cycling
04. Juni, 15:11 Uhr
I want to preface this by saying that I do not mean to start any type of “race war” or recruit your pity. Instead, I write this to promote understanding and start a discussion.
Last week I was telling my Hispanic/Latino coworker about how I am an avid cyclist. Her response was, “I would like to do that but it’s a white person sport.” I was kind of curious as to what she meant, and as we talked about it more, she basically explained that it’s the type of sport that requires a high barrier to entry economically and a majority of the people who road bike tend to be Caucasian. This is what initially prompted me to discuss this topic on Reddit. Then some time later, I was doing a sportiff in an affluent area of Southern California. I have a sticker on my bike that is subtle but has the flags of both America and my mother country prominently displayed. (It’s the stickers from Velo Ink.) I noticed many of the participants on the ride really look at the sticker and dissect it with their eyes. One such lady said to me, “You must be an engineer or doctor.” I said, “Why do you ask that?” She stated, “Because you are Asian and have such an expensive bike.” For the record, I actually work in health care (not a doctor), and my average income annually is $60,000 USD – which is actually the median income of US cyclists who bike frequently (Source: http://www.srds.com/frontMatter/ips/lifestyle/).
That’s what really made me want to start this discussion.
My local bike shop (I live in a 33% Caucasian area) only has bikes in 54-56 cm sizes. One of the store representatives stated that’s the average height given the demographic of the area, but when he worked in Long Beach and Irvine, CA, they carried more 49-52 cm bikes. Retrospectively, he admitted that he didn’t realize until that very moment that the reason they had so many “smaller” frames in the Orange County area was because of how many Asians that were involved in cycling (shorter stature). And in our area, a majority of the riders are Caucasian, and thus taller. Asian is such a broad category and can be anywhere from Indian to Korean. In briefly looking at the data, Asians from say, China, average about 172.1 cm whereas their Anglo counterparts, say, Dutch, measure 182.6 cm. This is a huge difference in averages (Source: http://www.disabled-world.com/artman/publish/height-chart.shtml).
Recently, I attended a fixed gear criterium and noticed the large number of Hispanic/Latino Americans involved. The race organizer informed me that fixed gears require so few parts that building up a fixed gear – or even a single speed – is far cheaper and affordable than building a bike with gears.
My anecdotal stories may only be one small part of the equation, but I actually went off and did some research on the topic to see if anyone else wondered the same thing as me (Why are there so few minorities involved in cycling?). When I say “cycling,” I am referring to road biking and perhaps even including mountain biking, triathlons, and cyclocross.
I found an article from 2009 in which an author proposed that there are barriers to entry that prevent people from entering cycling as a sport. This high cost of entry is a “disincentive” to less affluent immigrant workers. The article goes on to say that blacks and other minorities have higher participation rates in other sports (like track and basketball) versus cycling. This makes sense because a pair of shoes and/or a basketball are far cheaper than the whole cycling getup (Source: http://www.theguardian.com/environment/ethicallivingblog/2009/aug/10/cycling-white-sport). Maybe even to some cultures, biking is a form of transportation – not a sport. In regards to transportation, for whites, bicycles are mostly used for recreation, while for Hispanics, they are typically used to reach the workplace (Source: http://policy.rutgers.edu/faculty/pucher/TQPuchRenne.pdf).
In my own home town, a group of minorities (Cuban, Filipino, Korean, Black) started a cycling group. Their name is actually a play on words of the derogatory racial term that the white riders would call them. In the comradery, they have been able to bring in minorities in to cycling. In fact, one of the members in my triathlon coach. In other cities, forming cycling groups has had great outcomes for including minorities in the sport (Source: http://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2013/07/01/197416434/minority-cyclists-black-women-bike).
So what I ask is, “Is there enough being done to bring minorities in to the sport of cycling?” Also, does it matter – and why does it matter? I think that it matters because of what diversity can bring to the sport. When I watch Grand Tours, it tends to be a sea of white dudes with a sparse few Hispanics/Latinos (Team Movistar) and perhaps a few Black/Africans (Team Dimension Data for Qhubeka). More recently, Daniel Teklehaimanot was praised for being the first Africna rider to garner the KOM kjersesy. Locally, Charon Smith is a well-recognized competitive cyclist (https://www.instagram.com/charonlsmith/).
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