This Cyclist Started Gay’s Okay Cycling to Celebrate Diversity and Improve Representation
Name: Allan Shaw
Age: 32
Hometown: Dunfermline, Scotland; Current Home: Mexico City, Mexico
Occupation: Owner/Operator at Gay’s Okay Cycling
Time Cycling: 20 years
Reason for Cycling: To stay forever in motion, forever evolving.
My journey into cycling was quite organic. I grew up in a small Scottish village, so I have owned some kind of bicycle for as long as I can remember. Riding out into the fields with my friends, I already felt the freedom and fun of getting out and exploring. When I finished high school and moved to the city to study, I used an old mountain bike at first to get around.
After making friends with a few local bike mechanics, they encouraged me to build my first single-speed city bike and then my first track bike. From there, I started getting out and exploring further and further from home.
After graduating, I made the decision to move to Vancouver, Canada, on a working holiday visa, and I brought my bike with me. Within a few weeks of arriving I’d started going on some local social rides and started noticing the groups of bike couriers hanging out downtown. The idea of being able to ride my bike all day long, discover the city, race through traffic, see the view from the tallest buildings, I already knew it was my dream job, and I started working as a bicycle courier at the end of 2012. This was truly the catalyst moment that changed my life to a life in the saddle.
Since then, I have worked as a courier in eight cities, in six different countries around the world. Working as a bike messenger is very time sensitive. If you wanted to make a good commission, you had to move quickly and efficiently in and around all the buildings, pushing some limits and stacking up the deliveries. The whole job can feel like a game, or like its own race, day-after-day. It is its own motivation, and the sense of accomplishment getting home after a really big day is incomparable. It’s a workplace where the view is never the same.
For the first few years, I rode 40 hours a week for work, I also rode in a few evening group rides a week and would go out on longer rides on the weekend. All in all, I would average 600 kilometers a week, every week. It is fair to say I was obsessed.
After my first year in Vancouver, my visa expired and I had to leave the country. I decided I would ride out of Canada and down the west coast all the way to Mexico. This was also the first of many journeys by bike—from Colombia to Sri Lanka, from Australia to Vietnam. Crossing countries and continents around the world, bikepacking became my preferred way to get to know the world.
In 2016, I was inspired to start Gay’s Okay Cycling to take up more space, improve visibility, and plant seeds of positivity for LGBTIQ people in cycling. To celebrate our diversity and improve representation, and to take our place at the table.
In the popular image of cycling, bike messengers are the true misfits. We are a diverse group of rag-tag types you’d rarely see represented at your average cycling club, but we also experience the same barriers of access and representation as the rest of cycling (and sport in general). I think at some point I really started noticing that I was always the only gay person, or one of very few LGBTQ+ people at any cycling event. And it really made me wonder, why?
In 2015, I flew from Vancouver to Australia for the Cycle Messenger World Championships. Over the weekend, I heard some inspiring calls to create better networks and groups to help our community break down its barriers. Inspired by those people, for the following year’s messenger championships I decided to make a rainbow-themed cycling cap to bring along and spread around. I printed 100, and was really struck by how many people found it and fell in love with it. The messenger community was ready to share the message, ready to start having the conversation, the space was already there to take up. It created a really positive ripple effect and I came to realize that if I kept working at it, kept pushing out this message, then I could keep that positive effect going and going.
Cycling is a sport and a recreation for everyone, and everyone should feel included in that. The more visible a presence we as LGBTQ+ people, and our allies, have in the world of cycling, the easier it is for more LGBTQ+ people to pick up cycling and feel included. The more diverse the marketing, the events and the popularization of cycling can be, the better this reflects the everyday world that we live in. There is no one type of cyclist, and I want part of the impact of Gay’s Okay to be proudly bringing diversity right to the front.
The proudest part of Gay’s Okay’s success isn’t one big success, but rather a thousand tiny successes. It’s in the heartfelt messages I receive from people who love that the project exists, or who have felt good about themselves by buying or owning a cap. It’s the people who buy things for their family members to show they care and accept them. It’s the times I’ve randomly spotted my cap in cities all around the world. It’s all the people who send me photos with huge smiles and their caps. This project brings real joy, and that impact is pretty immeasurable, as it’s a ripple effect that keeps on giving.
In 2019, a very cool band called Meute uploaded a live performance to YouTube that went viral. The singer/saxophone player is wearing my signature cap. Not only is it a beautiful song and video, but it of course made me so proud to see my cap and know how many people were going to see it. Philip, the singer, has worn one of my caps for every live performance since, and we’ve developed a great online friendship. Today, the video has more than 12 million views, and even three years later I still get sent it at least once a week from people so stoked to see my cap appear.
When it comes to my cycling schedule, I must say, I have never been a man of strict routines. I like things to keep changing and moving, and my routines are no exception. I like to do around two 1000 kilometer rides and bike tours a year, and a handful of shorter trips. Right now, I’m spending a fair amount of time riding the Peloton bike, as well as getting out onto Mexico City’s classic climbs—mostly to maintain some level of discipline and strong fitness, especially now, I’m not getting that base-level exercise from working on the bike.
I always have some level of ambitious goals and travel plans—many imaginary, plenty real. My big goal for the summer is racing the Tour Divide, a 2,745-mile off-road cycling route down the Continental Divide of the U.S., from Banff, Canada, to New Mexico, U.S. This will be by far the most ambitious race I have attempted, one that requires a lot of preparation and a lot of mental strength and perseverance, but I’m also quite sure it will be up there with some of the most spectacular views you could possibly hope for. (The race starts on June 10th and you can follow along online!)
This is something I am extremely excited for, since in November last year, I had my first major accident on my bike. After ten years battling through the streets of heavily congested cities and countless bike tours through the far-flung corners of the world, it was my time. This time I got really unlucky. I was hit at speed by a truck in the middle of nowhere Mexico. The driver called an ambulance and then fled the scene, leaving me in the road alone. I broke my pelvis, femur, and had some nasty cuts.
After being rushed by ambulance six hours back to the capital city, I had four surgeries and spent two weeks in hospital. I then spent another six weeks in a wheelchair before learning to walk (and eventually ride) again. All the treatment and extensive injuries caused me to go way over my maximum claim limit on my health insurance, and I ended up owing tens of thousands of dollars in medical bills. As you can imagine, this was a very intense and heavy moment in life. But this was also a period when my community arrived like a village to my aid.
Amazing friends came to stay to help with day-to-day tasks. I had so many long phone calls with friends around the world to offer their emotional support, and with friends’ help we set up a GoFundMe page and raised enough to cover all my bills in less than a month. Without the people I have in my life, who I mostly know through cycling, I can’t imagine what might have happened to me. I know that it was my character, my energy, and my work that has built up the community I have around me, but I will never forget this outpouring of support when I really needed it, and the true care that people gave me.
I was very fortunate to have physiotherapy every day, and worked tirelessly through the pain and discomfort to get back the strength, flexibility and mobility in my leg. Within 2.5 months I was back to walking unaided, within four months I was back to cycling, and six months to the day after the accident I raced a 557-kilometer ultra-distance race in two days, passing right by the same spot where I had my accident.
It has been a true roller coaster these last seven months, but despite all the pain and all the insecurity I’m not sure I would have changed much about how everything played out. In many ways, I had some incredible good fortune in my very bad fortune. I had never felt more loved and appreciated, while simultaneously feeling broken and empty. I will not and cannot take for granted how fortunate I am to have the people in my life that I have, and to be able to continue to live the life I love in the saddle.
Between work and travel, I spent almost all of my time on a bike for many years. Many long-distance cyclists will tell you that you can experience your highest highs and lowest lows within a couple of short hours on a bike, the full rollercoaster of emotions is ever present.
Cycling has brought me to the best and hardest moments of my life, unquestionably. Ultimately, I think what cycling has taught me is that things will constantly change and you just have to keep moving. You have to enjoy the good times and accept it, keep your head down and keep moving when things get dark and cloudy. I’ve learned how stubborn my mind can be when I have a goal, and how resilient my legs can be to push through.
These three things have made my cycling journey a success:
1. Don’t worry too much about what you’re riding, just keep riding
Too many people think they need the best of everything to have the best experience, but I don’t think that’s true. The main part is to get out there and do it—to go have the experience.
2. You don’t need to dress the part
I think a lot of people end up creating barriers to their experience of cycling by convincing themselves that they don’t have the right kit. It could be true that you don’t have optimal kit, but that shouldn't stop you.
3. Find your music
I almost never ride a bike without listening to music, either through headphones or a speaker. I almost couldn’t imagine a long ride without it.
Allan’s Must-Have Gear
→Gay’s Okay Cap: Anyone who knows me knows that I’m very much a man of many hats. Over the years, I have collected over 100 cycling caps from my travels, and I used to rotate which ones I used pretty often. However, nowadays I really enjoy representing my brand and this positive message. This is the cycling hat you will always find me wearing.
→Brooks Scape Top Tube Bag: All of the Scape range of bags from Brooks offer super high quality construction. I never take my top tube bag off, partly as I store the charging cable linked to my dynamo in there, and partly because it always holds my camera. As a photographer and avid documenter, it’s my go-to quick-grab bag for my camera.
→Quoc Shoes: These are truly some of the best quality and most comfortable cycling shoes I’ve ever owned. The perfect balance of style and useability.
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