For the fourth year in a row, I'm joining the Black Leaders Detroit (www.blackleadersdetroit.org) team on their Ride 4 Equity (https://ride4equity.org/) (and you can follow the incredible daily stories here: https://www.instagram.com/ride4equity/ ): a nonprofit bicycle ride raising funds to provide 0% interest loans for businesses owned by people of African descent here in our city. I have cycled with the team from Detroit to Mackinaw City in years past, but this year, they are doing something historic and making a huge statement to build awareness of the inequities that still exist in small business loans: The Ride launched on May 31, 2025 from Tulsa, OK, site of the decimated Black Wall Street decades ago, going nearly 1,700 miles across the country to Wall Street in New York City. I will be serving as a support crew van driver for most of Pennsylvania, AND I'm thrilled to share that I will ALSO get to participate as a rider! I'll bike with the team from Indianapolis to Columbus, and then again from State College, PA to NYC! This is quite miraculous, as years of chronic pain and a PT telling me that I might not be able to bike again in 2024 crushed me, but thanks to a great surgeon and the brilliant Drew Ricciardi, founder of www.themonkeybody.com, a very supportive exercise and conditioning regimen that is particularly helpful to people like myself with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome and joint hypermobility, I have already completed over 500 miles of training in just a few weeks! I am so excited, grateful, and humbled to ask for your support!

$600 : Rider Registration Costs: Directly Supports BLD staff members and volunteers in being able to ride freely, building awareness and context all across the country.

$1,300: Donation Directly to Black Leaders Detroit. These funds will go directly to support the 0% interest loans for people of African descent in Detroit. Still, there is too much data proving that a person like me born in the suburbs would have a much easier time getting a business loan here in the city than a peer who grew up here, who's Black elders and family members held this whole community together through all of Detroit's economic rises and falls...BLD stands to eliminate that gap. 

$500: Amtrak tickets and other personal travel expenses

$800: Bike modifications in preparation for mountainous terrain (Detroit is quite flat!)

$3,200 Goal

#ride4equity #RideForEquity #blackleadersdetroit #rideforequity2025