The politics behind Women and Trans Night at the Bike Centre

I like to be modest about my bicycle-fixing experience; I have only spent about two years of dedicated learning to the trade, and spent a total of four months working as a bicycle mechanic. That was at least a couple of years ago, though, and I know that my skills have become a little rusty. Still, I know my stuff, and I like to get the respect that I deserve, bike geek or not.

I just moved back to Guelph, and am so happy to be back in a place that has a community bike-fixing garage. The CSA Bike Centre on campus rocks. I went in to the CSA Bike Centre Women and Trans night to start building a winter bike from a beautiful old Bianchi frame from scratch. There are few things more satisfying than pulling out quality used parts from a bin, polishing them up, greasing them, packing them with bearings, and knowing that every part of your dreamride is tweaked just-so.

Now, I like Women and Trans nights. I know that I can hold my own in any average bike shop, but it is still frustrating as hell when guys will come up and start doing stuff to my bike without my consent, ostensibly to be a “gentleman” or something like that. I’ll never forget the time that I was on the sidewalk, hovered over my turned-upside-down bike, when a dude came along, put his hand on the front wheel, inspected my bike, and asked me if I need help with anything.

“Yeah sure, if you have a spoke wrench. I busted a spoke and I’m trying to compensate for the torque by adjusting the surrounding spoke tensions, and all I have is this set of pliers.”

He got out of there fast, let me tell you.

So it’s nice. It’s nice to not feel like an idiot in a bike space by people whose advice is neither generous nor welcome. It’s nice to practice my skills and know that I’m competent. This is one reason why I like Women and Trans only night.

It’s also nice to feel physically comfortable in a space, not to suspect leering eyes as I’m bending over my bike, adjusting my pedals. That’s two reasons.

On this particular Monday in the shop, someone came in looking to me like a cis-dude. (For those of you who don’t know the lingo, cis-is the counterpart of trans-. That is, someone whose preferred gender identity matches the sex that they were assigned at birth would be cis-. A woman-identified person born female would be a cis-woman.)  “Excuse me, it’s Women and Trans only night, just so’s you know.” He looked at me, confused for a second, and then began arguing with me about why he should be allowed to use the space at this particular time.

“This is bullshit!” and he stormed off.

See, I can’t let that kind of disrespect fly. I ran after him.

“Look, your reaction back there wasn’t cool.”

“Why should I be excluded from the space? I need to fix my bike!” and he went on for a couple of minutes. As he took a breath, I said, “look, I hear you. These are my reasons why I appreciate having a woman and trans night,” and I rhymed off for him pretty much the reasons that I wrote above. We were both pumped on adrenaline, but managed to leave the conversation fairly civilly.

But that isn’t quite the end of the story.

A woman walked in, rolling the same bike, and I set to help her change the pedals on the bike. It was a simple job, and as I was explaining the procedure, I let her know that “on the non-drive side, I believe that you have to loosen the pedal by turning clockwise” as opposed to the usual righty-tighty, lefty-loosey rhyme. She seemed doubtful and I looked it up just to be sure. My hunch was right.

“Wow, that book’s really helpful.”

I put my ego aside and said, yep, it sure is.

Okay, no sweat, until I got on the bus and realized that I had forgotten my wheel at the Bike Centre. Ack. I called the next morning to ask them to put it aside for me.

“It’s a 700 aluminum alloy wheel with a ribbed rim and quick release hub. The tire is inflated and it’s a 700c, 30, maybe 32 wide.”

“There are lots of wheels around here,” said the dismissive voice on the other end of the line. I repeated the description. He continued, “I doubt I’ll be able to find it, but I’ll put aside any that sort of fit that description.”

So I go in today and lo, and behold, I find my beautiful wheel (I remember once dremmelling out the hub in order to make it run smooth again), and alerted the person who was on-staff that I found my wheel.

“Oh, the guy who was in yesterday said that you hardly knew what kind of wheel you left behind. I’m glad you found it.”

Profanities aside, I’m glad to have a space where I can work on my bike in a space where one of the power dynamics that affect my life (that one where being a woman seems to mean being an idiot about all things technical) is reduced. And dudes, if you want to see an end to women and trans night, I recommend that you spend your energy empowering and affirming the skills and abilities of the women and transfolk in your life. Trying to barge your way in to a space that is being kept open with volunteer time serves to affirm that we still need a safer space that we can use in order to keep us rolling.

Pedaling away from social decay,

Shailagh McKinley

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