Giwiizhaamin

Words and photos by Alexandera Houchin

I’ve called it a ballet, even though I never resembled a ballerina. The bike race as performance art; a pink dot struggling across a computer screen.

In fact, the very first bike tour I went on was some sort of odyssey to lose that last pesky 30 pounds. I figured that if I rode my bike hundreds, thousands of miles across the country, just maybe I’d finally start to see a body that looked the way I wanted it to.

After thousands of miles on that fixed gear, I still hated my body. The very body that propelled me across states, mountain ranges, and towns seemed alien to me. How could I still be fat? How could I still hate my body?

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I set out again on a longer bike tour. And a longer one, until I rode the Tour Divide north in 2015 on a rigid 29+ Surly Krampus. I saw the racers pass me going south, and not a single one of them looked like me. I would never be able to do something like that, I thought.

I struggled my way north. I walked my bike when my riding partner pedaled. I collapsed at camp when my riding partner set up our tent. Touring the Divide was the hardest thing I’d ever done; I was definitely going to get skinny.

Except I didn’t. I rode my bike from Mexico to Canada for more than 45 days and still looked like the same ol’ Al that I always have.

For years following that effort, I lined up at bike races running away from something and punishing my body for her shortcomings. I’d show up relatively untrained and unacclimated, and I would beat my body into the ground to prove to myself that, even though I didn’t look the way I wanted, I could perform at a high level.

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I did not want to be a fat cyclist. I wanted to be a badass competitive bike racer. I wanted people to stop looking at me like, “How are you here, at this gas station, right now, like me?” I wanted people to stop underestimating me. I wanted people to stop looking at me like I was some sort of fucking miracle. I wanted to look like everybody else.

Until I saw myself on the cover of Freehub. It wasn’t that I saw myself on that cover, but I saw my mother on that cover. I saw my sister on that cover. And my auntie. And my cousins. And all of the other Anishinaabeg women I love and look up to on the cover of a mountain bike magazine, in the shape of someone who looked like me.

What’s so wrong with my body if it looks like the body of so many of the people I love?

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I’ve been thinking about my body day in and day out as I prepare to give myself to the trail again. I am trying to love myself. I am trying to remember how blessed I am to have the opportunity to do something that I love most days of my life. I am trying to be the woman my ancestors believed I would become. I am not trapped in a body that I hate; I was blessed with a body that transforms.

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I am trying to build community; I am trying to raise the bar. I’m trying to invite you to try a little harder. I believe that we are capable of great things when we lift each other up. I am just a regular ol’ Indian girl from a trailer park in Wisconsin. If I can ride a singlespeed mountain bike from Canada to Mexico in hiking boots, I believe that you can do anything you set your mind to.

Fuck it if your body doesn’t look the way you want it to; teach it to do the things you dream of.

That’s what I’m trying to do.

You can read more about Giwiizhaamin at Alexandera’s blog here, and follow her on Instagram @alexanderahouchin. Good luck to Alexandera and all the riders setting out on the 2023 Tour Divide this morning at 8 a.m. MST. You can follow along and watch for updates on our Tracker here.

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