The Outspoken Cyclist – 5/23/2015

Last week, Amanda Batty shared her experiences – good and bad – about her work with the online site Pink Bike.

While she chose to resign from the column she wrote for them, she emphasized that the real issues are much more broad and insidious than just those she experienced with the editors of the site. Rather, she hoped her final commentary detailing the underlying sexism that runs throughout the bike industry as a whole would prompt a new conversation on a broader stage.

So, in steps Patrick Brady from Red Kite Prayer whose entry last week, Pink Gate took up that conversation and then THIS week, he followed it up with a new commentary with the controversial title of “Too Many White Guys.”

Certain to attract attention – both pro and con – I read it with some satisfaction that he had touched upon a lot of the issues in a way that could result in positive and ongoing change.  So, my first conversation this evening is with Patrick Brady.

After some news, we head on down to Atlanta to speak with Jackie Crowell.
The elite woman’s rider and multi-time champion was diagnosed with a glioblastoma – a brain tumor that usually has a 99+% death sentence attached to it. Yet, today Jackie’s scans are clear, she is racing her bike, and she just returned from the Amgen Tour of California after serving as the Ambassador to the Women’s Elite Team(s).

And, in her usual positive and upbeat way, she has come to a new understanding of her life and the role cancer is playing in it as well as how cycling fits in with all that she has experienced in her short 27 years.