She fell in love with cycling, but was tired of never seeing anyone else who looked like her on two wheels. So she did something about it.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Throughout May, National Bike Month, our <\/em>People of Interest<\/em><\/a> series is spotlighting New York cyclists who are breaking the mold and making a difference on two wheels.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n \u201cM<\/span>y community has a lot of problems that are institutionally heaped upon it that may never be resolved,\u201d says\u00a0Courtney Williams, a 32-year-old African-American woman who lives in Brooklyn.\u00a0\u201cBut we still have a need to take care of ourselves, and I know this sounds really hippy-dippy, but bicycles are these magic machines that can kind of cure all.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Williams, who works in business planning and development counseling, is on a quest to bring the joy of those magic machines to more people in communities of color. \u201cI just want people to experience the joy that I feel when I\u2019m on a bicycle,\u201d she says. \u201cI don\u2019t want people missing out.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Cycling is so woven into Williams\u2019 life that it takes three bikes to accommodate her needs: one for long-distance rides; a twelve-speed for locking up on errands and short trips around the city; and a pretty sky-blue cruiser for when she wears dresses. But not long ago, she didn\u2019t bike at all.<\/span><\/p>\n Courtney Williams<\/strong><\/span><\/p><\/div>\n Growing up in Gary, Indiana, Williams liked to ride, but it eventually fell by the wayside. Then she looked out her window one day, a year after moving to New York in 2009, and noticed a new bike lane running through her Brooklyn neighborhood. She got a bicycle \u2013 a heavy steel framed one that was too small and not very good \u2013 and started riding. The next year she did the forty-mile Tour de Bronx<\/a>, a sightseeing ride that draws thousands every year and ends with a party at the Botanical Garden. That affirmed that she could handle distance, and left her with the urge to venture out beyond the Bronx. \u201cI didn\u2019t know where I wanted to go, but I knew I was going to go places,\u201d she says, sitting at the Pillow Cafe on a recent afternoon near her home in Brooklyn.<\/span><\/p>\n But she didn\u2019t want to do it solo. Over the next few years, she became a regular in the city\u2019s cycling scene, going on rides with advocacy groups like Transportation Alternatives<\/a> and We Bike NYC<\/a>, which promotes women in cycling. She also came across Black Girls Do Bike<\/a> on Facebook, which looked promising but didn\u2019t have any local rides in New York.<\/span><\/p>\n Any time she\u2019d see a black woman anywhere on a bike, Williams would go up to her and ask, \u201cDo you know there are other black women on bikes like you?\u201d The response, she says, would always be: \u201cI thought I was the only one.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Meanwhile, she was learning from her excursions, and saw that a lot of the people on these rides had buddies. \u201cAnd I was like, \u2018where\u2019s my buddy?\u2019\u201d she recalls. \u201cThen one day I just decided, \u2018I\u2019m going to make this happen.\u2019\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Williams asked Black Girls Do Bike if she could organize a New York event, got a green light, and in May 2014 ten women showed up at Grand Army Plaza in Brooklyn for her first ride. Wanting it to be purposeful, she took them to a bike fair in Park Slope, and for the next two years, led two rides every month for the BGDB New York chapter. \u201cIt became my second full-time job,\u201d she says of the volunteer planning, promoting and riding. \u201cI made sure everything was seamless. My approach was to create a one-hundred-percent-sincerely welcoming environment,\u201d one in which no one would get left behind.<\/span><\/p>\n To boost \u201crider development,\u201d she noted which women were having trouble and followed up with them to help. She would also offer instruction during rides, showing the novices how to signal and when to change gears. She offered both long and short rides, and took participants to women-centric bike events like CycloFemme<\/a>, an annual global ride for women on Mother\u2019s Day, as well as to non-biking female empowerment events like the Women in Comics Convention in the Bronx.<\/span><\/p>\n Jone\u00e9\u00a0Billy, who is 32, lives in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, and works in community development, first met Williams two years ago and was impressed when she came across her leading a huddle of women. \u201cShe took command,\u201d says Billy, who was new to cycling herself, \u201cand that\u2019s what drew me to her.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Courtney bikes through Clinton Hill.<\/strong><\/span><\/p><\/div>\n Billy went on many of Williams\u2019 Black Girls Do Bike rides, which she describes as \u201csafety first,\u201d but also \u201clighthearted and fun,\u201d and eventually became a leader. She says Williams \u201cpushed me and other ladies like me to do more, to venture out and seek other opportunities,\u201d whether taking an intensive bike maintenance class or doing something they didn\u2019t think they were physically capable of \u2013 like bicycle racing on a velodrome track, which Billy says will be her next step. \u201cShe motivates ladies to do whatever the next level is for them, to accomplish that goal, and then to step it up,\u201d she says.<\/span><\/p>\n Maudene Nelson, a 67-year-old cycling enthusiast and nutritionist who lives in Yonkers, just north of the Bronx, also appreciates Williams\u2019 leadership. \u201cI know there are women who\u2019ve been influenced by Courtney\u2019s role in encouraging all of us to be mentors,\u201d she says, \u201cand I credit her for having created the environment for the rest of us to help others get into cycling.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Williams\u2019 rides were open to whoever wanted to join. But the point for Williams was to ride with people like her, as she puts it, and to create \u201ca safe place for black women to feel relaxed about their particular needs and concerns about cycling.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n African-Americans were systematically excluded from cycling for a long time, as with other sports in U.S. history, and ended up doing it less as a result. That seems to be rapidly changing. According to a 2013 report<\/a> by the League of American Bicyclists and the Sierra Club, from 2001 to 2009 ridership among African-Americans doubled, despite the lack of representation in advocacy groups<\/a> and the lack of cycling infrastructure in communities known as \u201ctransit deserts.\u201d A number of minority cycling groups have sprung up in recent years all over the country, including Red, Bike & Green<\/a>, a collective founded in 2007 and aimed at creating a black bike culture; and the National Brotherhood of Cyclists<\/a>, founded the following year by a network of affiliated black cycling clubs. In 2011, a group called Black Women Bike: DC<\/a> was formed and two years later the national Black Girls Do Bike was born on Facebook. There are many more.<\/span><\/p>\n Last year, Williams ended her time with Black Girls Do Bike due to disagreements over how it was being run and decided to apply her talents to starting up The Brown Bike Girl<\/a>, a bicycle consultancy. Her goal is to \u201cgrow other leaders of color,\u201d she says, along with more cyclists. \u201cI\u2019m there to directly work with a brother and sister who loves cycling and wants to start their own club or initiative or whatever iteration of cycling they want to bring to their community. I\u2019m here to help institutions and individuals who want to do that. There\u2019s definitely a need for it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Looking ahead a year or two, Williams envisions running bike club organizing 101 workshops, and those resulting in many new bike clubs for people of color. She also hopes to work with nonprofits to support campaigns in underserved POC neighborhoods. \u201cEverything is on the table,\u201d she says. \u201cPeople with the power \u2013 this includes average Joes and Janays who need to recognize the power in themselves \u2013 just need to reach out, be serious about bringing more people to the fore, and we can put our heads together and work it out. Sky\u2019s the limit.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n![\"Courtney](\"http:\/\/kalamu.com\/neogriot\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/narratively-logo1.jpg\"){kind=logo}
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