Ayesha McGowan, the U.S.’s First Black Woman Pro, Wants to Create Genuine Opportunity in Cycling
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Name: Ayesha McGowan
Age: 34
Hometown: Atlanta, Georgia
Team: LIV Cycling
Biggest Accomplishment: Seventh place finisher in stage six of the Tour Cycliste Féminin International de l'Ardèche.
You may know Ayesha McGowan as the professional bike racer for LIV Cycling. Or maybe you know her as the writer behind the well-known blog A Quick Brown Fox. Or maybe you know her for her advocacy in promoting diversity and inclusion in the world of cycling—from getting more POC on bikes to ensuring that they're able to actually move up in the ranks.
She started her journey several years ago with the goal of becoming the United States’ first Black professional woman cyclist. After years of moving steadily up in the cycling rankings, in 2021, she officially joined LIV Cycling’s WorldTour team as a satellite rider. Most recently, she headed to her first European stage race, the seven-day Tour Cycliste Féminin International de l'Ardèche, where she took a seventh place finish on stage 6.
Here, Bicycling catches up with the 34-year-old as she gets back to training for her next adventure.
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This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Bicycling: In 2015, you had just started racing, but already knew you wanted to be the first Black female pro in the U.S. Six years later, you’ve made it. How did you make it happen?
Ayesha McGowan: I don’t think there’s a neat, simple version of events, really. I think the the main thing has been consistency and just continuing to be in the moment, moving forward.
What was the point when you thought, “I’m actually going to be able to go pro?”
It might sound strange, but I don’t feel like I ever didn’t believe that I could. I know I use large terms sometimes, like saying it was a pipe dream and a ridiculous goal or whatever. But I don’t feel like I ever actually felt that way. That was me projecting how I felt like other people probably felt about my plans.
But from from the beginning, it was never ‘maybe this will work.’ I was pretty confident that it would work out, and I also felt like if it didn’t, it wouldn’t be because of me. I never felt like something I was doing was going to be the reason I didn’t make it.
How did it feel racing in your first major European race in September?
I was really, really excited leading into it. I wasn’t nervous, I just genuinely wanted to race. I’d spent so long the last couple years just training and being in my own head, and knew I needed to get out and race. So the first day was amazing. And then the second day, I felt really nervous! And it was really bizarre. I finished the first day, it wasn’t a spectacular ride, but it wasn't bad either. Yet for some reason, then I got super nervous.
It wasn’t my first stage race—I’ve done most of the American stage races and at this point, I’m pretty familiar with them. But the longest one I’ve done before this was five days, and had nowhere near as much climbing. This one was all climbing, and I don’t consider myself to be a climber by any means. Everyday we were just going up, going up. Even the flat stages were not flat. Or, at least, we have very a different interpretation of what flat means. I think that was intimidating to me. Getting there, I really wanted to make sure that I wasn’t going to get blown out of the water because of how much climbing there was.
Every year, I have gotten better and better at climbing, and so I felt more confident going into this race though. In general, I think when I started working with the coach that I have now, it made a huge difference. I noticed that I didn't feel so out of depth on the climbing stages, even at a race like Redlands. The first year I did Redlands, I finished dead last on the final day, but I finished. And I wasn't supposed to finish—that was what everyone had told me. "You never finish your first Redlands.” And I’m like, “All right, guys, whatever.”
Other than climbing, how did the racing compare to the domestic scene in the U.S.?
It seemed a little bit more intense, but I think the hardest part about that is that the roads are just different. There are all these traffic circles and road furniture. We don’t really have that in the U.S., and so that was really cognitively draining. Like, I’m racing but also trying to not hit these random medians while people are yelling and stuff is popping up all over the road. But because I have so much experience racing crits, it wasn’t as difficult as it could have been. I feel like if I had only done road races, I would have been in trouble.
How was riding with the LIV WorldTour team?
It’s a really cool squad of riders. I was the only non-Dutch person, and they’re all very experienced—I feel like they like come out of the womb and just start pedaling, it’s so ingrained in their culture. But they were all really nice, really helpful and encouraging. There could have been a lot of pressure being within such a big team, but I feel like I did a really good job.
And you got a seventh place on the sixth stage—that’s huge!
Honestly, I feel like I could have done better. I found myself in a position to do well and then it was a lot of commotion just before the sprint, and I ended up in seventh.
You’ve said it a couple times on Instagram that you’re “proud but not satisfied.” Has that been somewhat of a mantra for you?
I feel like with everything that I accomplish, anytime I accomplish something new, I'm expected to be happy about it, and then I can be done. But if I got this far, how far can I go? Don’t get me wrong, I’m really happy about a seventh-place finish. But there’s six more places that I can try and get. I feel like with a little bit more experience, it might be really cool to see what I can accomplish.
You also recently had a great post that began with, “I’m not here because I’m Black. I’m here AND I’m Black. I really do believe that Representation Matters. I also believe that everything isn’t the tokenism folks think it is.” Have you had a lot of pushback around that?
There’s always this idea that there’s no prejudice in bike racing, you just ride your bike and and the best person wins. But what people often don’t understand is how much I had to deal with just to even be in that race, even to get the opportunity to be there to see if I could do well. There are so many other Black athletes who never get the opportunity to show that they can do a thing, because they’re always racing in their local scene, and they can’t get out of that, because the opportunities for them are not there. So that’s a really frustrating concept for me, because most people think it’s so simple, and all you have to do is be fast, but it’s not that easy.
I have to imagine that you regularly deal with negativity on the internet—how do you deal with that emotionally and mentally while also trying to be a bike racer, which is already mentally and emotionally taxing?
I think it’s much easier now than it used to be, because I used to spend a lot of time in the comments section responding to everybody, defending myself because I felt like I needed to, which is just not the thing to do. I don’t do it as much anymore, but I honestly don’t regret doing that because I feel like at that time, a lot of the conversations that we’ve had since had never been had. I feel like as a community, we’ve progressed quite a bit. My goal has been to give the people who were unsure the opportunity to learn something.
Out of the past seven years of trying to turn pro, what has been the highlight moment for you?
I don't feel like I've had pinnacle moments with racing. But I was able to ride a tandem bike with my grandma. That is my favorite bike moment and will probably always be. I don’t feel like I’m ever going to be able to top that.
What’s next on your agenda?
In this moment, I don’t have a contract. I feel like it was such a weird year because I hadn’t really been able to race until Ardeche. I feel like I’ve gotten to the point where I’ve stopped worrying about the racing stuff, because either it’s going to work out or it won’t. I feel like I’ve done everything I can, and I just want to continue racing because I enjoy it.
But I feel like as far as like the goal of becoming a professional athlete, I did it. Put a check next to that. And as far as advocacy stuff, I have some really cool plans that I’m working on, so I’m really excited about that.
Is there any other message you want to make sure gets out there?
These days, I’m trying to drive home the power of opportunity. And I mean genuine opportunity, not people being given things that look like opportunities, but aren’t. To give an example, say someone gets a spot on a basketball team. But all they ever do on the team is sit on the bench and never get to play, they never get to show any signs of aptitude. If all you ever do is sit on the bench, what's the point? Some people will say, ‘Oh, well, they get to practice with the team and get better,’ but if they never get to play, then what’s the point?
In my own experience, I’ve had people also decide that they were going do things for me that I never asked them to do. Like I had a team leader that was treating me really poorly, who told me it was, “because that’s how European teams treat riders. I’m preparing you.” But I never asked you to do that. That’s not a thing I wanted.
For me, I feel like the biggest change came when I had the actual resources I needed. Before that, I was doing these races, but my preparation was shit, because I didn't have a coach. It took me years to get a time trial bike, and all of these stage races in America have a time trial. We have to start thinking about what the things are that people actually need, what are the tools for success? And it’s usually not just one thing. But right now it’s like, we gave someone a bike, we’re done.
Back in 2015, you told me, “Maybe I’m a little nutty and confused as to why no other Black woman has become a pro cyclist yet, and that’s probably because it’s not a very glamorous career. But it still seems super fun. And if I can do it, I’m going to do it. I don’t see why not!”
Yeah, I had no gauge of that. My gauge was very blindly ambitious. It’s weird, because I’m also super anxious about every little thing. But for some reason, with big things, I’m like, ‘Yeah, this is totally gonna happen. There’s no way this won't work.’ The little things that terrify me, but the big ones are fun.
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