What if we could bring a different narrative into the bike world, and other male dominant outdoors sports? What if we could supplement technical bike talk with relatable stories of healing and empowerment?

If you are wondering those things (like me), consider this an invitation to build a bridge between two worlds:

the masculine and feminine,
bikes and bodies,
doing and being,
performing and softening,
striving and surrendering…

What if we could build bridges of connection between those topics that others see as disconnected… but in fact, when connected, create more depth?

The answer is in the form of sisterhood mountain bike rides that are less about riding and more about creating empowering fine art in the heart of mother nature. A long-time dream to bring into Bellingham, and beyond… with prospective partnerships from here to Whistler, BC.

But first, let me tell you how it started.

Soon after moving to Bellingham, I began a relationship with someone who was a bit more conservative than me. Which meant that suddenly the essence of who I was, was wrong. My nude art was wrong. My modeling for other photographers was wrong. My morning coffee practice that I shared with heartfelt, healing reflections was wrong. Being friends with guys was wrong.

Who did this person love? Because it certainly wasn’t me.

And why fall for a woman who, in the end, feels threatening to their masculinity? Why capture the colorful, exotic bird… only to clip her wings and put her in a cage? They remove all the things that made her the wild spirit they supposedly fell in love with. And when she finally loses her colour and dies… well, she is blamed for her own death.

Once I untangled myself and began the journey of finding myself again, I began coming back to my art. And with the prominence of bikes and outdoor sports in Bellingham, I began to brainstorm how I could pair activity and art together.

I am a builder between worlds, after all. How could I weave together two things that others see as completely unrelated? And how could I rewrite a sport as a space that is my own?

There is the masculine of doing hard things, and there is the feminine of softening into a self-love session held by nature.

There is the act of zooming through that same nature, and the marination felt in the pause of forest bathing.

They are two worlds that to many feel disconnected and unrelated. But to me, it is all connected. It’s between the realms in which I am the map maker who draws symbols of constellations between the stars.

Ah, well, I do love a challenge. That, and I have a way of seeing the dots that connect ideas, concepts, and people… dots that are invisible to many. Almost to a fault, in fact.

Why can’t you see how this relates to that? I often wonder, while pulling my hair out in frustration.

Why don’t you see what I’m seeing?

So, nakedness: meet bikes. Bikes, meet nakedness.

The Dream: Women’s Fine Art Empowerment Rides

Since I began coming back to my art practice, it’s been a dream to start a women’s community mountain bike ride (or hiking group), in which the peak of the experience is to get naked somewhere on our route and make beautiful, feminine art.

Bikes, meet mindfulness… with a twist.

To balance the doing with the being. To frolic under the open, non-judgmental arms of the trees and celebrate our humanity. To feel safe in the innocence of our bare skin: no one as a predator consuming, or projecting the eroticism of the female form.

One possible connection between worlds I saw was in was figuring out a way to get a women’s mountain bike ride going in Bellingham. Not just to be about riding or “epic descents,” but to use the bike as a vehicle to get to beautiful places, and invite the women to pedal into a healing space of sisterhood: with the offering of nude and/or implied nude photos somewhere mystical.

And finally, after many non-starter conversations with brands, two things happened:

First, I had a great conversation with numerous bike brands at the NW Tune-Up festival. (More on that coming soon as a festival recap to the Her Handlebars column.)

Second, I went on a ride with a friend who is sponsored by Evil Bikes. Originally, I went with her to practice some artistic photos of her jumping around on the new trail, Cedar Fever. As the afternoon wore on and we moved from one feature to the next, I started to think to myself: hmmm… I never have my camera up on top of Galbraith, and I especially never have a friend and my camera up on Galbraith…

And… most importantly… the fireweed are firing!

It was a perfect triangle: bikes, camera, fireweed. (See? The invisible dots aligned.)

After devoting ourselves to a container of high performance in the form of drops, jumps, and truly impressive bike skills, we wandered our way into the flowering meadows to make art.

The intention was for me to enjoy some naked modeling time, with her behind the camera — but as she captured my frolicking amongst the bright pinks and soft whites, she was inspired to step in front of the camera as well. Naked, except for her knee pads dropped to her ankles and mountain bike shoes still firmly on her feet. A sight to be seen, and a benefit to being surrounded by a sea of flowers: hidden fashion faux pas.

As she began to soften into herself, swaying her hips, and running her fingers tenderly along the stems of the fireweed, I witnessed the mask of the masculine bro culture melt away. The doing and striving were stripped away with her clothes, and the flowers invited her to sink fully into her body and connect with her heart. To feel the world around, and within her.

And as we both pulled our clothes back on, feeling a little lighter and a lot more free, she emphasized how much we need this. We need to interrupt the jumps and berms and high-risk descents with a space where we can soften and connect in sisterhood, without putting on a show. We need to connect to the nature that we are zooming through, to hit pause for a moment on a ride, and create something beautiful. To feel that we are the “something beautiful” in the art that we are creating.

To bring something different into what it means to infuse some extra feminine energy into biking. To simply be two girls giggling in a hidden meadow between busy trails on a summer afternoon.

I thought about the conversations I’ve had about bringing more feminine perspective into the bike world, and what people think that means. I don’t want tutus or frills.

And I thought about the endless conversations I’ve had for over a decade about women finding healing in removing the layers of their clothes in forests and on mountain tops. About how there is always the question, “Do you have OnlyFans?” (The answer has always, and will always be: no. Anyone asking this question is missing the point.)

I thought about how the female friends I have in the male-dominant sports industries have been hesitant to share the healing, empowering photos that we have created together — to reclaim their femininity when it was so often stolen from them. To reclaim the softness that they had to harden in order to survive and be seen as enough.

I thought about how spaces like OnlyFans, on the surface, preach empowerment for women. But then I thought about how you talk about nakedness and bikes, and people visualize OF athletes. Is it really progress? It perpetuates that the woman’s body is performative and sexual and erotic… rather than being for the woman with the body, who is reclaiming it to heal and take up space for herself, and no one else.

It, unfortunately, only creates more hesitancy for the women I know and witness to share the empowering experiences and art that we create together. There is enough instabilty in the culture that everything must pass through the lens of: will this erase my credibility? Will I be taken seriously? Does this add to my striving to prove myself in this world?

It is an industry in which we are still existing through a lens of performance and masculinity. Yes, there is a place for it. And at the same time, there is space to create a different kind of place — one that does not cancel the other out, but adds balance and depth.

So, what does this mean for the bike industry? Or any outdoors sports industry, for that matter?

Well, it’s my hope to continue to do this work, and get it in front of more eyes. To shift the narrative about what it means to be a strong female, and to show that nakedness is a naturally human way of being to celebrate and turn into art. To hold spaces for women to heal, after years of self-protection within these industries.

I remember years ago reaching out to an outdoor women’s publication with my nude nature photography pitch. Their response was, “we want people to know that women have value with their clothes on.”

Yes, and? Women can also have value with their clothes off, without being consumed or preyed upon by others. The woman’s body does not have to, by default, be erotic or sexual or for the benefit of others.

I get the motives. When one thing has dominated belief systems, you want to swing the pendulum in the other direction. When sex sells, you swing toward purity. But insisting that women must have clothes on to have value runs a risk of strengthening the belief that the stripping away of those clothes falls into a very specific social narrative.

My art is here to argue against that. The removal of clothing is not an invitation.

It’s a narrative I will keep working to change. Bringing a bit more beauty and sisterhood into the world of mountain biking, sans tutus. And for myself, to take back a sport that, for me, has been saturated in a need to perform and to prove myself. A sport in which I have been valued by how often, and how well, I mountain bike.

Maybe that isn’t what matters most in life.

Maybe self-worth has a different metric of measurement.