Richmond queer and BIPOC bike groups form community spaces

Recess Forever at the Oregon Hill lookout during its group ride. Photo by Selna Shi.

Selna Shi, News Editor

The Richmond bike community has various groups such as Broad Street Bullies, DFL, VCU Bike Club and Critical Mass. Richmond queer people have created their own bike groups such as Bikes Up, Recess Forever and Dykes on Bikes to foster queer community spaces in the city, according to organizers of the queer bike groups.

The group Bikes Up held a ride Nov. 25 circling from the Fan neighborhood to the southside of Richmond and through Byrd Park, exploring hidden parks and waterfalls in the city. 

Bikes Up hosted its first ride in July and has since held rides twice a month on Wednesday nights, according to Shi Smith, a founder of Bikes Up. All the rides start and end at Scuffletown Park.

Ahmari Jackson and Smith formed Bikes Up, a bike group “by BIPOC for BIPOC in RVA,” after wanting to create a community space for queer, Black, Indigenous and people of color, Smith said. 

“I recently moved to Richmond like a year and half ago. When I first got here, I didn’t realize how important community was,” Smith said. “As a Black queer person, community is so important. I feel like we just want to give that to people.”

The group is not just a bike group, according to Smith.

“We do other things,” Smith said. “The main thing that we do is bikes, but we did the community cookout, we’re going to do potlucks and friendsgiving.” 

The group has helped queer BIPOC people find friends and a support system, including Smith himself, he said.

“We just wanted to create a space that we can feel comfortable in, a space where people can feel comfortable being themselves and finding community is also really important,” Smith said.

Bikes Up hosted a community cookout last month collecting non-perishable foods and toiletries for Richmond Community Fridges and distributing free helmets to community members, according to Smith.

The group collected hundreds of food donations and took the food to different areas in Richmond that experience higher rates of food insecurity, said Ahmari Jackson, co-founder of Bikes Up. They said they got the idea from Cranksgiving, which is a “nation wide food drive on two wheels.” 

Jackson and Smith ride the routes at least twice before leading the group for the bimonthly Wednesday rides, they said. The routes usually include a scenic spot and a convenient store stop, Jackson said.

Jackson said the bike community and culture in Richmond is vibrant. 

“Something about the biking community here, it is just huge here, the possibilities are endless,” Jackson said.

Both Jackson and Smith said they emphasize bike safety during the rides, suggesting bikers to be wary of cars, wear a helmet and bike in groups.

“We don’t drop people,” Jackson said. “We have signals that we use to let the group know how to stay together and if there’s any bike problems, we stop.” 

Hunter Wang, a community member who regularly rides with Bikes Up, said riding with Bikes Up gives them a sense of solidarity.

“It definitely feels different riding with BIPOC folks as there is some solidarity with having to exist in white dominant social spaces,” Wang said. “I remember talking a lot with Ahmari about how we enjoyed parts of the Richmond bike scene but felt alienated sometimes by the lack of BIPOC presence, a feeling that seems to be shared by a lot of folks.”

Wang also rides with Recess Forever, a queer bike group that was formerly part of Radical Adventure Riders, she said. 

Wang started riding with Recess Forever when she was still relatively closeted, she said. 

“At the time, I was exploring my trans and nonbinary identity having left an abusive home environment,” Wang said. “Recess provided a safe space where I could also socialize and meet other trans folks.”

Natalie V. Hoskins III, a ride leader of Recess Forever, first started riding with the group a year ago, she said.

“About a year ago, I broke up with my ex-girlfriend and I didn’t have any friends in the city of Richmond,” Hoskins said. “I moved from Gloucester to Richmond two and a half years ago now. I found that in that time, I wasn’t really sure how to make friends because I’m not a VCU student personally.” 

Recess Forever starts from Oregon Hill lookout every Monday and sometimes joins rides with other bike groups, according to Hoskins. 

Hoskins has “so much fun” with Recess Forever and creating an intentional space for trans, women, intersex and gender non-conforming people is important as there are many queer folks in the biking community, she said.

Lauren Johnson founded Dykes on Bikes, another queer bike group, after she was gifted a new bike from the leader of Bike Monday Bros when her original bike was stolen, she said. The bike had been donated to Bike Monday Bros. 

Johnson felt she needed to start regularly biking after receiving the new bike, she said. She named the bike “Bikael Jackson” from the comedy show Broad City. The frame of Johnson’s bike says “DYKE ON A BIKE” along with “lesbian” in Chinese characters.

“I am a dyke on a bike. Just trying to negate the negative part of the word you know,” Johnson said. 

The group starts from Babe’s, a lesbian bar in Carytown, and joins DFL — another Richmond bike group — in their rides every week on Wednesdays. 

Johnson said the group is a safe place for queer people to simply exist and ride bikes. 

“Get a bike, ride a bike,” Johnson said.

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