Three Perspectives from Sisters in the Wild UK 2021

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The inaugural edition of Sisters in the Wild UK took place late last month, and we checked in with three attendees to learn more about their weekend of bikepacking and building community. Find their perspectives here, along with a joyful gallery of photos from the event…

Photos by Roxanna Barry (@roxannagbaz)

Following the first UK edition of Sisters in the Wild (SITW), a women’s bikepacking community event that was founded by our friend Neza Peterca (@t.w.w.c) in Slovenia in 2020, we asked three participants, including organizer Charlotte Inman, to share a little about their experiences and what the event meant to them. Read a trio of vignettes from what sounds like an incredibly successful first Sisters in the Wild UK below.

Charlotte Inman (@charlotte_inman_)

Sisters in the Wild UK Organizer

Over a blissfully sunny weekend in late July, 80 women, non-binary, and trans folks gathered in the United Kingdom’s Lake District for Sisters In The Wild UK.

Building on the spirit of 2020’s SITW in Slovenia, the event aimed to create a supportive space in which to build community, connection, confidence, and skills to go explore by bike. Two days of off-road riding, workshops, and communal dinners brought riders from all backgrounds together to share rides, stories, and experiences. Seasoned bikepackers pitched up next to folks just nurturing the seeds of their first adventure. Shiny new gravel bikes shared trails with rented e-bikes, and 90s mountain bikes were dusted off for the occasion.

  • Sisters in the wild UK
  • Sisters in the wild UK

A lot has happened in since COVID put the first attempt at a UK SITW event on hold last November. If you look and listen closely, you’ll feel the beginnings of a revolution happening. Like all good revolutions, it’s been simmering up from the grassroots. Tired with a perceived absence of inclusive and fun spaces to ride bikes, women-led off-road riding groups have been emerging all over the country.

For many of us, the periods of lockdowns and enforced isolation characterising the last 18 months have spurred on a new thirst for authentic human connection and shared experiences. With epic adventures and travel put on hold, we’ve been forced to look at how we build those connections and experiences in the places we live. That a humble bike ride has become the medium for creating that connection makes sense. Bikes have the power to be a great equalizer. When you take a group of those bikes and their riders off-road, you create space and time for conversation. The reality of classic British “gravel” terrain creates opportunities to overcome challenges together that aren’t based purely on speed or fitness or the type of bike you’re riding.

  • Sisters in the wild UK
  • Sisters in the wild UK
  • Sisters in the wild UK
Sisters in the wild UK

Lockdown created a landscape where these groups – like New Forest Offroad Club, Lakes Gravel Gang, Steezy Collective, Northern Roll CC – have been connected not physically, but by their shared matriarchal values. Inclusion, accessibility, community, vulnerability. No-drop rides, no uniform. The best bike is the one you have. Harnessing social media to be present and proud and interrupting an often male-dominated stream of cycling images and stories. For some, these group rides are a political expression. For others, they’re simply the chance for a few hours of freedom on a bike ride with good people.

The UK Sisters in the Wild event was a chance for many of these communities to come together in person for the first time. An all-female cast led free bike mechanics sessions, ran bikepacking workshops, and guided rides, and the atmosphere was buzzing with inspiration and ideas. That everybody left the Lake District with 80 new cheerleaders to help turn those ideas into reality speaks volumes for the power of community and a bike ride to make great things happen.

  • Sisters in the wild UK
  • Sisters in the wild UK
  • Sisters in the wild UK
  • Sisters in the wild UK
  • Sisters in the wild UK

Katie Kaestner-Frenchman (@katie.kaestner)

Steezy Collective/Northern Roll CC

It’s so easy to be an isolated cyclist as a woman. Personally, stumbling into Steezy Collective not long after I got on a bike last year changed everything for me. From the first time I rode with them, I knew I’d found myself home. Right away, I was connected to people leading inclusive groups across the country, I had access to so much knowledge, and maybe most importantly, I had an invisible peloton supporting me on my bike whenever I went out, despite most of them living quite far away.

When I stepped off the train in the Lake District, I knew that I was entering yet another magical cycling space, a chance not only to ride and explore, but for this powerful network to grow and be strengthened. There were riders from across the UK and I was thrilled to come with new friends I had met through starting our own queer and women-led collective in Manchester, Northern Roll. For me, the real power of Sisters in the Wild lies in what comes next, as those who attended nurture their local communities and make plans to create even more events like this. In that way, every gathering like this is a revolution, and Sisters in the Wild will always stand as one of the originators of a beautiful, formidable movement.

Sisters in the wild UK
  • Sisters in the wild UK
  • Sisters in the wild UK
  • Sisters in the wild UK

Nic Carass (@nicjocarass)

New Forest Offroad Club

It took some of our group 11 hours to get to Cumbria from our New Forest base in Hampshire due to road closures. Eleven hours of sitting in a car on a 28-degree Friday on the M6. It’s a testimony to the event that everyone would endure the same again in a heartbeat for a repeat of the SITW weekend. Within an hour of arriving, we were sipping on a cold beer and eating a delicious vegan dinner alongside people who we’d wanted to ride with for months. Two days of group rides, through the beautiful Cumbrian landscape, and the weekend of the 25-26th of July 2021 will be forever etched in our collective memories. Majestic, monumental, and hugely significant are a few words that New Forest Offroad Club riders used to describe the weekend. We can’t wait for 2022; we’ll be there with bells on.

  • Sisters in the wild UK
  • Sisters in the wild UK
  • Sisters in the wild UK
Sisters in the wild UK

You can follow Sisters in the Wild UK on Instagram @sistersinthewilduk.

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