Ayesha McGowan’s Bumpy, Joyous, History-Making Road to Cycling’s Big Leagues

By Carvell Wallace “I usually go into things without knowing what I’m getting into,” Ayesha McGowan tells me as she dumps a pile of flour into a bowl without measuring it. “And I’m fine with that.” She is in her apartment kitchen in Spain, just outside Girona, attempting to make pancakes while converting imperial measurements to metric in her head. “Close enough,” she says, eyeballing the mound. “If it was my grandma, she wouldn’t do the math.” It is fall 2022 and I have made the trek from California to Spain to spend time with a person who is one of the only African American professional women cyclists on the planet. Which is amazing when you consider that 12 years ago, she was a commuter who just liked riding her bike around and found that she was good at it. Working as a preschool teacher in the Bed-Stuy neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York, it began to occur to her that Black women were practically nonexistent in professional cycling. Most people would have left it at that. That’s stupid. I hope that changes one day. Perhaps some of us might have followed an Instagram account, or donated to a Black-girls-on-bikes type program. But Ayesha McGowan is not like most people. She decided (“overnight”) to remedy the situation herself—and set out to become the first African American woman professional cyclist in modern history. [View in Browser]( [Bicycling]( [SHOP]( [EXCLUSIVE]( [SUBSCRIBE]( [Ayesha McGowan’s Bumpy, Joyous, History-Making Road to Cycling’s Big Leagues]( [Ayesha McGowan’s Bumpy, Joyous, History-Making Road to Cycling’s Big Leagues]( [Ayesha McGowan’s Bumpy, Joyous, History-Making Road to Cycling’s Big Leagues]( By Carvell Wallace “I usually go into things without knowing what I’m getting into,” Ayesha McGowan tells me as she dumps a pile of flour into a bowl without measuring it. “And I’m fine with that.” She is in her apartment kitchen in Spain, just outside Girona, attempting to make pancakes while converting imperial measurements to metric in her head. “Close enough,” she says, eyeballing the mound. “If it was my grandma, she wouldn’t do the math.” It is fall 2022 and I have made the trek from California to Spain to spend time with a person who is one of the only African American professional women cyclists on the planet. Which is amazing when you consider that 12 years ago, she was a commuter who just liked riding her bike around and found that she was good at it. Working as a preschool teacher in the Bed-Stuy neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York, it began to occur to her that Black women were practically nonexistent in professional cycling. Most people would have left it at that. That’s stupid. I hope that changes one day. Perhaps some of us might have followed an Instagram account, or donated to a Black-girls-on-bikes type program. But Ayesha McGowan is not like most people. She decided (“overnight”) to remedy the situation herself—and set out to become the first African American woman professional cyclist in modern history. By Carvell Wallace “I usually go into things without knowing what I’m getting into,” Ayesha McGowan tells me as she dumps a pile of flour into a bowl without measuring it. “And I’m fine with that.” She is in her apartment kitchen in Spain, just outside Girona, attempting to make pancakes while converting imperial measurements to metric in her head. “Close enough,” she says, eyeballing the mound. “If it was my grandma, she wouldn’t do the math.” It is fall 2022 and I have made the trek from California to Spain to spend time with a person who is one of the only African American professional women cyclists on the planet. Which is amazing when you consider that 12 years ago, she was a commuter who just liked riding her bike around and found that she was good at it. Working as a preschool teacher in the Bed-Stuy neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York, it began to occur to her that Black women were practically nonexistent in professional cycling. Most people would have left it at that. That’s stupid. I hope that changes one day. Perhaps some of us might have followed an Instagram account, or donated to a Black-girls-on-bikes type program. But Ayesha McGowan is not like most people. She decided (“overnight”) to remedy the situation herself—and set out to become the first African American woman professional cyclist in modern history. [Read More]( [Read More](   [Gabe’s Bike Shop: Bike Fits, Yearly Mileage & Servicing Your Bottom Bracket]( [Gabe’s Bike Shop: Bike Fits, Yearly Mileage & Servicing Your Bottom Bracket]( Our best advice on how to get a bike that fits—and how much you should ride it! Plus: what to do when your bottom bracket starts to creak! [Read More](     [This Kettlebell Core Workout Involves Zero Crunches or Sit-Ups]( [This Kettlebell Core Workout Involves Zero Crunches or Sit-Ups]( These total-body moves will work your abs to the max. 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