This is my life now!
Meeting someone new generally comes with a routine song and dance. “What is your name?” “Where are you from?” “What do you do?” And for the longest time, the only question I can answer with confidence is the first one. “Ayesha Rosena Anna McGowan”. I’m named after Stevie Wonder’s daughter, but my name is spelled wrong on my birth certificate. There are other spelling errors as well, they really didn’t care in the 80’s. My middle names come from important people in my Dad’s life, and my last name come from my dad. I kept his name when I got married.
I tried to convince will to combine our names, but that was unsucessful. I figured if i had to undergo the obnoxious paperwork of changing my name, so did he. He wasn’t into it, so I’m still a McGowan. I like my name, and a combination of pride and laziness led me to keep it. So much for the McLoyds lol.
All that to say, for the first time in a long time, I feel like I’m finding my way. My name is Ayesha, I grew up in New Jersey, and I do a number of things, including content creation, public speaking, advocacy, and general “stuff” in the cycling and outdoor space. It’s a fun, unconventional life that keeps a roof over my head and brings me joy. That’s more than most people can say these days. Especially Black women. Several of my friends with more traditional jobs have been laid off, making them part of the statistic that over 300000 Black women have been laid off or have left the workforce in 2025. THREE HUNDRED THOUSAND IS CRAZY.
It’s so frustrating seeing your peers in this position, especially with no real solutions in sight. This makes me more confident in my nontraditional career path. I started racing bikes knowing full well there wasn’t much money in it. When I signed my stagiarre contract in 2021, they paid me 30k euros. It was the most money I’d seen yet, and far more than most women were getting paid to race bikes at the time (and even still). The Women’s World Tour only started their mandatory salary for riders in 2020. So anyone who thinks women (or even men, to be honest) are racing bikes for the money are out of their minds. Unless you’re in the top few percent of riders, chances are you’re barely making a living wage. It’s getting better, but it’s still not where it should be for a professional sport.
I am so grateful to everyone who spent years fighting for us to be paid and support the folks are are still fighting for fairness in wages and other things in the sport. Big shoutout to The Cyclist Alliance who is doing amazing work there.
So yea, I have a direction, it matches the chaos in my brain, but it works for me, and that’s all that matters. I get to travel the world and work with incredible people. Being childless makes that infinitely easier, but I’ve seen folks with kids make it work and I love that for them.
Looking ahead to 2026 and things are starting to take shape in very exciting ways. I’m in contract season, but i’m not as scared and scattered as I usually am. I’m confident in what I bring to the table and know that I will find the right people to work with, and the right opportunities to take part in.
Ford Ambassador Summit
But let’s rewind to the now. We’re still on the road! After the Bronco Campout, I flew back to Calfornia and we drove from LA to Palm Springs for the Ford Ambassador Summit. They sent an itinerary ahead of time and it had me a little nervous.
Ford launched the Ready Set Ford campaign not too long ago and this summit was bringing all the ambassadors together to hype that up a bit. The whole ethos of the campaign is acknowledging that people *and Ford vehicles* are very capable. There were 70 ambassadors split into. teams of 4-6. We were all competing for a pretty decent cash prize.
The first night we went to the Palm Springs Surf Club. They offered us all free surfing lessons, but by the time they held easy lesson, the temperature was not optimal for me and I decided I did not want to be wet and cold. I’ve learned that I can be wet, or I can be cold, but I cannot handle both with grace. So I enjoyed being a spectator instead. They also brought in a local hat shop and we were all able to make custom hats. I’m still not completely convinced the hat I chose isn’t giving “Pharell”, but it’s cute from some angles. lol.
who wore it best?
Day two was competition day. My team’s first activity was to try Blue Cruise for the first time. Blue Cruise is a Hands-Free highway driver assistance feature by Ford. BlueCruise does not replace driving, it works in collaboration with the driver, where the driver still maintains responsibility & control.
Hands-free driving wigs me out, so I appreciate that they emphasized paying attention even if your hands aren’t on the steering wheel. There are specific locations where you can even use the technology. BlueCruise operates on 97% of controlled access highways in areas called Hands-Free Blue Zones across the U.S. and Canada. So basically when you’re in a Blue Zone the car will let you know, and you turn it on almost the same way as you’d typically use cruise control.
The trippiest thing was switching lines. You activate with a light tap to the turning signal and it does the rest. Being in LA and seeing all the Waymos let me know that this technology has come a long way. I’m still not super comfortable with it yet, but I feel way more confident than I did before I tried it for myself.
The next activity was AutoX. I’m so ignorant to car racing things that I was calling it Auto-ex when it’s pronounced Auto Cross. Now I know.
They setup a short course with cones, we did a walk-through on the best way to nagivate it, then they put us in helmets and let us do one practice lap and one timed lap. All the ambassadors were taking this VERY seriously. I was scared out of my mind. I’m an excellent driver, but I am NOT a race car driver. I was convinced I had the slowest time, I did not, but the instructor commended me on my excellent line choices. Thanks, bike racing!
After that, we went to Towing Bootcamp! Ford has a band of experts that travel around the country and teach folks how to tow trailers. We were towing a camping trailer with a F-150, but the technology is wild. They have Trailer hitch tech that will help you line up the trailer with the ball hitch on the truck. This sounds like it will save a lot of marriages. There’s also trailer backup assist tech that helps you reverse trailers into parking spaces and such. We watched them hook up the trailer, and then we got to practice parking it.
Will loves watching YouTube videos of truckers reversing their rigs into ridiculous parking scenarios. I just knew it was going to be hard, but it was actually super user-friendly. I don’t foresee myself towing anything in the near future, but now I know I can!
After that, we had lunch before heading to the Bronco Knoll. Friends, the Bronco Knoll ain’t near a damned thing. While we were being bucked around in the Bronco on the way there, I made sure the other folks in the car knew this was definitely the kind of place I would never be without a large quantity of trusted white people. We were in the DESERT!
Anyway, the Bronco Knoll is in the area that was used for R&D for the Bronco. The coordinates are actually stamped into the Bronco! A knoll is basically a small hill, in the case of the Bronco knoll, it’s a very steep small hill. This thing really showed off the Bronco’s rock crawling abilities. It’s always incredible to watch.
My team didn’t win the competition, but we had a lot of fun, and learned new things so no complaints from me!
After the summit we headed back to LA ahead of Thee Abundance Training Camp. Just before I left Palm Springs I had a short convo with fellow Ford Ambassador Paris Gore, who mentioned he was also headed to LA with intentions to attend a Dodgers game. Naturally, I invited myself.
A few weeks ago when we were in Virginia, I woke up with a random desire to attend a baseball game. I was so excited and told WIll I wanted to go. He was beyond confused. I know very little about baseball. Nor do I care at all about baseball. I know I was a professional athlete, but truth be told, I don’t really follow sports outside of cycling. I purchased a league pass for the WNBA because “ball is life”, but I didn’t watch a single game on my own. I say things like “yay sports!” and “Yay ball sports!” So Will didn’t take me seriously when I shared my sudden urge to go to a baseball game. A few minutes later, while I was repairing an old raincoat I found at my grandma’s house, I found a ticket stub to a Braves game from 1983 in the pocket. IT WAS A SIGN!
When Paris mentioned the Dodgers game, I didn’t hesitate to invite myself because this was clearly the universe providing an opportunity. I don’t fight with the universe. It’s useless.
The baseball game was so fun! According to everyone else, it was actually super boring, but my expectations bar for baseball was super low and didn’t agree. I loved the excitement of the fans, almost lost it when there was a man selling peanuts and cracker jacks (just like the song), thoroughly enjoyed the sing along during the 7th inning stretch where we got to all sing “Take me out to the ballgame” together, TWICE, and found a lot of amusement with the K-meter constantly yelling “WE NEED ANOTHER K!!” because 3 Ks on the K-meter is unacceptable.
The fans aren’t on futbol/ soccer level, but they are VERY into the game. Everybody had an outfit (jersey?) Baseball is also somehow both fast and slow at the same time. I’d blink and the pitcher would have already pitched twice.
The organist was having a lot of fun playing random songs and blending them into classic baseball chant songs. For example, he would start playing “Golden” from K-pop demon hunters and then blend it into little diddy they play that ends in everyone yelling “charge!” Super fun! Chants and songs are my favorite part of attending sports games! I love a good bop.
It was a playofff game, quarter final? I don’t know the lingo folks, but I know it was post-season and super important. I also learned that they won the whole shebang last season, so their reputation was on the line. No one scored anything until the Phillies in the 7th inning. And just before the end of it all, the Dodgers tied it up. The game went into double over time, which in baseball is called extra innings, and the Dodgers managed to win the game and go to the next round of whatever their post-season is called. lol. I had fun, but I will not be taking baseball any more seriously than I have thus far.
Thee Abundance Camp
Thee Abundance Intermediate Road Skills Camp is always a nice balm to my jaded spirit when it comes to the cycling scene. I’ve been around for a while now, and I find a lot of things unsavory, but I will always find a spark in folks, especially women of color, especiall Black woman, who want to learn and grow in cycling. At the core of it all, that’s what it’s about. It’s a fun thing, and we want to know how to do it better. We want to feel safe and confident doing it. And many of us also want to make friends and build community. This is the point of these camps, and I’m gonna toot my horn a bit and say we do it very well.
We had a great group of women who were super enthusiastic, asked great questions, soaked up info like a sponge, and walked away better for it.
The thing I really try to drive home is that your experience on the bike is your own, so you’re not required to make it exactly like everyone else’s. Everyone in cycling is an “expert”, but at the end of the day, you know what’s best for you, and you know when something doesn’t feel right. Also, most of us get mainsplained to so much, we can’t even think straight. Sometimes I hear stories of ridiculous advice men are giving to women and I want to fight the men because it’s usually reckless, dangerous, and wrong.
Anyway. We had fun, and learned things, so it was a success!
Shout out to Bronco Wild Fund for supporting the event, and to Liv for the swag.
Bike Racing News
So if you haven’t seen it yet, the Dutch are doing the darndest to understand the spirit of gravel. I for one can’t decide if they nailed it, because I also don’t understand the spirit of gravel. At the UCI Gravel World Championships, Dutch rider Shirin Van Anrooij was up the road with a decent gap poised and ready to win, only to have several of her own teammates work together to chase her down and sprint around her at the line. It’s one of the wildest things I’ve ever seen.
This race is more of a road race and brings all the roadies out of the woodwork chasing rainbow stripes when they’re totally not gravel racers, but they’re more fit than all the dedicated gravel racers, and the courses are usually suited for roadies, so it’s low-hanging fruit.
Gravel racing is typically an individual endeavour, but countries still send national teams, so they’re still technically teammates, but none of it makes sense.
Oh well. It’s not for me to understand. I still feel bad for Shirin, cuz that’s GOT to sting. One of her teammates publicly apologized, but the team coach was like basically like… whatevs we won. So yea. Wild.
Okie. this was a super long one. If you made it this far. Thanks for reading! Until next time!
