Literacy Narrative Draft #1: Girl Cyclist

Girl Cyclist
Ever since I was a little girl in the Dominican Republic, my cousin Yelissa and I used to
go on short bicycle rides around our neighborhood. The first bike I had was a kid four-wheel bike that my dad had gotten me as a present, but since I was growing up, he then changed my bike to one with two wheels, and a bigger frame. I always thought that riding my little bicycle around with my cousin was very enjoyable, and mind freeing. Coming to the United States, and leaving my bicycle behind, made me feel like I would never get to ride a bike again since I knew that my mom would not like to keep a bike in the house because to her that would take too much space to keep in the house. While I was in high school none of the sports they would offer interested me, except for cycling. I remember thinking about joining cycling my sophomore year, and not doing it because I was too afraid of stepping out of my comfort zone. I finally decided to take that step and join the cycling club “I Challenge Myself” during my last spring semester of my senior year, with one of my best friends Sheila. Sheila and I joined the cycling club together, but sadly did not finish the program together. “I Challenge Myself” is a program that provides public school students in the Bronx and NYC with opportunities to strengthen their minds, bodies and spirit, and also with lessons on how to ride a bike, bike anatomy, maintenance and nutrition. This program was one of my favorite high school experiences, it was time that I spent challenging myself, getting out of my comfort zone, motivating others and developing a passion for biking.

As I mentioned before, I decided to join the cycling club at the end of my senior year of highschool, I personally thought that since I was going to college it was time for me to start stepping out of my comfort zone and join a sport for the first time or do something out of my way. I decided that, since I knew how to ride a bike ever since I was little and I enjoyed it so much, why not join the program that was providing me with everything, the bike, gear, a wonderful, motivating and optimistic coach mates. At the beginning I recall that when we use to meet up to talk about our Sunday rides, my team was predominantly made up of guys. There were just 3 girls in the team including myself, after the first week my friend Sheila and the other girl stopped showing up and suddenly dropped out. After that I was the only girl in the team which kept constantly assisting the program on Tuesdays and Thursday and who kept going on the Sunday rides. At the beginning being the only girl was hard because I felt like an outsider. I felt like I did not belong in a group of guys, but as time progressed, I started to cope with that and learn how to interact more with them as a member of the team by motivating them as they motivated me and saying positive comments. After seeing that the cycling community is mostly practiced by males, I learned how to embraced being the only girl in the team by always showing up and just being and participating.
Every Sunday morning, we will go on rides. At the beginning we started riding from 15 to 30 miles, but as the program progressed we would increase the miles every time we rode. On May 21st 2017 was my first longest bike ride to Piermont, which was three hours away biking. That day only 2 of my fastest team mates showed up to the ride, I was running on four hours of sleep which did not help at all. At the beginning of the ride I started off getting tired, because was use to riding in the city where there were more traffic lights and every time the light turned red we stopped and that was kind of a little break or rest to drink water or get up from the saddle. While coming back from Piermont there were various hills. There was this one time during that ride where I was going up a steep hill after continuously going up hills, where I had to stop breath, drink some water and breath again, I was literally gasping for air, I felt like crying and giving up but I could not let myself and my team down, because my coach Erick and my other two teammates were motivating me. I was feeling like a failure, but instead I kept pushing myself and biked up the hill, I never thought I could do it but I did it. I learned the limits of my body and I learned that by staying focus you can get anywhere.

At the end of the program I was able to complete a 100-mile bike ride. We went all the way up to Carmel, New York which was 4 hours and 47 minutes biking. While I was riding, I was the only girl up front, I how to keep my pace very well and how to use my gears which is very important when you're riding long distance. While I was trying to race the guy in front of me he made an unnecessary turn, without communicating it or making any signals and made me crash with his bike, which made me fall and made some people behind me fall too. When I felt off my bike, it was like everything stopped, my heart dropped and I was in shock, I could not believe that I felt. I got a scratch on my knee and on my elbow no major injuries. I saw a lot of people pass me and I felt a little discourage, but as always, the coaches motivated me to keep going and I kept going.

Becoming part of the cycling program took me out of my comfort zone, it made me develop more communication skills and helped me grow into a more social and motivating person. Noticing that there are more males than females in the cycling community, makes me want to encourage more girls to join cycling and to not let the predominance of male in the community intimidate them. Instead of cycling being a challenge for me, now is more like something I like to practice in order to feel liberated and to free my mind and not only that but to also socially interact with other cyclists. Since cycling has been such a good pathway and experience for me I want to keep riding my bike and getting better at it. Cycling is not just about pedaling, sometimes it takes some mind strength to keep going, and it amazes me how my passion for it grew more just by getting out of my comfort zone.