Marley Blonsky is — in her words — a fat cyclist.
“It’s just an adjective,” she says, adjusting her helmet for another day of RAGBRAI. “And words only have the value we give them or ascribe to them.”
“So if I use that word to describe myself, when somebody else uses it in a mean way, it takes all the power away. I can just say, 'No, that's my body shape and it's fine.' I'm not ashamed of it.”
As the co-founder of All Bodies on Bikes — a cycling club that seeks to foster a size-inclusive bike community — taking power back is Blonsky’s mission. She wants to take power back from words, from clothing tags and from bikers who say you have look like them, act like them and be like them to be considered a “real cyclist.”