This winter is the one year anniversary of the launch of Women Bike Colorado (WBC)—a Facebook group for women who bike.

When we started this, we honestly didn’t know what would happen. Just one year later, we have over 1,300 members, a fun WBC graphic, a WBC cape (just for fun!) and such an engaged group of women that we needed to take it to the next level. Because we weren’t sure what the next level meant, we formed a group of WBC “super sheroes” (an advisory group) to work closely with us gals at Bicycle Colorado to continue and grow the effort.

Our super sheroes introduced themselves last week at the Colorado Bicycle Summit and shared their stories and focus areas. They also asked the audience to share why they ride (in one word). Our goal, simply put, is to get more women riding so that they too can feel and experience all of these great reasons to ride:

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Who are the super sheroes?

These ladies are inspiring. They are all willing to volunteer their time and energy to help get more women bicycling in Colorado. They are passionate and they are talented. As part of the super shero responsibilities, they each chose an area of focus, and we will all work together—along with the larger WBC community—to encourage more women to ride.

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• Andrea Browne will focus on reaching women who are recovering from addiction and she will also support fundraising efforts for WBC.
• Estefania Dries and Carol Trejos both plan to focus on getting more Latina women riding.
• Gypsy Garcia is our community connector. She will continue to plan and promote events, with a focus on inclusiveness and spreading the WBC love. We will soon be planning monthly rides and schmoozing opportunities.
• Pam Hill is an experienced safety teacher and advocate with many years of Olympic-level coaching. (She is also recovering from a hit and run incident and is just downright inspiring.)
• Kati Olivares is an experienced bicycle educator, and her focus is teaching more women riders about commuting and biking for transportation.

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And I, Jenna, plan to launch the Colorado Bike School—a new bicycling hub that will provide learn-to-ride classes for adults and kids.

The initial focus of the school will be teaching adult women how to ride, something I have been doing on the side for many years now. Later, class offerings will expand to include safety rides, confident commuting classes, group rides for Spanish speakers and much more.

The Colorado Bike School

We are just getting started on this, so I don’t have all the details yet. The idea is a result of teaching private lessons for kids and adults and hearing story after amazing story about how long they have been scared or intimidated to learn. Then, in one brave and bold afternoon, they meet me and learn to ride at age 12, 30, 50 or 64. It is an amazing thing to be a part of, and there are more adults and kids out there who want to learn but don’t know where to go.

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Once established, my vision is that the Colorado Bike School will become a hub for all of the great things we plan to do with WBC. And don’t worry, we won’t forget about the men!

Starting the bike school

New Belgium gave Bicycle Colorado a $5,000 grant to start the Colorado Bike School. (Thank you, New Belgium!) Right now I am looking for home(s) for teaching classes. We already have the bikes, the expertise and the passion in great abundance.

We will start this spring, and I will rely on all of you to find both adults and kids who have never learned. They are all around you, but may not talk about it openly. When the Colorado Bike School opens, help us connect these future riders to our school, and together we will continue to get more people on bikes.

If you have a story of learning to ride as an adult, please share it in the comments![/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]