I spent four years working in Afghanistan with the first generation of women to ride bikes in Afghanistan from 2012-2016. My work with the Afghan National Women’s Team was internationally recognized with an exhibition in the Canadian Museum of Human Rights, National Geographic Adventure, and a nomination of the national cycling team for a Nobel Peace Prize as part of an overall bid by an Italian committee to nominate the Bike as a Vehicle for Peace. When I started mountain biking in Afghanistan in 2009, I could not find Afghan women or girls riding in Afghanistan anywhere in the country. It was still a cultural taboo and while I heard rumors and stories of Afghan women riding in the south in 1960’s, there were no physical records of it to be found because the Taliban had destroyed so much history when they controlled the country.
From 2013 to 2018 I was producer on the Let Media documentary, Afghan Cycles which documented the first generation of Afghan women to cycle for sport in multiple provinces which premiered at Toronto’s Hot Doc’s Film Festival. I wrote a book Mountain to Mountain about my experiences mountain biking which ended when I met Marjan Seddiqe, the captain of the National Women’s Cycling Team, a handful of young women cycling in Kabul. I assisted in another book written by Hannah Ross, Revolutions, about the history of women’s cycling that included interviews with key leadership in the Afghan women’s cycling movement in Bamyan. And numerous publications and media and short films have documented the women’s cycling revolution during its initial surge of growth 2013-2016.
Thanks to the bravery of Afghan women and girls over one decade, women’s cycling grew from a handful of young women on a cycling team in Kabul to girls’ teams and clubs in multiple provinces, training and racing in road cycling, mountain biking, and BMX. The sport was incredibly dangerous for women and girls and was still considered taboo by conservative Afghans at the time that Kabul fell to the Taliban on August 2021. Today, cycling is banned like all sports for Afghan girls. So is riding bikes, visiting public gardens and national parks, banning freedom of movement and access to the outdoors for women. It is part of the larger gender apartheid that bans women from school and work and traveling without a male escort.
The evacuation of Afghanistan’s first generation of female cyclists and the current cycling teams took place with numerous partners and supporters and was largely financed by crowdfunding. The total number is unknown by through my individual efforts alongside partners over 150 Afghans, mostly cyclists and family members were evacuated and the majority resettled into 10 different countries. In this group includes all the original national team members and cycling leadership from Bamyan and Kabul that I knew and supported from 2013-2016.