Friends on Bikes Goes to Kitsap Memorial Park

Our travel took place on the ancestral lands of the S’Klallam, Twana/Skokomish, Cayuse, Umatilla and Walla Walla, and Suquamish peoples who have stewarded those lands since time immemorial.

Pre-departure at Hing Hay Park!

I have been really fortunate to be learning, growing, and organizing with Friends on Bikes (FOB), a cycling community for trans, women, intersex, and gender nonconforming Black, Indigenous, and People of the Global Majority. The group started in Portland with Molly Sugar and grew to include sibling chapters in Seattle and Toronto. In July 2021 FOB hosted its first bike camping trip since 2018, when the original organizer, SJ Brooks, passed. We are fortunate to carry on their legacy of organizing for underrepresented genders and racial/ethnic/cultural backgrounds in cycling.

The route included a ferry ride to Bainbridge Island along with snacks from the International District, and then we mosied through Poulsbo where we shopped for dinner supplies and took a long break at the waterfront gazebo.

Once we landed at Kitsap Memorial State Park, we spent some time cooling off on the beach (even though the tide was high) since the sun was high and bright!

A highlight of the trip was definitely the FOOD. Our FOB crew knows how to cook and nobody was shy about sharing. This was by far some of the best camp eating I’ve done — we had a wonderful taco dinner, and a really wonderful variety at breakfast. We all chipped in on snacks, hydration tablets, and taking care of one another inside and out. I came home feeling so uplifted and ready for the next trip.

The way back crew

Photo by Jess Kim