, it's when we had our first, you know,
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African-American in the peloton, pro peloton. It's crazy.
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And talking about the sport in general, not just women, last year I was so happy,
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you know, because I think it was the first Tour de France podium that we had,
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quote-unquote, a rainbow.
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I loved it because you had Gourmet and Carapace So we had, you know Black and
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Latino And it made me really,
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really happy But that's just a fraction of the Peloton And the male Peloton
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And the female Peloton It's starting now,
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And I'm Latina, and I'm starting to see some Latina. I had some conversations
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here, too, with Tata Magalhães, who is now in Movie Star.
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Florence, she's from Uganda, but she's on the continental team.
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She's not on world tour yet, but hopefully we'll see more diversity.
14:37
And what motivated you, I mean, I guess we know what motivated you,
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but to establish the Abundance Project and what impact has it had so far?
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So that project came kind of out of the pandemic.
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There was a lot of uproar after the murder of George Floyd and just a lot of
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like pain and torment and talks about diversity and lack thereof.
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And I feel like there was just a huge focus on Black pain. And so I wanted to
15:10
create something that was surrounding Black joy.
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And so I started what I called the Abundance Summit. And it was a virtual conference, I guess,
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a virtual summit that brought in presenters in cycling and outdoor space to
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just talk about Black joy and cycling in the outdoors.
15:30
And so I used that as a fundraiser for this idea I had to send women to the
15:35
Tour of America's Dairyland in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to try bike racing,
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to see if I can eliminate as many of the barriers as possible and,
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you know, see what happens when you do that.
15:44
And so that first year we did the summit, we fundraised quite a bit of money.
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And then we sent eight adult women and one 11-year-old girl to race bikes in Wisconsin.
15:54
Wow. And it was a learning experience for everybody. It was a learning experience
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for us on how to even run the program. It was a learning experience for the
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riders who were having this opportunity to race for the first time.
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And then it was also a learning experience for the community,
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the bike racing community, where it was like, okay, we've got way more women
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of color in our space than we're used to having.
16:18
And like it led to some like interesting and a few unsavory interactions.
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But I think that exposure in both directions is super necessary.
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Like we'll never diversify the sport if we don't diversify the sport.
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So everybody needs to learn how to like coexist in the space.
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100%. And what a great idea, because I think, of course, we need to be aware of all the struggles.
16:45
But it is a downer. And I think for us to also have a shift,
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we need to bring in this positivity.
16:53
So the Abundance Project is a great idea and not only bringing the joy,
17:00
but also raising these funds to have more women attending different races or
17:06
the race in Milwaukee so we can have the representation there.
17:10
What a great idea. And how about your blog, A Quick Brown Fox, which I love the name.
17:17
Serve as a platform for advocacy in cycling. Yeah, I have neglected it for quite some time at this point.
17:24
And, you know, every day I wake up and I'm like, I'm going to write something,
17:27
I'm going to write something. And I still haven't written anything in a while.
17:31
But I started it around the same time I decided I wanted to be a professional
17:35
road racer to document my journey and maybe have it serve as a resource for
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other people who decided they might want to go down the same road.
17:44
And I also used it to be vocal about things that I wanted to talk about within the advocacy space,
17:52
the lack of diversity, maybe some things that were happening in the cycling
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community that I feel like were going unsaid that needed to be said.
18:01
And I feel like I've created some pretty good stuff there that has stood the
18:07
test of time pretty well. So yeah, I feel like the past few years,
18:12
I've been experiencing quite a bit of burnout.
18:14
And so I haven't really wanted to or had the capacity or energy to write anything in a while.
18:21
But I'm starting to feel that, that, that burn again a little bit.
18:26
Yeah. So maybe someday soon.
18:29
Well like you said it does stand the test of time because
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i was you know having a look at it
18:34
obviously to research you a little bit more and
18:38
it stands beautifully as is but
18:40
of course you know you'd be great if you reactivate and
18:47
you talked a little bit about having a little bit of a burned out and that's
18:52
why you have neglected neglected a little bit this the blog how do you balance
18:56
your roles as an athlete, an advocate, and a community leader?
19:01
I don't think I do it very well.
19:04
I think I've always struggled with balance. And I think if I focused on any
19:11
one thing at a time, I'd probably be really great at it, but I've never done that.
19:16
And so I've always split my time amongst many things and something always suffers.
19:21
So yeah, I don't think I have a great balance, I'm being honest.
19:27
Well, and it's okay, you know, being a jack-of-all-trades, you have different
19:30
projects, and I think it's totally okay to go with the flow and put your energy
19:34
where your inspiration is that day or that phase, and I think you're doing well.
19:41
Thank you. And where are you based these days?
19:44
Are you here in Girona as well, and what does a typical day in your life look
19:49
like right now? I split my time between here and the States.
19:54
I don't know that I have any typical days.
19:59
Here in Spain, I'm usually taking the days pretty slow.
20:06
I sleep in most of the time, go to bed pretty early and just do some stuff in between.
20:12
I ride my bike a lot I've been running I make content do some work on the abundance project,
20:20
prepare for like speaking engagements or whatever I'm getting into but
20:24
yeah I take it pretty slow these days
20:27
I'm still kind of trying to figure out what it what exactly
20:30
it is that I am doing and want to do
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and then in the states I feel like I'm kind of all over the
20:36
place I'm usually traveling a bunch doing a
20:38
bunch of speaking events or biking events
20:42
or whatever but I don't yeah I
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don't feel like I have a typical day I think
20:48
this summer I'm like I'm about to spend a month
20:51
in America and or 20 days
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so almost a month in America and kind of traveling around doing stuff for the
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abundance project visiting family but then when I come back I have finally a
21:03
little bit of downtime and then And I'm going to ride all of the stages of the
21:07
Tour de France Femme before a few days before the professional peloton does it.
21:12
And so I'm both looking forward to that and a little weary that it's going to
21:17
be so hot and a little bit a little miserable.
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But I think it'll still be a lot of fun.
21:23
But I'm really glad I don't have to race it because racing in that heat is brutal.
21:28
So all the women are doing their heat training now, and I wish them the best.
21:33
Yeah, it's early June, and it's already so hot here. It is so hot, yeah. Yeah, yeah.
21:40
So speaking of racing, what's your current relationship with racing now?
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Are you still actively competing, or your priorities have shifted?
21:52
I in my head I am fully retired I still have sometimes I still have the bug
21:58
that I want to compete but then I'm like I don't want to compete or I don't want to train to compete,
22:05
it takes a lot it's yeah very demanding and you can't do much else and my body
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likes to rebel against me a lot.
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And so that's a big part of why I stopped. I had a lot of health issues and
22:22
that gets exhausting really fast.
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So yeah, I think right now my relationship with racing is that I am a fan of the sport.
22:33
What type of health issues were you having when you were racing?
22:36
Is that injuries like overdoing it?
22:39
No, actually I come, I mean, most, most things are out of people's control, I guess.
22:45
But I, it took me years to figure it out, but it turned out that I had uterine
22:51
fibroids, which are masses in my uterus.
22:54
And I had one that was so large that it was pressing against my intestines and
22:58
basically blocking the pathway. So I couldn't eat anything.
23:02
I couldn't poop. I couldn't exist or function. And it was horrible and impossible
23:07
to live that way, let alone race bikes at a high level.
23:11
I don't, I don't even know how I was doing it. I Yeah, the doctors were not
23:16
super happy with me and I had to have a C-section and that pretty much,
23:22
Made it impossible for me to continue the way that I wanted to.
23:27
I still haven't really recovered from that. It's really frustrating.
23:31
And that was the big thing, really. I didn't really break anything or injure anything.
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I don't crash very often, knock on wood. So that's good.
23:43
I did recently break an ankle, completely unrelated.
23:49
But not from biking and not from bike racing. So, yeah, it was mostly the fibroids
23:55
thing that made it just really hard to do anything, let alone race bikes.
24:00
I'm sure that was really tough, not only physically, but also emotionally,
24:06
because not only because of the health issue, but also, obviously,
24:11
it stops doing what you want to do, which is part of your identity.
24:17
But I'm happy that you are healthy now.
24:22
And finding your way without racing, but it's still evolved. So it's great.
24:27
And I saw you just had an amazing bikepacking, aggressive bikepacking pace trip.
24:34
You went from Basque Country to Girona.
24:38
Yeah. So the original plan was to ride from Bilbao to Girona.
24:43
We ended up riding from Bilbao to Barcelona, which is very similar.
24:47
We just cut out a few mountains along the way on the last day.
24:52
The original route was supposed to go up the backside of Monsen and then the
24:56
backside of Santolari and then descend back home.
24:59
But it was so hot and we'd ridden for so long and so far that we decided to
25:06
ride to Barcelona, which is also no small feat.
25:09
And then we took the train back up to Girona. But we did ride from one coast of Spain to the other.
25:17
Incredible. How many kilometers are that? ooh I just looked this up and I don't remember it was like,
25:27
It's what, 500, 700, something like that? I think it was like six something. Okay, so in the middle.
25:35
Yeah, like 650 something, 650 something kilometers.
25:38
And a lot of climb. Yeah, I would love to do that, but maybe I'll take a week
25:43
instead of three days like you did.
25:46
Yeah, I recommend taking a bit longer. It's a lot.
25:50
It's a whole lot. But it looked like you guys had a lot of fun.
25:52
And even when you struggled, the stories were quite funny. So thanks for sharing
25:57
that journey with us. Yes, of course.
26:00
Are there any other projects, collaborations, or creative pursuits you are currently excited about?
26:08
I don't really have anything specific that I'm working on.
26:12
I'm just kind of like throwing stuff at the wall right now and kind of just
26:15
experimenting and seeing what brings me joy these days.
26:18
Yeah, it's a weird space to be in because I feel like I was so focused and had
26:24
tunnel vision for this goal of being pro for quite some time,
26:28
basically a decade or so.
26:30
And it's weird not having a true direction.
26:35
And so I'm like still figuring that out.
26:40
And it's okay. And you have Liv, right?
26:44
Yeah. Liv is a wonderful brand for women. Yeah, I work with Liv Cycling.
26:49
It's a women's specific cycling bike manufacturing brand within the giant group.
26:54
And I work with SRAM and Zwift and a few other amazing companies that have supported
27:01
me over the years and helped me get to the pro level.
27:05
And so it's really a joy to still have those partnerships and like create content
27:10
and, you know, kind of give back to the people that gave to me and maybe still
27:15
encourage and inspire some folks along the way.
27:17
I'm sure you are, myself included. And I think that's why I mentioned the brands,
27:22
because I think it's so nice.
27:25
And it says a lot about the companies, because a lot of companies,
27:30
once you have an injury, even, they stop supporting you.
27:34
So it's great that they're still supporting you and waiting for you to figure out what's your vision.
27:38
And they want this mission.
27:41
They want also the diversity. That's what they're supporting,
27:44
not just you. It's a bigger mission. So that's really great. Mm-hmm.
27:48
And your vision for the future, what changes would you like to see in cycling,
27:54
in the cycling industry, to promote a greater diversity and inclusion?
27:59
I honestly think it starts with the brands themselves and who they're hiring
28:03
and who's working behind the scenes.
28:05
I think people inherently gravitate towards the things they're familiar with,
28:12
the things that they're comfortable with, the things that they're confident about.
28:15
And if everybody is, frankly, if everyone is white, then they're familiar and
28:23
comfortable and confident about other white people.
28:26
So I think we need to hire a more diverse employee base in all of these companies across the board.
28:33
And I think that would lead to a lot of changes in a very organic manner.
28:38
And I think that's just a huge missed opportunity in the cycling industry right now.
28:43
Very true. And I never thought about that. That's true. If they start diversifying
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within the companies, it could be just an organic change.
28:51
It's an evolution that it's needed. Yeah.
28:54
And what advice do you have for young women of color aspiring to enter the world
29:00
of competitive cycling?
29:02
If if it's something that you really want to do go
29:05
for it it's a lot of work it's not
29:07
always fun but it can be a lot of
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fun and very rewarding and don't
29:14
let anyone tell you what you can't do because if you are dedicated enough then
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you can make it happen absolutely aisha thank you so much for your honesty your
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energy and everything you do to move this sport forward i'm so happy you made
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the time to be on Zone to speak.
29:33
Thanks for having me. Thank you.
29:38
And that's all for today's episode. I want to thank the listeners for tuning in.
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Your support means everything. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider
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following, leaving a review, and sharing it with your friends.
29:52
Music.