Ride for Racial Justice is partnering with
SBT GRVL again to offer 30 BIPOC athletes a full-ride to the SBT GRVL Gravel Race in 2023!
Introducing Our 2022 Team:
Ajoa Abrokwa
Ajoa Abrokwa is the founder of She Is Focused and is a "multisport mom" from Philadelphia, Pa. Over the past two years, she has developed a love for cycling. After participating in several competitive cycling events such as a triathlon relay with the D.I.S.K. Triathlon Organization, ToAD Crit Race Series, and a few other individual and team multisport events, Ajoa immediately felt a connection to cycling and is in constant pursuit of both self-improvement and community impact.
Ajoa was featured in the “Gear of the Year” issue of Bicycling Magazine and had a documentary created about her life using cycling as a way to combat the mental challenges of the pandemic titled “From Quarantine to Q.R.T.” produced by Love Now Media.
Holding true to her passion and the commitment she made after being featured by USA Cycling’s Women in Cycling Campaign, #LeadHerForward, Ajoa is not only a youth cycling coach for Bicycling Coalition Youth Cycling, she is also committed to using the bike and other physical activities as tools to enhance overall quality of wellbeing. Ajoa is a proud member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Inc. and enjoys spending time with her three children, traveling, and making an impact wherever she goes.
Alexandria Farrell
Alexandria Farrell is a Trinidadian American and Bushwick native from Brooklyn, NY. During the summer of 2020, she found a sense of purpose through cycling for social justice and became a leader of a new and diverse cycling group that evolved into a large community of bike enthusiasts who also care deeply about social justice.
Cycling for social justice is especially near to her heart because it's how she found her partner. Together they’ve enjoyed bikepacking, cyclocross, and leading groups of peers on a bike ride from NYC to DC with Ride to DC, an annual ride that is one of the longest bike protests in the country. She likes to volunteer at the local bike co-op, the Mechanical Gardens, where their mission is to democratize bike knowledge and empower people to become more self-sufficient bike owners. In 2021, she began racing with Be Cyclocross, whose mission is to demonstrate that Black & Brown athletes have a place in cyclocross.
Cycling has become an integral part of her life and self-care. She’s excited to be a part of Ride for Racial Justice because it aligns with her personal goal to increase the representation of people of color in the world of cycling and encourage others to find freedom through infinite adventures.
Allison Higginbotham
Allison Higginbotham is a pediatric/neonatal hospitalist living and working in Northern California. The outdoors and athletic endeavors have always been a central part of her life. Growing up with a love for the outdoors she often wished for more BIPOC representation. Bicycles have been a way to meet people, a necessary form of transportation, and the ultimate form of escape and relaxation.
After finally finishing school, she is now finding her way back to all cycling has to offer. Allison is excited to encourage more people to discover what cycling and getting outdoors can do while taking on the challenge of SBT Gravel!
Alyssa Gonzalez
Alyssa Gonzalez (She/Her) grew up in New England, spending most of her youth and teen years in Connecticut. She moved to Colorado in 2016 to pursue her master’s degree in User Experience Design and was introduced to outdoor sports soon after.
As a Hispanic and SE Asian woman of color getting into the “outdoors” as an adult, she struggled to find her place or to feel like she belonged. It wasn’t until the spring of 2020, that she found her passion for advocacy and started to discover communities of other people of color in the outdoors. The BLM movement coming to the forefront of our country was extremely impactful for her. It was the first time in her life where she saw Black and Brown voices speaking up about race and social injustices on such a large platform.
Alyssa works as a Product Designer for Outside inc. and is an advocate for women of color in cycling and snow sports. She’s sponsored and supported by Pivot Cycles, Hunt Wheels, Wild Rye, Rossignol, and Hammerhead. Cycling has changed her life in so many ways and she is excited to be a part of the Ride for Racial Justice team to bring more representation, diversity, and equity to the start line.
Ann Nguyen
Ann Nguyen (She/Her) is a proud daughter of Vietnamese immigrants, born and raised in Savannah, Georgia, and now living in Denver, Colorado.
As an avid city bicyclist and car-free for a decade, she is committed to providing safer streets and building awareness in her community through her lifestyle, work, and leadership roles. Ann leads the Equity and Inclusion effort in her regional office and sits on the Bicycle Colorado RIDE (short for Respect, Inclusion, Diversity, and Equity) Advisory Board.
She is a licensed landscape architect and urban designer who leads public interest-based projects and creates accessible and sustainable open spaces and streetscapes. Ann understands that bringing equity through design instigates positive change and uplifts marginalized communities when it is deeply rooted in the stories of people and place.
This will be her first dip into the sport of gravel racing!
Ariel Marlowe
Howdy! My name is Ariel Marlowe (He/They), and while I was raised in NC (raise up), I currently live in Austin, TX.
Living in Austin and seeing the effects of underrepresentation, I chose to create, share and hold space for myself and others like me by contributing to the work Austin's Yellow Bike Project and Black History Bike Ride do for my new home. Through those relationships, I was able to meet and collaborate with some amazing folx (like RFRJ teammate Brandon Grant), which led to the creation of BottomBracketBoys (@BBBatxtothemoon); a cycling family that welcomes and uplifts members of the African Diaspora in the greater ATX area.
Cycling has become such a meaningful way to express myself, develop agency and autonomy, and provide community care. I love my city, the people in it, and the life I’m blessed to live. Looking forward to the opportunity to meet and be mentored by amazing riders and to experience SBT GRVL with Ride for Racial Justice!
Aydin Rezazadeh
Aydin Rezazadeh is a final-year Law student at Durham University in the United Kingdom originally from Vancouver, Canada. He is a road and cyclocross racer competing for the trainSharp U23 Development Team and the Durham University Cycling Club.
Cycling has had a great impact on his life as a tool to battle depression, as well as giving him an opportunity to compete, challenge himself, grow, and make some incredible friends. Aydin’s greatest belief is in kindness, and he maintains that through making cycling more inclusive for all.
Outside of cycling, he’s passionate about social and environmental justice having previously served in the British Columbia and Western Canada Youth Parliaments, as well as volunteered for political parties. He is so thankful for the opportunity to compete at SBT Gravel with Ride for Racial Justice, and even more excited to meet everyone this summer!
Brandon “BG” Grant
Brandon “BG” Grant is from Acworth, GA but has been in Austin, TX for 7 years. It can be said that he’s a bit of a biking fitness enthusiast. BG does bike delivery work by trade and spends a significant amount of his recreational time biking outside of work. What he’s found with his experience has been an unmatched sense of freedom outdoors, a bike family to support and be supported by, and an agency to enact change within Austin.
Most recently, BG has been helping facilitate the Black History Bike Ride (@blackhistorybikeride) and working with friends on building a Black cyclists collective to offer rides, knowledge, and resources to Black and Brown folks who aren't afforded the same access.
Diego Recinos
Diego Recinos is originally from Guatemala but has moved around the US and Latin America for the past 12 years. He moved to Chicago last year. He works in renewable energy finance, helping get clean energy to people in the US and Latin America.
Diego loves cycling as a way to build community, encourage others to care for our shared environment and space, and raise awareness about climate change. He also enjoys reading, playing the guitar, doing yoga, and eating tacos. He rides a Surly Midnight Special called ‘Dolores’.
Dwight Brown
Dwight Brown is a cyclist out of Lincoln, Nebraska who's found a deep passion for bikes out of necessity. He can't always count on a car to be ready to go all 4 seasons, but his bike has always been there.
Even more precious than the tool itself are the connections you make along the way. Something about riding bikes makes you open up to the world and the people in it and that's something he never wants to forget. Dwight only started racing on a bike early last year, and he’s so incredibly excited to see where this vein of the cycling scene takes him.
Elisha Bishop
Elisha Bishop is a husband, a father, and a member of the Gila River Indian Community in Arizona. He works for the Gila River Tribal Government in the Office of the Community Manager.
Outside of work, he has started to organize community bike rides on the reservation and in the future hopes to start a bike program for indigenous youth. Elisha has been inspired by Black Girls Do Bike and the Siihasin Bike program https://sihhasinbikeride.com/ on the Navajo Nation.
Jeffrey Starke
Jeffrey Starke grew up in the Florida Panhandle where there was rarely a day when he didn’t ride a bike. After a nearly decade-long hiatus, he rekindled his love for riding bikes in college. When he moved to NYC, biking to work continued to be his favorite part of the day and a wonderful alternative to crowded subway trains with unexpected delays.
In 2020, his relationship with bicycles grew deeper as he joined thousands of bike protesters riding for racial justice. This was his entry point into social activism and led him to join Ride to DC, where hundreds pedaled from NYC to Washington D.C. to attend the March on Washington and recognize the significance of Black lives.
In the past year, he and his partner discovered many new ways of having fun on bikes through bikepacking and cyclocross. He hopes that his participation in the 144-mile SBT GRVL race this year will help pave the way for other people like him to discover the joy, practicality, and versatility of cycling!
Josie Fouts
Born in Korea with only a right hand, Josie Fouts is an Asian-American amputee that grew up in the midwest, always standing out. Her interest in metabolism research led her out to San Diego, and the year-round great weather encouraged her to begin commuting by bike. Soon the San Diego cycling community discovered her potential and encouraged her to pursue bigger goals, the Paralympics!
However, when the Tokyo Games got postponed, she found herself riding on trails and connecting deeper with herself, following a path less graveled, especially for para-athletes. Her first-hand experience taught her that she is more than the body parts that she doesn’t have; what she does have and what others can see are her true identity.
Now she uses the bicycle as a tool to rediscover herself, trail blaze for para-athletes to ride off-road, find ultimate life balance, and ride for racial justice.
Junior Montoya
Junior Montoya is an outdoor enthusiast based out of Arlington, VA. He began cycling due to injuries from long-distance running and quickly fell in love with the distances he could cover on the bike. He got his first gravel bike to tackle the C&O canal and shortly after received a scholarship from Melanin Base Miles to race his first gravel race. This year he joined the Melanin Base Miles Gravel team, a team made up of BIPOC athletes in the DMV area. This team has introduced him to a new community that likes to get spicy out on the gravel roads and has a shared goal to bring representation to some of our local gravel races.
When he's not on the bike, Junior is a volunteer with Soul Trak Outdoors, a non-profit that aims to create a supportive and welcoming space to grow and experience the outdoors for the BIPOC community.
Katy Giombolini
Katy Giombolini (They/Them) is a Korean adoptee who grew up in Albuquerque, New Mexico but now calls Oregon their home. They've always found a lot of joy on bikes, but it wasn't until their partner introduced them to the thrill of cyclocross that bikes became an obsessive part of their life. Road, cyclocross, gravel, bikepacking, bopping around town - they're into all of it! They love pushing the limits of what they can do.
They are grateful to the cycling community and the connections they've made through bikes - a particular shout-out to the BikePOC PNW group. They are continually interested in how to weave together their love of biking with organizing for change. Last year they helped co-organize adoptees of color bike ride, and they hope to support more spaces like that this coming year that can use biking to bring people together, build relationships, and lead to political action.
They currently work at Oregon Food Bank where they manage the food systems team focused on building resilient, food-secure communities grounded in equity and justice. Top three favorite foods - vegan soft serve, eggs, kimchi jjigae.
Ling Tebockhorst
Ling Tebockhorst’s professional life is all about movement and bodies. As a fitness professional and movement educator going back 25 years, she currently guides her clients into optimal movement and performance using Pilates, traditional strength and conditioning, functional training, TRX, and The Biomechanics Method of Corrective Exercise. She is also developing her bike fit skills to better serve her cycling community.
Ling’s personal life is all about the outdoors. Moving to Colorado in 2012 completely rewired her. The Front Range got her out of the health club setting and into endurance sports. Running, cycling, and hiking became the keys to supporting her mental health. As an avid road cyclist dabbling into gravel, she is grateful for the wide-shouldered roads surrounding her East Boulder County home and the easy access to gravel paths and roads. The bike has connected her to many communities including Black Girls Do Bike Denver and Zwift Team Type 1 which is made up of riders all over the world with Type 1 Diabetes like herself.
She lives in Lafayette, Colorado with her husband, 2 middle schoolers, and a rescue dog named Sander.
Elizabeth Jiang
Hello, world! Elizabeth Jiang (She/Her) is a first-generation immigrant raised in Boston. She is what they call a late bloomer to cycling. She’s loved exploring cities/commuting via bike and is currently trying to be the change she wants to see in the world by cycling around Los Angeles, where she is a graduate student at UCLA and on the UCLA Cycling Team.
Being on the bike is where Elizabeth simultaneously feels the most free-spirited and connected with the aspirations she has for life. What she loves about cycling is that it builds confidence, character, and community. Elizabeth is so jazzed to join the RFRJ community and represent its mission of inclusivity and anti-racism.
Martin Jones
Martin Jones is a father of six wonderful kids and two equally amazing step kids. He loves spending time with an incredible girlfriend and their family. Martin is an avid cyclist, golfer, and snowboarder who makes the most of his time just living life. He was a scholar-athlete in high school who received academic and football scholarships to attend the University of Northern Colorado, graduating with a bachelor’s degree in Business. Out of college, he had the opportunity to play professional football but, due to injuries, that experience was cut short after two years.
It wasn’t until 2018 that Martin found cycling, using it as a tool to just escape all that life was throwing at him and to get back to being healthy and productive. A good friend of his convinced him to get a bike and ride. It didn’t take long before he was spending all his free time on the bike and looking for more ways to make cycling a way of life.
Martin has mainly been a road cyclist but got a gravel bike in 2020 and started to venture off the beaten path. He is in the process of getting a cycling club going that’s focused on diversity and inclusivity in the cycling community. Box State Cycling Club (IG: BxStCC) is slowly coming together, so be on the lookout as he builds the foundation. Martin is grateful for the opportunity to ride with the R4RJ team at SBT GRVL. Representation matters!
Oliviah Franke
Oliviah Franke grew up in Portland Oregon but calls Anchorage, Alaska home. She works at the Alaska Humanities Forum, coordinating programs that focus on connecting Alaskans through conversations on topics such as racial equity, culture and heritage, queer identity, and climate. After grad school, she took a cycling break as she focused on her career and now three years later, she is back on two wheels and hoping to combine her love for cycling and outdoor spaces with her passion for social change and equity for all.
She wants to work on expanding the ideas that folks have around who "belongs" outside, on bikes, on backcountry trails, etc. She knows representation is important and must work through her own roadblocks and self-doubt as a biracial, queer, plus-sized woman getting into cycling.
Oliviah challenged herself to build her own custom bike from scratch, a bike that allows her to push the boundaries of what she can achieve when she puts her mind to it. Looking forward, she will continue to challenge herself to prepare for her first-ever race with RFRJ. She is honored to be a part of a program that strives to expand access for BIPOC cyclists!
Ric McGill
Growing up in San Diego near the beach, Ric McGill surfed, played beach volleyball, cycled, and even got Open Water SCUBA Certified. He and his younger brother were pretty much the only brown faces out there and were very lucky that their dad exposed them to so many different sports. They never heard, “We don’t do that”. The surf and the mountains called to them, and they answered with their presence.
He’s much older now, and unfortunately, is still often the only brown face out there. He loves his time on road and gravel bikes. The people you meet and the smiles you share on the gravel seem purer for some reason. Representation matters. Ric rides for RFRJ and all the BIPOC Dads who tell their kids, “That looks fun, let’s go do that!”
Rubén Mercado
Rubén Mercado is an art director and musician based in Louisville, CO where he lives with his wife and daughter. Of Puerto Rican heritage, he was raised in Spanish Harlem in the ’70s, where salsa music, wall murals, and graffiti became the inspiration for a successful career in the arts.
A latecomer to cycling, he caught the cycling bug after moving to Colorado in 2015. He quickly fell in love with the freedom that the gravel roads of the front range offered up. The past seven years have been a fantastic journey of exploration both on and off the bike. He’s looking forward to the next phase of the journey.
Through his work with RFRJ, Rubén hopes to gain the experience and contacts to help continue advocating for diversity within the cycling community. In particular, to work with youth to nurture the love of cycling and offer opportunities seldom available within the BIPOC community.
Selena Feliciano
Selena Feliciano is a community member, cyclist, and artist on occupied Chochenyo Ohlone land (Oakland, CA). She spends most of her days advocating for environmental justice, working closely with neighbors near and far to build pathways for resilience in the face of climate change.
A proud Salvadoreña & Boricua, Selena owes her curiosity for cycling to her father, who began biking as a form of transportation and entertainment while growing up in the Bronx. She believes cycling to be a direct practice of ancestral connection and ongoing identity exploration. Currently, Selena is an avid bicycle tourist and contributing performer in zany art-powered bicycle adventures with Agile Rascal Bicycle Touring Theatre Company. Selena is passionate about increasing BIPOC representation at the intersection of art and cycling and is planning a bicycle tour of Borikén (Puerto Rico) with other creatives of Caribbean descent.
When she's not on two wheels, Selena is surfing frigid waters, stewarding bees, or singing to redwoods.
Trevon Mitchell
Trevon Mitchell attends Cleveland high school in Washington. He started cycling in 2020 with Northstar when the pandemic hit because it was and still is a good source of exercising since all the gyms were closed during that time. He picked up cycling pretty quickly and started to get stronger by doing more and longer rides.
In 2021, Trevon did his first crit race and continued racing until he got his first win! The reason he loves cycling is not only because you can go fast, but it can bring people together. He hopes to continue connecting with other people and introducing them to another form of exercise that they may have never known before.
Truong Nyugen
Truong Nguyen is a Vietnamese American, born in Vietnam, raised in America, and currently located in Seattle. He started cycling as a child and never really picked it up again until he found out that he had type-2 diabetes and needed to change his life. Cycling has helped him reverse his type-2 diabetes and make new friends.
In the daytime, you can catch Truong riding bikes to different coffee spots while sharing his favorite apple. The Rockit Apple. On the weekends, you can find him photographing a wedding or going out to do long rides.
Truong’s goal this year is to finish the blue ride for the steamboat. It would be his first Century on dirt!
Yoofi (Yo-fee) Otabil
Yoofi (Yo-fee) Otabil is a name often given to males who belong to the Fante tribe (a part of the larger Akan tribe of Ghana) born on a Friday. He grew up with his 3 sisters in Accra, the capital city of Ghana until he moved to the US for college in 2009. He relocated from the Metro Detroit area right before the pandemic to Bentonville, Arkansas where he now lives with his family.
He rediscovered cycling early in 2020, right before the world shut down, and has since fallen in love with the sport and its vibrant community in this area. The bicycle has been an important part of his mental and physical health and has given him a newfound appreciation for the people and places around him. Almost every weekend includes some sort of adventure with friends through the beautiful back roads of Northwest Arkansas.
If you are ever in the area, hit him up! He'd love to chat and catch a ride!
Support Our 2023 Team at SBT GRVL!
Get all the race details for SBT GRVL in Steamboat Springs.
Check Out Our Team from 2021