Welcome to Grease Rag Ride & Wrench!

Grease Rag’s mission is to encourage and empower women/ trans/ femme (WTF) cyclists in a collaborative and fun learning environment through rides, discussions, shop nights and educational seminars in a safer space.

Learn more on the About page or read our Rider Profiles.  Keep up to date on Grease Rag’s Schedule, Group Rides, and other fun events.  Find resources and information on events, projects and groups for WTF cyclists in the Twin Cities on our Friends page.

If you like following our blog, join our Facebook group!

“If I Ride”

1:20 video poem from People For Bikes, “If I Ride.”

“…and I won’t be a boy, or a girl, I’ll just be ‘a rider.’”

“If I ride, I will be strong.  I will change tires myself.”

When life gives you windchill, make frost beards!

You wake up in the morning, smear some Nutella on a donut and wash it down with some almond milk.  (Don’t judge me.)  The cats are fed, it’s still dark out, your balaclava and mittens are on the radiator from last night’s 9 deg. ride.  You check the weather before getting your winter warrior armor on…

Holy mackerel!  -9, with 15 mph winds, -33 deg. windchill?

Frost on my lashes, and yes, I am smiling!

No problem.

Before I tell you about my unusual morning commute, I want to start by saying that I am not a bad ass.  I am a normal person that sometimes does bad ass things.  And you can too!

I suited up for the weather, intending on riding 3 miles downtown, catching the express bus into St. Paul, and then riding a few blocks to my building.  This is how I get to work on really cold days.

If you are curious, I was wearing…

• Helmet, fleece headband, wool cap with a bill
• Piece of wool tied around my face (cut out of a sweater), fleece necktube thing
• Thin wool liner gloves, heavy leather chopper mittens
• Two light wool base layers, heavy snowboarding jacket
• Fleece Terry cycling tights, rain pants
• Very thin wool liner socks, heavy wool socks, serious winter boots
• I also smear on a heavy face cream on to help protect my skin from getting chapped by the wind!

Announcing: Wheel Sexy Bicycle Cabaret!

From Wheel Sexy:

Wheel Sexy will be a fun, community cabaret featuring performers of  all sexes, orientations, “frame types” (bicycle AND body) and levels of bicycling experience.   By “bicycling body,” we mean both the individual bodies that transport us and the community of bicyclists that sustains us. We’ll use elements of burlesque, comedy, dance and live music to construct a cabaret with a bicycle theme.

To recap: Bikes. Badass people. Music. Celebration!

Come check out the show at the Bryant Lake Bowl  March 1st, 9th, & 10th @ 10PM.

Want to be involved without being onstage?  Great!  We are looking for people to help with everything from costume design to bicycle maintenance to guerrilla advertising.  Email us at wheelsexy@gmail.com with any questions or ideas you have about how you want to be a part of this kickass show.

Want to get involved?  Me too!  I will be attending a meeting at the Minnehaha Free Space this Saturday, from 11AM-1PM:

Winter Biker Series

My favorite bits are, “Keen, intelligent mind,” “Powerful thighs,” and “Wool saves lives!”

This image was created by Kurt Seaberg.  ”It is meant to encourage winter biking in Minnesota.  See you at the ice shanties!”

The Art Shanties open this weekend on Medicine Lake.  Check out the ICE-Cycles Shanty!

Bike Blogversation #1

My pal Mel is a super rad lady.  She is a PhD candidate at the University of Minnesota, studying bicycle activism and backlash, community building, and feminism, and likes radical activism, veganism, cats, babies, NPR, unions, Wisconsin, Surly beer, and coffee.

Over the years we’ve talked about bikes quite a bit, including gender issues within the bike world.  We recently have started a “blogversation” called, “WTF and “the cyclist:” dialogue about identity and definitions,” that she posted up on her blog.

We’re talking about…

Is “woman” or “female” a more inclusive term for identity?

How do you define “cyclist,” and are there reasons why people would choose not to self-identify as a cyclist?

If you’re interested, please read through and chime in.  Ideally, this will be a conversation with all of you, and not just between Mel and me.

Monthly Tuesday Grease Rag in NE, 1/10/2011

2nd Tuesdays of the month, January 10, 2011

7-9PM at Recovery Bike Shop, 2555 Central Ave NE

This monthly Grease Rag event is usually facilitated by Charlotte.  At 7pm she leads an instructional hour on a different component or maintenance task, and the remaining hour she facilitates an open shop.  I (Low) will be attempting to fill Charlotte’s shoes this month, and I’m going to do a demo on how to clean and preserve your winter bike.  So bring those dirrrty grrrls in!

Those of you that I’ve seen at the Uptown Grease Rag and Sunrise Cyclery have noticed that the nights are slower paced and there are more people available to help you with your bike.  The benefits of the “off-season!”*  Think ahead and do major work now, when we aren’t so busy.

*We really need a better term for the cold-season.  Because a lot of us don’t take time “off” from biking!

ARTCRANK call for entries

ARTCRANK is a fun party and poster show, for bike people!  I love going every year.  I want to encourage our WTF cyclist friends to submit designs for the upcoming ARTCRANK on April 14th.  Details are on the ARTCRANK website, but you should also contact Charles if you have any questions.

CALL FOR ENTRIES: That’s right, we are now accepting artist submissions for our 2012 show. We have a roster of 35 Twin Cities artists to fill with newcomers and repeat offenders alike. To be considered for the show, send three digital samples of previous work (URLs, JPGs, PDFs, etc.) to us via email. The Call for Entries will close on Saturday, January 21.

Please check back for updates, and follow ARTCRANK on Twitter and Facebook for the latest news.

Best Bike Stories of 2011

ArtCrank did a really cool feature on fan-submitted “Best Bike Stories of 2011.”

There were stories from Kat Fowler at Thank You For Seeing Me, Loretta Trevino (Seattle) and Leah Preble wrote about Babes in Bikeland, Anna Dorenboos wrote about RAGBRAI, and Letta Page wrote about her first century!  Great stories, definitely worth a read.

I really wanted to submit a story, but I honestly could not narrow it down to just one in time for the deadline!  If you had to pick just ONE… what is your best bike story of 2011?

I had some fun bike camping, I had some fun racing, I had some fun just riding around.  But as far as unique bike experiences go… I played bike polo for the first time with Kat, Greta, and a bunch of YOU!

13 of you showed up to try this crazy sport out.  Greta and Kat instructed us, we scrimmaged, there were zero fatalities.  The polo players lent us their equipment and bikes and told us to go crazy.  And we did.  <3

1/5 Grease Rag- Uptown

Grease Rag is this Thursday, January 5th!
(This event takes place the 1st and 3rd Thursday of the month)

Wrench with us at Sunrise Cyclery (901 W. Lake St. at Bryant Ave.) 7-9PM.

Grease Rag NE will be January 10th.

Grease Rag wants you to know…

Know your Bike Lane Markings, check out this kindred WTF/ LTS night in New Orleans, tell us about your goals for 2012.

STICKERS are here and at Sunrise for a suggested donation of $1!  Get ‘em while they’re hot.

2012 Goals

I don’t make “resolutions” every year, but I always try to focus on a few straight-forward goals.

What are your 2012 goals, bike-related or ?

If your goal is to become more independent through riding your bike and learning more about your machine… We may be able to help!