New League Certified Instructors
Meet three bike educators who attended the League of American Bicyclists’ first instructor training for women and people of color, hosted by Bike East Bay in October
Binky Brown, Hard Knox Bikes
As founder of Hard Knox Bikes, Binky Brown offers bike workshops for women, people of color, queer, trans, and gender variant communities in Oakland. Bike East Bay was able to bring this training to Oakland largely thanks to a letter she wrote asking the League of American Bicyclists for an affordable and inclusive training.
Binky told us her advice for anyone trying to build more diverse bike education spaces:
“Keep reaching out. Talk to people. Get the message out about who you’re serving and those people will find you.”
Ana Villalobos, Bike Concord
Ana Villalobos, a Latina community leader with Bike Concord, encouraged her co-presenters to start the presentation in their native languages: English, Spanish and Cantonese. Having worked as a promotora, a community health educator, for the past 12 years, she has seen the importance of using home languages for outreach even if participants are bilingual and can understand English.
Ana said, “We learn it differently, hear it differently, in our own language. That’s why I’m so hungry to teach.”
Donna Chang, Bike Walk San Leandro
Donna Chang grew up riding her bike on the campus of the Chinese University of Hong Kong. She is now one of the leaders of local advocacy group Bike Walk San Leandro.
Donna said, “Before enrolling to become an LCI, I thought the training would be for the aggressive, fast riders. That’s not usually how I think of myself.”
“I know for myself, women of color are not usually the ones to raise their hands first to be the leader. In a space like this with a lot of people who look like me ready to step into a leadership role, it’s so inspiring.”
Back to the Winter 2017 issue of RideOn, Bike East Bay’s quarterly newsletter.
