Latina bicyclists answer macho bike culture with their own chain gang
Growing up, Evelyn Martinez's mother didn't want her to ride a bike.
"She thinks it's not safe for women to be riding late at night, and cars are dangerous too," Martinez said.
Moreover, her mother told her: "Bicycles are for men."
But after a chance meeting last year, Martinez joined an all-female, predominantly Latino cycling group that is both an answer and a challenge to the aggressive male biking culture. Like men's bike crews, it defies L.A.'s monolithic car culture with an in-your-face ethic, reflected in its name: the Ovarian Psyco Cycles Brigade.
The group says the name "is a play on words intended to be playful and simultaneously create some sort of acknowledgment/acceptance/pride in one's historically oppressed body."
Without blushing, the women use "feminine positive" slogans and catchphrases too risque for a family newspaper.
"This is a way to empower ourselves and use language that describes and empowers us," said Maryann Aguirre, this summer's group leader.
http://www.latimes.com/local/la-me-psyco-riders-20130923,0,1719866.story
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