Check out this photo layout. This is what we want to make. Twenty-five women telling their stories. Where they ride in Pittsburgh, why they have the bikes they have, why they ride at all.
This is our first shoot. Lori Flynn tells her story of how she became a car-free rider, why she rides a folding bike, where she likes to ride in Pittsburgh, and why she loves plastic crates. Every story will be different. Every woman has a different connection to a place, to a bike, and to riding bikes. But it goes even deeper than that.
There is something about a woman on a bike that is….subversive. Upsetting (to the mainstream). Anarchical (in a way). An adult woman should be more concerned with other things. Children. Jobs. Men. Not bikes.
When Emily Finch loads her six children onto a cargo bike and pedals around Portland it sends a shockwave through the staid and conventional. When I roll into work in rain gear, toting a giant pannier of dry clothes and clean-up supplies, it truly upsets some people. I shouldn’t be doing that. Adults stay out of the rain. They take a car. They ride in a van. They own umbrellas.
Elly Blue talks about the thing that got her hooked on riding a bike as an adult. She was a reticent rider at first and not terribly knowledgeable about bikes either. In her inexperience, she took a curb without intending to do so and wound up on her side, bike on top of her, bare legs covered in bike grease. It was exhilarating.
I know that feeling. There’s something you’re not “supposed” to be doing, but you’re so attracted to it that you’re doing it anyway. And it’s putting a huge smile on your face. When you finally find other people who feel the same way you do, it’s a crazy cathartic thing that makes you feel ridiculously happy. And silly. And bold. And OK about everything in your life.
This photography book is what gurlBIKE is all about. Finding and feeling that thing that draws you to bikes in the first place, and following that thing until it sets you free. It’s about upsetting some people and making yourself feel at peace. It’s about turning things around so that they are finally pointing in the right direction.
You. On top of two wheels. It’s an idea that can take you anywhere.