When we set out to interview Black cyclists in Minneapolis for Sierra magazine's Fall 2021 feature article Joy and Danger in the Twin Cities, the resulting conversations were so insightful that it was actually painful to edit them down to the point where we could fit them into the print magazine. So here, dear web readers, are the longer versions. We hope that you love them as much as we do.

Rachel Olzer

I was really nervous moving to the Midwest, because I’d only lived in places with mountains. I was a rock climber, and I was like “What am I going to do?” But I knew Minneapolis had a really vibrant cycling community, and it's like cycling brought me some sense of relief. I really took up the mantle of being a cyclist after moving here.

Much of the activism I've done, particularly over the past year, is organizing within the cycling sphere. A lot of people involved in outdoor recreation want to think that somehow racism and sexism don't exist within those spheres, instead of recognizing that the cycling community is a proportion of the larger world. All of the problems that exist in the larger world exist in communities like cycling, whether it's being underestimated as a woman or having men make comments to you or people asking about your bike, perhaps because they think you didn't buy it. I have always had experiences with racism and sexism.

But it really hit me in the face moving to Minneapolis. In Arizona, it wasn't like, “Oh, racism is somewhere else.” Here, people really want to believe that racism is somewhere else. What makes that so difficult is that you can't address a problem that people aren't willing to see. You'll just drive yourself crazy trying to make people see what you're seeing.

One time I was working with a group of Black and brown kids, like early high schoolers, building ski and mountain bike trails in Theo Wirth. We were enjoying ourselves, doing work in nature. The youth are feeling good. Then this woman came out and was like, "You're not supposed to be in there. What are you doing?"

I said, "No, we're just doing trail work. We work for the Loppet." And she's like, "Well, we'll just call the city and see."

I told the kids, "You got to go." I'm not about to have them see what's about to go down, because I have no idea what's gonna happen. After the youth left, I was gentle about it, but I said, "I have to wonder if you saw a group of Black and brown people. And that gave you some pause." And she said, "I am not a racist! I was a woman in a male-dominated field for years!" That isn't even the same "ism."

It was such a trip. And it was so shitty because I got back to the office, and of course, the kids were like, "Why was she mad? Couldn't she see we were trying to help?" And I'm like, "OK, so now I'm about to have a conversation with these kids about structural racism." Oh, it was so shitty.

Last year, right before George Floyd was murdered, one of my neighbors called the cops on me. All I was doing was walking around my neighborhood with my cat—my cat walks behind me. That’s all I was doing. And six cop cars—it was really scary—because there was this moment where you know something's not right. I was turning this corner and I saw these cop cars all stop. They told me word for word, “Somebody called the cops, complaining that you were casing houses.” 

I partied pretty hard in college, and I never once had someone call the cops on me. And it’s been three times since I moved to Minneapolis. I understand on some level—I think Minnesotans are very conflict-averse, which means they want other people to solve their problems for them, instead of just having a conversation.

I think a lot of white people understand racism in theory, but when it comes to how that stuff plays out in their interpersonal relationships, it kind of stops there. The thing I'm always going to advocate for more than anything is white people talking to their white people about the things they do and say. At the end of the day, people of color don't really need more help. What we need is for white people to do the work within their community.

Anytime there's a cycling event, if another person of color is there we immediately find each other, which is such a good feeling. It feels so good to be in community with other Black and brown riders. We will make space for each other—people of color can. But if we can't leave our house without the threat of violence from white people, that's not—you're only gonna get so far. You can't function in that kind of a world.

We all on some level experienced George Floyd’s murder and that uprising, but living here felt like literal war to me. The last time I experienced something like this, I went to Standing Rock. What happened here felt very similar—that increased surveillance and increased police and paramilitary presence and the chemical warfare and smoke. You hear helicopters, you hear loud bangs. Every time I left my house, there was National Guard. You should not have literal paramilitary on your street corner. This is not OK. But if you weren’t here, you didn’t know. I think a lot about how one day I'm gonna look back and be like, “I lived through that.”

And then it's like, “How can you care about cycling when your city is burning?” This pandemic made it hard enough to leave the house, and then with the uprising and not knowing where you could go and when it was safe—I’ve noticed this fear of leaving my house; it's developed in me over the past year. I don't ride my bike nearly as much as I used to. But then if I could get into the woods, or get out on my bike it was a reminder, like, “Hey, this place still has beauty.”

I still want to fight for the beauty I see here. The north side is so beautiful, especially in the summer, when people come out and barbecue and play music. When I go to other parts of the city, I miss that. It’s too quiet and nobody talks to each other.

So much police violence is, at its center, about threatening your right to move. All these things are about our right to movement and expression and occupying space and being allowed to explore what our bodies are capable of doing. When we're denied that right, or when we see people like us who are punished for exercising that right, it takes away such a large part of what it means to be alive, and what it means to be human. —Interview conducted by Patience Zalanga

Anthony Taylor

I’ve helped start national networks of Black bike clubs, Latinx clubs—all these cycling clubs. Our intention is to help people commit to biking for transportation. That’s a huge leap, and we weren't really attracting people.

I was in Detroit, and I stumbled on a Slow Roll. I've never felt anything like it. Most people have never had that feeling of absolute safety on a bike—just relaxing enough to really enjoy the freedom of moving yourself through space. It feels like you have taken over the city.

I met the guys who started Slow Roll in Detroit and started a Slow Roll here. I stopped collaborating with bike organizations. I started only collaborating with arts organizations, social justice organizations, trans femme organizations—anybody but a bike organization. This Juneteenth ride was really a collaboration between Slow Roll, the cultural Wellness Center, and Free Black Dirt.

We Slow Roll weekly from June to September. We build these bike rides where we pick a location that has significance, or pick stops along the line that have significance to a theme. There's music—we start with a DJ and a bike tune fix up and end with a DJ and a meal prepared by chefs from the community who've picked things out of community gardens.

We have a leader that everyone commits not to pass, and we have someone at the back of the ride that everyone stays in front of. We have community members called a squad that control every intersection—we always move through intersections as a unit.

We're really trying to create a symbol of safe passage and community care and solidarity. We use phrases like "mobility justice" instead of "transportation" or "fitness." It’s not about the bike or the speed or the distance—though people don't know this, but we slowly increase the distance as we get into summer without saying anything

Our intention is to help people have a positive emotional experience connected to biking—that feeling of absolute safety on a bike and just relaxing enough to really enjoy the freedom of moving yourself through space. It's so weird, like those are the lofty experiences of biking that some people never get to, because, because they're new, they feel physically fragile, they feel unskilled and uncomfortable.

I don't think people get that the need to have a sense of safety is real. Being on a bike puts you out there in a way that—why would I do that, you know? Hostility toward these communities is real, and putting yourself on a bike can actually make you more vulnerable. When we commit to attract Black bodies, we make it safer for everybody. Black bodies in motion is the ultimate expression of freedom.

If we're really going to bring people into biking as part of the way that they live, we've got to create these positive emotional onramps. We have to create these experiences of safety and solidarity and joy. If we do that, we will then get them to bike regularly. If we get them to bike regularly, now we've gotten them out of their car. If we get them out of their car, now we've gotten them into their communities. Literally rediscovering the community they live in is one of the biggest outcomes of beginning to use a bike. When you are in a car—cars are just teleportation devices. They just move people from point to point, and they miss everything in between—the people, the stores, the trees.

In cities, we really do need to commit all of our infrastructure dollars in a way that supports biking and walking in a real way. Every third grader should get a bike. Safe Routes to School is a federally funded program, but it's built around the sensibilities and the culture of white suburban families, not the sensibility of Black urban families, brown urban families. We've almost built schools now when we're busing all of our kids everywhere, rather than building all the community schools again.

I want people to rediscover the places they live, rediscover the possibilities of connecting to nature, rediscover their ability to heal themselves, and to live well and live simply. Honor their bodies, honor the creation. Nothing does that more than a bike. Well, maybe a canoe. —Interview conducted by Heather Smith

Louis Moore

I’ve been cycling for over 55 years. It was a sport that I found out I could do on my own—a way to challenge myself and watch myself improve. It can get me to spots where cars cannot get me. When I had a family, I could get on my bike and have an hour to myself. We did a lot of traveling when the kids were young—we had a VW camper and I would bring my bike along and get out and go riding in different cities. We've always been an outdoors family.

The first Major Taylor club started in 1978, in Columbus, Ohio. I didn’t know that. I was halfway through a biography of Major Taylor when we started the club, and that’s why we decided to name it after him. Now there are close to 70 Major Taylor bike clubs.

When the club was created, one of the ideas behind it was to get the African American community out to exercise. We were trying to create an idea of something that would make you fit—there was a lot of talk about wellness and fitness. During the pandemic, we had to cancel our weekly rides at first, but then we began to gather every Saturday—about six to eight of us—and ride. It was a way to stay physically fit, but also mentally fit. It was hard being indoors. The club ordered masks that matched our jerseys. The majority of the club is older guys—I'm 80, and the youngest person in the club is in their early 30s—so we understood the need to be safe.

The city of Minneapolis has substantial bike facilities. The Midtown Greenway is basically a bicycle highway. I spent 19 years working for Congressman Sabo in the Fifth District office, so I was at the forefront of getting this infrastructure up and running. There used to be grain elevators down there, and a train that only came through once a month. The county bought the grain company out and created the Greenway.

A story that is well-known here when we started was that we rode up to a stop sign on 42nd Street in our yellow jerseys and a couple of Minneapolis’s finest stopped next to us, rolled down their window, and said “What is this?” We said, “We’re a bike club.” And the officer said, “Well, that’s a different kind of gang,” laughed out loud, and rolled away. Implying that we were a bunch of criminals. If you want to call it harassment, you can; if you want to call it a silly incident, you can.

Another time, a group of 50 of us were on a Dusk to Dawn bike ride, from 9 at night to 6 A.M., visiting the Black community in Minneapolis and St. Paul. A police car came rolling up and the officer asked, “What are you doing?” When we told him, he said, “Well, let me lead you.” So that was a positive experience. —Interview conducted by Heather Smith

Wesley Ferguson

I was living in Chicago, on the train going home, and these drunk Cubs fans are right behind me. The train just kept stopping and going, stopping and going, and one of the dudes just threw up on me. Like in my hair. I was like, “You know what, I'm done with public transportation.” I got off at the next stop. There was a bike shop right there, and I bought a fixie for 200 bucks.

I watched some YouTube videos to learn how to maintain it. I started biking to class every day. Then I needed money, so I started doing the DoorDash and Postmates apps, and all that. I had a competitive aspect, so I started getting into racing.

That was the beginning of the ugly side of cycling. When you're going in as a newbie with no connections—I really felt out of place. Granted, not all cycling communities are like that. Within the fixie and the messenger and BMX cultures of cycling, people of all backgrounds just come with, “Yo, can you ride? Do you have fun when you ride? Do you complain? OK, cool, then you can ride with us.”

Cycling does suffer from a lot of elitism. After I came back to Minneapolis, I started working at a bike shop. When I go to other shops, they'll try to describe to me what I'm doing wrong with my bike. I'm like, “Yo, this is my bike. Do you ride it? I'm just trying to do X Y Z. Why are you trying to give me 1 2 3?”

There's a group ride happening almost every day in Minneapolis,  especially in the summer. I’ll probably go to one tonight. I’m going to one tomorrow. There might not be a lot of Black people, but hopefully there is still a diverse crowd, or a diverse-thinking crowd where I can feel welcome—but not overly welcome at the same time, you know? Like, some people say, “Oh, hey, I just want to welcome you and say that I'm sorry. For everything.” I’m like, “Yo, I just got here, and all I want to do is ride my bike. We don’t have to bring up slavery right away.”

After George Floyd was murdered, there was a day on I-35 when a tanker came and ran through a group of protesters that I was a part of. That was the day I saw cycling companies like Surly making statements like, “Hey, we support you. We need to do better.” I called them out. I was like, “Well, who do you support? How are you going to do better? Be more specific. Just say “Black Lives Matter” at least. That’s the bare minimum right now.” Most of my bikes are Surly, but I was 100 percent ready to just toss these bikes into the river.

The next day, Surly posted, “You know what, sorry about the BS that we wrote yesterday. Black Lives Matter." And then they wrote to me personally, apologizing about the post.

Trek is under fire because they have police contracts. I'm still wondering, how does Trek feel about that? Do they feel any sort of way about how their bikes are being misused as weapons by the American police system? I've seen videos of cops using bikes to beat people up—like holding them at the handlebar and just punching people with the bike.

I wish that the fear of things going wrong wasn't lurking over me. I was questioned about my bike at Cup Foods a couple of times by the cop who was outside of there. Like, “Oh, you know, we did get a recent report that a bike identical to this was stolen recently.”

I knew that they were just trying to rouse me. I was like, “You let me know who that person is. Because if they have a bike that's identical to this, I want to be their friend. Because I know nobody else in the world has a bike 100 percent identical to this.”

I was like, “Do you have the bottom bracket number of the bike that's stolen?” I have memorized most of my bottom bracket numbers, which is just a 16-digit-long serial code.

They were like, “Yeah.”

I was like, “You can check mine, or I can just tell you it right now.” I flipped it up, and I said it out loud at the same time. Like, “Yeah, this one's not it. Because this is not a true story. Let me take my groceries and go.”

I have too many bikes. Some serial numbers I’ve forgotten at this point, because I don't ride them that much. Or they're so niche, I don't have to worry about police interaction when I'm on that bike. But my main commuting bikes—those four. I'm always like, “I know that this is my bike. I have picture documentation. I have receipts for it.”

Me and my buddy Raekwon were biking around the lakes, and someone asked me about my bike setup. And I was borderline about to be like, “You can Google me. You can Google a literal video on this bike.” That's how prepared I am now, if a cop were to ask me the lowdown on my bike. Google me. I have made sure that you cannot question me about my bike, which is not a world that I should be living in. Hey, no, this should just be able to be my bike. —Interview conducted by Patience Zalanga