An Update from Our Chair, Luis Patricio

Hi to everyone living and sharing this land most of us call London— the traditional lands of the Anishinaabeg, Haudenosaunee, Lenape, Attawandaron and Huron-Wendat peoples, at the forks of Deshkan Ziibi (Antler River), an area subject to the Dish with One Spoon Wampum and other treaties.

We've been moving slower than usual in the past few months, partly because of COVID restrictions and partly because of a big transition in our leadership team. As you probably know, we’ve had a few new board members join us this year, and our executive director position was vacant since April.

I said ‘was’. I'm thrilled to announce that Molly Miksa is our new Executive Director! Her official starting date was June 7 and some of you already had a chance to meet and greet Molly. There is still a lot of catching up to do. Fortunately this will be relatively easy because Molly is no stranger to our city and to cycling.

Molly is an everyday cyclist, a professional photographer, and a recent graduate of the Master of Media in Journalism & Communication (MMJC) program at Western University. She contributed to Dandyhorse Magazine in Toronto and here in London she spearheaded and worked on quite a few initiatives including the Bike Prom, Bicycle Awards, Tall Bikes Movie Night, and more recently she produced a limited podcast series for the London Environmental Network called London, ON: One of Canada’s Greenest Cities? (Check out the last episode about cycling!!)

I should clarify that we really slowed down in terms of social media posts and our online presence, but we have been busy in the real world. Our community bike shop is open four days a week, serving everyone in need of an affordable bike, parts and services. We have a few other projects on the go like Cycling Into the Future, Bike-friendly Business, a bike share program with Indwell, an Earn-a-Bike program, and a story walk using the Yellow Bicycle book with the City of Hamilton. Beyond our own projects, we try to support other great initiatives in our community such as the Pedal Poll national bike count. All thanks to our dedicated staff members and the many volunteers involved with London Cycle Link.

Now with our new Executive Director, and as things open up, we hope to host more and more bike rides, workshops and in-person events in the summer. We’re looking forward to our advocacy work picking up where we left off with the big push for additional cycling infrastructure (still just a drop in the bucket from what we actually need), stating our city-wide goals, engaging with our local government and keeping an eye on the new active transportation manager.

You might have noticed that we are slowly resuming our posts and blogs. We will try to keep them coming more consistently. In our society, it is not enough to do the work, you have to advertise it. After all, we are living in a hyperbolic version of La Société du spectacle described by Guy Debord more than 50 years ago. As the saying goes: the Squeaky Wheel gets the grease. Sometimes, we need to remind ourselves we ARE the Squeaky Wheel. In other words: just because we are not constantly and instantly posting on social media doesn’t mean we are not doing the work.

This is also a time to double down in our commitment to anti-oppression work. The two recent horrific events about the Kamloops Residential School Discovery and the London Muslim Attack are devastating reminders that we still have a long way to go.

For us, cycling promotion is in itself a vehicle for inclusion. Car supremacy enables and amplifies white supremacy. I will have more to say about second-class citizens in an upcoming article for the Be The Change London initiative from the London Community Foundation.

Beyond that, we continue with our Bikes for Newcomers program in partnership with CCLC (an organization I was a client of myself) and LUSO. We want to go beyond providing bikes and brief encounters with our newcomer friends. We want to build a relationship to help integrate newcomers, particularly those who face barriers to their new city. Hopefully we will be able to implement that this year.

Since last year we had plans to have a bike parade with Pride London. It wasn’t possible in 2020 and this year there will be a virtual edition. We will support Pride in the best way possible under current restrictions. On a related topic, our women-trans-femme (WTF) nights will be resuming soon. In the meantime, I am happy to see female presence regularly on our volunteer nights.

Last but not least, we have been reflecting for a while on our role in perpetuating colonialism and how reconciliation is related to the work that we are doing. We were in negotiation about starting a deeper conversation around many of those issues with Jay Pitter and several other SWO cycling groups. The project didn’t materialize and we will move forward in a different way. Earlier this year, we reached out to Pillar Nonprofit, who have been deeply committed to equity, diversity and inclusion work.

If there is any doubt about whether this is important to us, take a look at our two main leaders. A BIPOC immigrant from Latin America and a single mother. Some of the equity challenges are part of our daily experience, not something we read on social media. No, we are not perfect (no one is), we have our biases, and we are committed to having the hard conversations and taking positive action. For us, those two things take place in the real world with real people. That is one of the reasons cycling is so important. It reconnects us with people and with our city.

If you have any comments, questions or suggestions about LCL don’t hesitate to reach out to me directly; I love to chat and meet people. There are many ways to find me: at Squeaky Wheel, via email (chair@londoncyclelink.ca), through the contact form on my website, direct message on Linkedin, direct message on GoodReads or somewhere in London riding big blue, my cargo bike.

This will be a busy summer and we can always find time to ride our bikes! See you out there. And stay tuned for our next updates, events and action.

Luis and his kids