Redhook Crit Holds Women’s Race for the first Time

The Redhook Criterium, now in its seventh year, started as a small affair drawing mostly friends and taking over streets in a quiet coastal Brooklyn neighborhood. It’s now one of the biggest unsanctioned bicycle races in the world with incarnations in Milan, Barcelona and Brooklyn. This year’s event was the first with a separate women’s race.

Kacey Manderfield Lloyd, who won the first RHC in 2008 against a male-dominated field, was tapped by RHC founder David Trimble to organize the women’s race.

“There’ve been requests to do a women’s race for a while,” she said. “So I wasn’t too surprised when David asked me to head it up.”

The women who made it to the podium received exactly the same prize money as the men, something that is still not universal in the world of road and track cycling.

No license is required to race RHC events. But brakeless track bikes and drop bars are, as is some degree of bike handling skill. A 180 degree turn, a high-speed chicane and a challenging 90 degree turn interspersed with straightaways made for a fast-moving yet technical course.

On race day, the word “monsoon” was bandied about—with some justification. The rain started before the first qualifying race and caused the women’s race to be pushed hours back in hopes that the weather would improve. It did not. With temperatures hovering in the mid forties Fahrenheit most of the day, that look of post-race agony that adorns the face of any racer could be found even on the faces of some of the rain-soaked spectators by day’s end.

“It’s probably good that it was raining during qualifying,” Lloyd said. “That way the riders got to test the grounds and get an idea of what they were up against.”

Riders of either gender were undeterred, though there were several crashes throughout the day. A spill on one of the tightest turns on the 1¾ mile course involved five riders in the women’s main race. The sound of racers smacking into a set of well-placed hay bails at around 20mph was terrifying, but what stuck in your ears was the collective sigh of relief when everyone rejoined the race.

Elsewhere on the course during the women’s race, Shane Ferro, passing a lapped rider, hit a chainlink fence so hard her collar bone punctured one of her lungs. After a week in a hospital, she was in good spirits and couldn’t wait to be back on her bike.

Jo Celso, who travelled from L.A. to race with the Wolfpack Hustle team, stayed on two wheels for the whole women’s race and took first place.

“It was obviously a tremendous show of grit and compassion by all racers,” Lloyd said. Of the 37 women who registered, 31 came out and raced. “Given the weather conditions,” she said, “I was extremely happy with that number.” -Scott Klocksin

World Naked Bike Ride

I imagine most cyclists cringe at the thought of riding nude. We have enough problems with comfort and chafing while clothed, so to remove those somewhat protective barriers seems counterintuitive. But the 10,000 strong World Naked Bike Ride in Portland, Oregon proves that cyclists are not only willing to ride in the nude, but enjoy it greatly…despite any discomfort. Volunteer organizer, Meghan Sinnott, explained the ride as primarily a protest, of oil-dependent transportation, lack of awareness towards cyclists, and dominant culture’s limited view of accepted body image. Put those together and you have a roving party of naked cyclists looking to draw attention to their causes while shedding some inhibitions at the same time.

The World Naked Bike Ride began, as named, in 2004 with 125 riders, but is now approaching numbers that make organization more and more difficult. The organizing group fluctuates each year and is dependent upon donations to secure permits and promotional materials. In contrast to the free-form nature of Critical Mass, the World Naked Bike Ride is coordinated with the police and the mass nudity displayed is protected under the rights of protest as free speech. In all its years of existence, only a handful of riders have been cited with infractions, which were either dismissed in court or involved very light consequences. Now that the ride is established in Portland, ticketing is no longer related to public indecency.

Sinnott admits Portland is not known for it’s racial diversity, but Facebook statistics show riders attending from all over the world and a gender breakdown that is almost equal between men and women. She also points out the average age isn’t as young as expected, with most riders falling in the 25 to 44 age category.

Although gathering thousands of cyclists together, in the nude, to ride bikes is a feat in itself, the World Naked Bike Ride has generated considerable media coverage for the issues at hand, convinced individuals of all types to shed both clothing and a fear of riding in traffic, and compelled participants to buy bikes for themselves, if only to join in on the fun. The extended impact of the ride reaches further than expected, but Sinnott states one of the problems going forward is keeping the message of reducing oil dependency and accepting all body types from getting too diluted with increasing numbers. Her personal goal with this year’s ride is to make sure the protest issues are front and center.

The ride is popular with cyclists and onlookers because it involves nudity, but Sinnott believes that only outsiders will try and sexualize the ride, while participants understand it is just good fun with an important message. Bystanders have tried to exploit the ride with photos and videos, but in Sinnott’s words, “in the end, thousands of naked people biking is not sexy.” This may be true, but that doesn’t mean the ride won’t be attractive to more and more people each year.

The Portland edition of the World Naked Bike Ride takes place on June 7th, but you can find upcoming rides closer to your area and around the world at wiki.worldnakedbikeride.org. -Scott Spitz