4.7 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 27 May 2025
⏱️ 30 minutes
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0:00.0 | There wasn't really a pathway to becoming pro. |
0:05.3 | I didn't know what I was doing. |
0:06.3 | I was just making it up as I went along. |
0:08.6 | It was a lot of just training by myself and racing by myself |
0:12.2 | and traveling as much as possible and trying to get as many opportunities as I could |
0:16.7 | until I finally got the big one. |
0:22.2 | Aisha McGowan was working as a music teacher and bike messenger when she set her sights |
0:27.5 | in becoming a professional cyclist. There were a few black women in her sport at the time, |
0:32.7 | but Ayesha knew she had potential, and she worked hard in pursuit of her goal. Eventually in 2021, Aisha made |
0:40.0 | history when she became the first African-American professional female road cyclist. While health |
0:46.6 | issues led her to an early retirement, Aisha is now on a mission to create more opportunities |
0:51.7 | for women of color to get out and ride. I'm Shelby Stanger, |
0:56.1 | and this is Wild Ideas Worth Living, an REI Co-Op Studios production presented by Capital One and the |
1:02.8 | REI Co-Op MasterCard. |
1:08.9 | Aisha McGowan, welcome to Wild Ideas Worth Living. Thank you. Okay, I'm talking to you and you're in Spain. Where in Spain are you living? I'm in Gerona. It is about an hour and 20 minute drive north of Barcelona. I love it. Okay, well, let's go back to the beginning. How did you find cycling? |
1:29.6 | Well, I rode bikes as a child. I got two bikes for Christmas when I was five years old, one from |
1:35.1 | my parents and one from my grandparents. And I learned how to ride by teaching myself by going |
1:40.6 | in circles in my grandparents' garage. And I skinned both knees in the process, |
1:45.2 | but I got it. And I think I had a pretty typical, like, playful bike experience as a child. |
1:54.5 | Like, you ride a bike with your friends, you go to their house, whatever, nothing spectacular there. |
2:00.1 | But then as an adult, I was going to Berkeley College of |
2:04.0 | Music in Boston, Massachusetts. And I moved there in January, so it was really, really cold. |
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