The vision of our trip “Womxn Warriors for Land, Liberation and the Struggle” is to honor the sacred, historic lands in California, while building community and challenging our bodies physically. More specifically, during this trip, we will visit numerous BIPOC places and memorials to pay our respects to the land and its peoples.
Emmanuel Portillo was born and raised in Koreatown and South Los Angeles. Emmanuel has worked in education for the last 10 years, working closely with educators, youth, and families to support educational opportunities that cultivate and advance critical and creative thinking, racial equity, and social transformation. An adventurer at heart, Emmanuel is excited about bikepacking through the San Gabriel/Tongva Mountains to connect with the rich, complex, and erased hxstories of native/indigenous people, plants and fauna of the region. Further, some of his long-term goals of this trip is to leverage that experience and knowledge, to develop deep connections with people of the region and support other BIPOC, especially youth, interested in bikepacking.
Brenda is a southern Latina living in Nashville, Tennessee, the Cherokee/Muscogee lands. My bikepacking adventure will take me to four beautiful state parks, starting with the Obed Wild Life and Scenic River, where the Milky Way is visible to the naked eye, and ending at Percy Priest Lake. In her own words, “Southern lands carry a history of violence on people, reclaiming the outdoors for BIPOC communities is a way to reclaim our future and reimagine our existence with these beautiful lands.” I am excited to document this journey, learn from the experience and bring others along to see the beauty of the southern United States.
Sarah is a cycling commuter turned-on to bikepacking and exploring the off-roads of Georgia. She is excited to traverse the North Georgia mountains with the folx that helped make the South her home away from home. This adventure is important to her because it not only frees her from the stresses of the city, but she hopes this opportunity will heighten representation of the BIPOC cyclists in the Southeast, as well as contribute to the gear library that will serve as a resource for BIPOC womxn cyclists to fuel their own bikepacking adventures.
Cycling is a wonderful sport. It can be a solitary ride, or it could be with a small group of riders who become your friends. I love cycling because you get to breathe in fresh air outside and see how nature has changed through the seasons. You’ve heard of fish stories will it’s the same thing with cycling. We like to discuss our adventures. My dream is to bike and camp the KATY TRAIL in Missouri. I biked this trail 20 years ago. It’s time to go back and enjoy the beauty of biking next to the Mississippi River.
I live in Augusta, Maine with my son Oliver. I started a lot of new things in the last year that I really did not know existed. Biking was one of those things. I am growing my interest and confidence and want my kid to grow with me. I want to show him he can do hard things and learn about the rewards of biking earlier than I did.
Jaimie Morales is a Puerto Rican mother of two boys who applied for the grant along with two friends, Shannon Evans is a Native American single mother and Latonya Nicholson is an African American woman and mother of four. They used the grant to complete an adventure on the Great Allegheny Passage Rail Trail, also know as the GAP trail.
“I’m craving the desert trails for my future adventure and couldn’t be more exciting about this opportunity. I’m so grateful beyond words for Bikepacking Roots, they are paving the way for BIPOC adventurists like myself who have an enormous amount of love for the cycling and the outdoors. I hope my adventure inspires other organizations to invest in our BIPOC cycling community to allow other people just like myself, to have their own experience of a lifetime. “
“I am Inupiaq Native American! I plan on traveling throughout Colorado and I LOVE bikes. I was a cyclist for about 7-8 years and I competed all around the nation, I even placed nationally multiple times! I haven’t been on the bike in a long time, but this would be a great chance for me to get back on and truly enjoy the sport of cycling. Lots of love to all my other BIPOC cyclists out there!!! “
“I’m from the Big Island of Hawai’i, the land of the Kanaka ‘Ōiwi, and grew up biking on Mana, the dirt road that circles the beautiful Mauna Kea. I’ve been living in the PNW for over 12 years now and have recently discovered gravel riding here in Washington and how similar it feels to riding while growing up. When I was in the 7th grade we rode around Mauna Kea in 3 days, camping along the way. While I would love to ride that again, due to the pandemic I haven’t been home in over a year. So, I would like to create a ride in WA that connects where I’m from (Pacific Ocean) to where I’m currently living (Seattle, WA). I plan to ride across the Olympic Peninsula, West to East, avoiding most highways in attempt to connect many different forest service roads from Twin Rivers beach, on the ancestral land of the Coast Salish and S’Klallam people, to the Kingston ferry, and ending in Seattle, on the ancestral land of the Coast Salish and Duwamish people.”
