I would say I come from a family that loves cycling. I grew up watching my grandfather cycling to work – he was a construction worker, so he would carry all his heavy tools on his bike. Sometimes he would cycle to the other side of the city, which would take him about 1 to 2 hours. I still remember he had a special way of getting on the bike, that my cousins and I would practice all the time.
My dad started cycling when I was around 14 years old. He got a mountain bike and during the weekends he would practice downhill with his cousins and friends. They were all around 30 to 34 years old. So it was quite interesting to see all these grown-up men meeting up to ride their bikes at 6 am on a Saturday and just throw themselves down the hills. They switched to road cycling when they realized they couldn’t afford to break a bone anymore. After that, they got really serious about cycling and started racing. These past years they have gone cycling to Italy and France.
Then, an aunt from my mom’s side started cycling in her early thirties. She would commute to work every day, just like my grandfather did. She joined some clubs and met other women that loved cycling as much as her. At that time there was a big cycling movement in Chile. People would meet up the first Tuesday of every month and would stop main streets in Santiago and ride their bikes. This was a way of protesting and asking the authorities for better cycling infrastructure. It was huge! My aunt joined many times, she was proud of herself.
Up until that point I wasn’t still that interested in riding bikes. My dad always gave us bikes as presents when we were kids. I loved it but I think it was more about being with other kids and playing outside than actually riding the bike. As I grew older I started to cycle a bit more – commuting to friends’ houses and going to university in Downtown Santiago. And I started to really enjoy it. I bought a commuting bike so I could carry things to go to school, and I really loved it.
Then I moved to Canada in 2017 and I didn’t get a bike until 2018. A friend gave me her bike because she was moving to another town. I used it three times and then it got stolen and so I never biked again until 2021.
So! I have always been surrounded by people who love cycling. And I never really understood it. Somehow many of my days when I was a kid and a teenager were about cycling. I just wasn’t that aware of it. But when I look back I just remember all these beautiful memories of me and my family riding our bikes!
