How Cycling Found Me

Let’s start at the beginning.

I grew up in a very athletic and active family. My Dad was in the military for 20+ years so we moved a ton and with each new place my mom set the priority to find my brother and me activities, sports, and a church home. For this I am grateful. With the exception of maybe only baseball, which my brother played, there aren’t many sports I haven’t played or am not at least average in. When I say I’ve played it all, I truly mean it ALL-basketball, soccer, volleyball, figure skating, tennis, flag football, gymnastics, and even competitive double dutch. My jump rope team used to travel for competitions and we trained rigorously in an elite cheer team facility. I loved every bit of it. To the opposite, I only lasted one day in tap dance. Not that I was bad a tap…there just wasn’t enough action in it for me.

Later in my early twenties my sporty upbringing landed me in the local philly gyms with a budding passion for weight training and working out. After a couple of years getting my gym legs under me I convinced 6 of my friends that we should all do a 10 mile Tough Mudder Extreme Obstacle Race together.

If you haven’t picked up on it by now, I’ve got a knack for gathering a tribe and building community everywhere I go.

There was a Tough Mudder coming up in 8 or 9 months that I figured gave us plenty of time to train and get in decent shape for so we went ahead and registered. After a little bit of research and realizing I need to put together a consistent training plan in order to do the obstacles as well as run 10 miles without simply passing away in the wilderness, I got to work on my fitness goals.

I vividly remember crossing the finish line months later with my friends covered head to toe in crud and the huge smiles on our faces. We were all in pain and it was glorious. The day was epic, the mud was epic, what we went through in those 10 hilly miles was epic, but what my friend James said to me next was the most epic of all.

“So Jenna, what’s next?”

Insert blank stare here.

“Um, I’m not sure honestly.”

“Have you ever thought about doing a triathlon?”

This is where my journey in cycling began- May of 2019.

I spent the next couple of months pondering the idea of a triathlon. I can swim, but I’m not a swimmer. I don’t like to run. I learned that during the tough mudder. And I can ride a bike but I don’t own one nor do I know where or how to find one. 3 different sports all mashed together, sheesshhh, sounds grueling. You know what, maybe I will try it.

This brings us to late 2019 when I spent countless hours sending James links to different bikes for sale on facebook marketplace and craiglist. I’m really glad he put up with me and all my questions. I had no idea what I was looking for nor what I was looking at. Finally he approved one of my options and I purchased my first bike- a 2014 yellow/booger green Fuji road bike from a random man in a Starbucks parking lot for $350.

In the coming months the world shut down (including the gyms and pools I had plans to be in) and all I had was my bike and free time to ride it through the pandmic.

I started off circling the blocks in my neighborhood, gaining my confidence on 2 wheels, then slowly venturing further and further from home. I still remember texting my friends the first time I rode a whopping 5 miles. 5 miles felt like 50 miles and I felt like super woman. By the summer of 2020 I was easily doing between 10 and 20 miles regularly and had starting sharing my new hobby on social media. It was at this point that a woman from my church began mentioning to me that I should go ride bikes with her son which honestly I found super weird. I politely declined for months. I had no idea that group rides or cycling clubs existed.

In my head I was thinking- I’m not showing up somewhere to ride bikes with some man I’ve never met before.

I had no idea the world of cycling existed and that in the very near future I’d be deeply involved in it.

Eventually I found the son on Instagram and realized he was part of a community here in my city that rode bikes together. His mom’s invite suddenly became far less weird and way more enticing. After a couple of weeks observing the guys who shortly thereafter organized into Kings Rule Together Cycling (KRT) I built up the courage to attend my first group ride.

That first group ride was everything to me. Despite my nerves, I showed up to a local parking lot on a hot Thursday in August with my craigslist bike. I was met with a handful of other “queens” and “kings” and we did a 15 mile loop into the city and back. What stood out the most that day was how quickly the range of experience levels present become insignificant. We rode together and each of us newbies was looked out for. BIG kudos to the guys leading the ride that made sure we all had adequate hydration, talked to us about some simple gear needed to make riding easier, and showed us patience while learned our gears and how to ride more efficiently. When we finally rolled back into the parking lot a couple hours later I was incredibly proud of myself and had made connections with people that have since become lifelong friends.

Over the next tHREE years I dove head first into the SPORT of cycling.

KRT/QRT connected with other clubs locally and nationally, we learned how to pack up and travel with our bikes, gained a reputation for having the sweetest kits (jerseys and shorts), upgraded our bikes, some of us starting racing, and I learned everything I could along the way.

It’s one thing to say I like riding bikes, which is 100% true, but this is much more than that for me. I could share endlessly on how much being active outdoors away from screens, laptops, phone, and work, has benefitted my mental health alone. Then there are the obvious benefits of engaging in an activity that has boundless positive effects for the physical body. Something I didn’t expect is how a special connection that forms between you and your town/city once you start riding a bike. It’s hard to not care about and feel part of a place when you physically put yourself out in it.

Prior to purchasing a bike I barely gave a passing thought to things like bike lanes, local parks, trails, road conditions, construction projects, "third spaces”, or sidewalks. Now they mean much to me.

I also cherish deeply the conversations I’ve gotten have while riding beside other cyclists, whether a friend or stranger, and marvel at how quickly the common bond of bikes brings people of all kinds together. The adventures in just the last few years alone will go down in my personal history books, the laughs have been endless, and the love shared through the community of cycling is unexpectedly heartwarming to even the coldest of us.

I’m editing this post on the last few days of 2023 as I reflect on the journey that brought me to where I am. I went from a wobbly beginner on goofy yellow craigslist bike to a sponsored cyclist partnering with global brands and racing all across the US. So much has happened between the summer of my first group ride and now…but that’ll have to be shared in other posts for future days.

And that’s how cycling found me.