On St. Patrick’s Day, How the Bicycle Helped Bring Feminism, Freedom, and More to Ireland

Today is the holiday of St. Patrick’s Day which falls during International Women’s History Month, plus it’s been two weeks since my last post. Also, I’m a quarter Irish-American myself. All together, those are as good a reason as any to blog. But when it comes to bicycling and Ireland, I don’t know much. Sure, I’ve heard of famous Irish pro cyclists Sean Kelly, Stephen Roche, and Dan Martin (born in England but a dual national, given his mother is Irish and related to Roche). I enjoyed watching the latter back when I tuned into the Tour de France. Martin was a cheeky breakaway and mountain climbing specialist. Professional sports isn’t for 99.9% of people who bike, though. There’s also that Idlecyclist chap, the fellow blogger who’s doing more hiking these days. (No judgement, and it still rhymes). But it was fascinating to learn that the bicycle has an important role in Irish history.

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National Native American Heritage Day and Month… and Bicycles

My last post was a mashup: a rant about commercialism and the whitewashing of the true history of Thanksgiving but also the good part of the holiday (gratitude). In keeping with that (Great) spirit and my belief that racism is you know, like, bad (der), it’s time to celebrate the next in a series mentioning the obvious but overlooked fact. That is, that people of color ride bikes just like this and many other white dudes and dudettes. We’ve taken a look at cycling in the Asian, Latino/a, and African American cultures, now it’s time for Americas First Peoples. Disclaimer: I’m a white person, and I’m not attempting to speak for anyone except myself. But I learned a lot researching this, and hopefully you will, too.

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