Bikepacking Roots is excited to celebrate the 2022 BIPOC Bike Adventurers. These cyclists and projects were selected for their transformative impact on the applicants’ lives and larger communities.
The BIPOC Bike Adventurers will be mentored by experienced BIPOC bikepackers Brooke Goudy, Sam Scipio, Eugene Pak and Antonio Miranda. The more than 50 other applicants and other BIPOC cyclists are also invited to participate in mentorship.
Thank you to everyone who donated to the grant fund and helped make these transformative trips possible, especially our friends at Salsa Cycles.
Shawnee Dez was born and raised on the South Side of Chicago. She is the founder and organizer of the Black JoyRide. In June 2020, Shawnee and friends organized a mass Juneteenth bike ride to promote Black joy, wellness, and to take up space in the second most segregated city in the United States, Chicago. This ride is a symbol of liberation and mobility.
Shawnee’s work centers youth and community advocacy. When off the music stage, she activates spaces for creative youth to express unapologetically. The mission of the Black JoyRide is to get as many Black folks on bikes as possible!
Shawnee will be bringing the Black JoyRide to Leimert Park, Los Angeles to host the very first Black JoyRide in California on August 25th, 2022. Their goal is to connect with Black folks throughout the diaspora, domestic and abroad, to promote liberation, wellness and joy through biking!
Will Cortez, Silas Sanderson, and Sukho Viboolsittiseri formed BikePOCPNW to respond to the community need for cycling spaces for BIPOC folks in the Portland Metro area. They are actively creating a brave space for BIPOC folks to ride bikes, build community, forge life-long friendships, and challenge the status quo. They do this while holding themselves accountable for behaviors that may replicate or uphold any and all forms of oppression.
Since its inception in January 2021, the group has hosted an AAPI Solidarity Ride, monthly rides for all disciplines of riding (party pace, mountain bike, gravel, etc.), clinics, and trained riders interested in competition.
They are using the grant to build BilePOCPNW’s bikepacking gear library. The gear will be used to for bikepacking trips to Stub Stewart State Park, the Deschutes River State Recreation Area, and more.
Roxy Robles is a cyclist, urban planner, sewist, and Filipinx food enthusiast living on the ancestral lands of the Duwamish (Seattle, Washington). She started bike touring after realizing that bike touring was not that different than hauling groceries up and down Seattle hills on a bike. In Seattle, she organizes with Friends on Bikes, and volunteers with The Bikery & Outdoors for All. She has conducted introductory bike touring courses with Seattle Colleges, Adventure Cycling Association, and Swift Industries.
Roxy is passionate about supporting new cyclists and spreading her love of bikes and bike touring. She thinks tarot cards are an essential item on any packing list, and loves to talk about feelings. You can get her book, An Introduction to Bike Touring to get started on your cycling journey!
Roxy is using the grant to lead a group from Friends on Bikes Seattle (FOB) to occupied Nimiipuu and Shohone-Bannock territories in colonized southeast Idaho for a 80-mile loop near Warm Lake. The route includes climbs, views from the Boise National Forest and HOT SPRINGS!
FOB is a community for people living at the intersections of trans, two-spirit, women, intersex, gender nonconforming and Black, Indigenous, and other people of the global majority identities.
Annijke Wade’s outlook on life has been changed by mountain biking. Through it, she has found more balance, the ability to work through challenging situations, a wonderful community, and traveled to many awesome locations and trails.
In 2021, Annijke experienced a life-changing spinal cord injury from a horrible mountain biking accident. She is now entering the adaptive mountain biking (aMTB) world. One of her recovery and recreation goals is to figure out how to bikepack with a spinal cord injury.
Annijke is committed to using her position to amplify BIPOC, LGBTQ+ and Disabled voices and will be using her privilege to empower folx in the community.
Annijke is using the grant to go on a one day bikepacking adventure with her friend Fanny in Golden, Colorado!
Selena Feliciano is an artist, strategist and half of the Borikén Bicycle Tour team based on occupied Chochenyo Ohlone territory (Oakland, CA).
She spends most of her days dreaming of how to deepen connections to the biosphere on a mass scale, and how to reverse the effects of capitalism, white supremacy, and centuries-long destruction of indigenous roots under colonialism.
Most days, she engages with groups doing work to shift our focus on community in the just transition of our local economies, and is currently working alongside incredible organizers to decolonize our energy system for a more resilient, safe, and democratized grid with The Energy Democracy Project.
Outside of computer and organizing work, she finds the intersection of bicycles and art ripe with possibility for deepening our ties to our beloved Earth; She is an avid bicycle tourist and contributing performer with Agile Rascal Bicycle Touring Theatre Company, as well as a 2022 athlete with the Ride for Racial Justice Gravel Team.
Selena and her collaborator, Jackie Rivera, are using the funds to embark on the Borikén Bicycle Tour in the spring of 2023, across the island of Puerto Rico, creating art, memories, and reflection from the inevitable inspiration of our ancestral ecology and genetic ties to Taíno lands and waters. They invite other artists and activists of Puerto Rican ancestry to join them on this ancestral journey. Find out more at www.selenafeliciano.com
Ester is a purpose-driven Afro-Latino woman from Brazil who lives in Syracuse, New York. She works in the climate and energy sector, and in her free time you can find her biking and being a cat mom. She got her first bike seven years ago to commute to college and since then she has never owned a car. Biking has always been her main way of transportation. She is also a passionate, lifelong motorsports fan, advocating for for diversity and inclusion in the male-dominant sport.
Ester is using the grant to tackle the 585+ mile Adirondack Trail Ride (TATR) bikepacking race in fall 2022, and preparing for the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route in 2023.
Suzanne Alexander developed a passion for endurance sports after a three-day, 60-mile walk in support of breast cancer research. Her love for biking grew when training for and completing her first sprint triathlon. Suzanne is a member of the Atlanta chapter of Black Girls Do Bike and enjoys biking on trails around Atlanta.
Suzanne is thrilled to plan and complete the inaugural “Tubman Trek”, a multi-day bike adventure along the 125-mile Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad Byway. She plans to expand the trip to include others in future years. The trek will facilitate freedom from pre-conceived notions of limitations based on age, sex or race, from personal doubts about physical or mental ability, and to experience, enjoy and protect the richness and beauty of nature.
Elisha Bishop is a husband, father to a two-year-old and a member of the Gila River Indian Community. He organizes bike rides for the community in Gila River, where he met Mario and his son Isaac.
Elisha is using the grant to embarking on his first bikepacking trip with Mario and Isaac along portions of the Western Wildlands Route and Arizona Trail from Flagstaff to the Grand Canyon.
Melissa grew up in sunny, hot Las Vegas, NV, and since then has lived in and explored various Western states. She began her outdoor adventures at the age of 19, teaching herself how to snowboard on artificial snow. Her love for nature is equal to her love for culture. And so, she became an anthropologist. When not in the classroom teaching, she enjoys being outside, gardening, hiking, camping with her family, and riding her bike. Her favorite bird is the Northern Flicker and her favorite flower is the foxglove.
One of her long-term goals has been to go on an overnight adventure on her own. She goes hiking alone a lot. The peace that results when alone in nature, grounds her and keeps her afloat in this busy world we live in. She feels as John Muir did when he wrote: “I only went out for a walk and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in.”
Melissa’s is using the grant to take a trip that involves just her, a bike and some gear to sustain her through the backcountry on a section of the Oregon Timber Trail. It will be the most adventurous thing she has ever done.