Spring has been rather kind to Berlin this year with abundant sunshine, trees bursting into pink and white blossoms and lush greens to rival a hipster's breakfast smoothie. Your local girl** gang has been busy sowing seeds in the fixed gear garden. Ok ok, I'll stop flogging that metaphor now. Suffice to say that it looks like we will have a bumper crop this season (sorry, couldn't resist) of bicycles and DIY culture!
At the end of March, SHE36 hosted a fixed gear skills workshop and espresso-sipping-whilst-no-hand-trackstanding-competition at the Berliner Fahrradschau. Interestingly, most of the events hosted and organised by women and gender variants (WAG) at the Fahrradschau were about skills sharing and capacity-building for WAG cyclists. It was a splendidly sunny day and many new faces turned up to learn how to trackstand and bravely entered the contest after just one hour of practice.
Kim blew the competition out of the water by casually trackstanding with no hands, only one foot on the pedal, and a smile on her face. (I’m pretty sure she could have read the entire Sunday newspaper with her espresso.) Did I mention that she did it whilst hungover and after a thrilling and strong 5th placing at the RadRace Last One Standing the night before?
We also set the world record - did someone call Guinness yet? - of people in a trackstanding chain.
SHE36 also teamed up with the women's road and cyclocross racing team the Velonistas to encourage people to try goldsprinting against us, with the kind support of the Schindelhauer colleagues. Conny set the women's record and had an amazing run of ten sprints and was still grinning at the end. Tammy and I were speaking to the spectators to drum up further goldsprint participants, and as the Berliner Fahrradschau has a fairly white-dude-bro heavy audience who have never questioned their privilege, I got into verbal fisticuffs with a person three times my size when I asked him if he'd like to try goldsprinting against the Velonistas or SHE36. He said in front of his wife and children in German, "No way, I'm not losing to a woman!" Wow, women are so worthless that it must be so bad for one's fragile masculinity to lose against one. Sexism is still alive and kicking at the Fahrradschau, folx.
As April rolled in, SHE36 teamed up with our friends VELOBerlin and Fahrtwind to host an open social group ride. It was the first time that Mariagiovanna, Alina and I had organised a group ride and we were really stoked that everyone had a good time and that the weather also held. The theme was "Fliegen und Fahrradfahren" (flying and cycling), as it was the VELOBerlin's inaugural event at the Tempelhof hangars. With the generous support of VELOBerlin, all the participants of the ride were entitled to discounted entry to the festival and also received a beautiful spoke card designed by Tammy.
The cherry on the cake was seeing new and old faces like Kathleen, Claire, and Sarah joining in! One of the participants was on his bike for the first time after an accident in which a car hit him whilst he was cycling, and it was lovely that he trusted us for his first time back on the bike!
Sarah saved the day by repairing Mariagiovanna's puncture (skills that she has honed whilst repairing 7 punctures in one day whilst cycling through the deserts of Mexico, if I recall correctly). Everyone else waited patiently and danced to songs; solidarity and social cycling at its finest!
So here's to our version of the spring classics! Goof around whilst learning some fixed gear skills, sharpen your sock and cap game, and make some new friends with us!
** = SHE36 is open to people who identify as women and I personally would really welcome more QPOC faces! Come along to our trick meetings, join our Facebook group, follow our Instagram, and come and get involved with your ideas and skills and curiousity! I mean it!
