The SRAM x BESPOKED Inclusivity Scholarship aims to increase diversity in the world of framebuilding by supporting rising builders from underrepresented communities. Applications for the 2024 program are now open, and four winners will receive full support from SRAM to exhibit at BESPOKED Dresden 2024. Learn more and help spread the word here…

Main image by Simon Weller, others by Adam Gasson

Back for its third year, the BESPOKED x SRAM Inclusivity Scholarship is a program that aims to increase diversity and inclusivity in the framebuilding and cycling worlds by supporting up-and-coming builders from underrepresented communities. The year’s scholarship recipients will receive full support from SRAM to exhibit at BESPOKED Dresden 2024, which includes exhibition space, travel and accommodation expenses, and carte blanche on SRAM’s full catalogue of components, including the recently launched SRAM RED AXS groupset.

SRAM x BESPOKED Inclusivity Scholarship 2024

The criteria for application are simple: if you don’t see people like you fairly represented in cycling, you should apply! BESPOKED and SRAM say there’s no harm in applying if you’re unsure about your eligibility. They’re committed to selecting the most appropriate candidates through a lengthy and detailed selection process that’s mindful of the most effective and genuine ways to affect long-term change. Diversity and inclusivity are core to the fan-favorite show’s ethos and are also key to building a better community for everyone. If you know anyone who might be a good fit, please share this with them.

  • SRAM x BESPOKED Inclusivity Scholarship 2024
  • SRAM x BESPOKED Inclusivity Scholarship 2024

In a blog post announcing this year’s program, the BESPOKED team summarized the mission of the Inclusivity Scholarship and why it’s so important better than we ever could. Read it below:

“For decades, handmade bike shows have been a breath of fresh air, a bastion of passion-driven excellence, fun, and forward-thinking design in a marketplace philosophically eroded by large-scale manufacturers who dominate cycling culture, but they’ve also historically been extremely white, male, middle-aged, and middle-class. None of which are inherently problematic until they come at the expense of diversity and inclusion, which they often unconsciously do.

From our small corner of the cycling industry, which has the freedom, agility, and ambition to consistently do better, we recognise that people in our community feel excluded through a lack of representation, which, left unchecked, can snowball into a show that grows into a monoculture, which makes it even more hostile towards under-represented groups within the cycling industry, which is not what BESPOKED is about.

We aim to foster a truly creative and innovative space where exhibitors feel welcome to be the weirdest, most unfiltered version of themselves without having to assimilate to feel legitimate. Jackie Mautner of Untitled Cycles in Portland explained that, ‘It’s all fine claiming to be an inclusive space, but if you don’t see anyone else like you in that space, you don’t feel included, and so it’s not an inclusive space.’ There’s a huge amount of courage in being the first, and it’s already a super challenging industry, so we believe that extra effort in being there should be celebrated.”

Learn more about the 2024 SRAM x BESPOKED Inclusivity Scholarship over at Bespoked.cc.

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