*WE Bike NYC* rider: Katie Monroe - Swift Industries
WE Bike NYC is organizing ten women from five organizations to ride 262 miles on bicycles from New York City to Washington, DC to represent their communities at the nation’s largest annual bicycle advocacy event, the National Bike Summit on March 3, 2014. For more about the ride, check out our fundraising page HERE!
It is with great pleasure and wholehearted support that Swift Industries has donated touring gear to three amazing women involved in this adventure.
Over the next week, in anticipation of the group’s departure, we’ll highlight each of these adventurous souls. We hope they’ll inspire you to follow their lead in bicycle advocacy, adventuring, and bringing women’s visibility to the fore of our cycling communities!
Katie Monroe
Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia: Women Bike PHL
Age? 23
Where are you from? Philadelphia, PA
Where do you ride? All around my city! I am constantly traversing the bustling neighborhoods of Philadelphia on my bike. There is no better way to live and love this city.
When and why did you start riding? I have always been riding bikes for fun, but I only got into riding for transportation consistently when I moved to South Philly about a year and a half ago. It’s cheap, convenient, environmentally-friendly, fast (good for impatient folks like me!), but more importantly it is FUN and it has connected me with an incredibly diverse and passionate community of people, in Philadelphia and beyond.
How has WE Bike NYC (or biking with your org, or as a woman) impacted your life? WE Bike NYC has been a tremendous source of inspiration for the program I founded at the Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia: Women Bike PHL. I love riding and learning about bikes with women because it’s allowed me to share the skills I have, inspire confidence in others, and learn a LOT. I think the confidence I have as a bicyclist carries over into other aspects of life, too. I feel so independent in my transportation choices and that has a ripple effect!
Why do you want to go on the ride? There are some incredible women moving the bicycling movement forward all over the country. We are strong individually, but together we are way more powerful. I want to deepen the connections I already have and form new ones on this ride — it can only mean good things for the bicycling movement to strengthen solidarity among women bicycling leaders!
Anything else you’d like to add? I am a little scared of doing this type of ride! I mostly ride for transportation around Philly, or on pretty cushy tours on vacation with my family (not as much mileage per day). I am always encouraging women to face their own biking challenges — so this will be a good challenge for me. 
Get Katie through this challenge and into the National Bike Summit by contributing here!
