Meet our speakers
We’re so excited to welcome our speakers and panelists:
Anisa Aubin • Biola Babawale • Cheryl Reid • El Jaskowska • Emily Chappell • Jenni Gwiazdowski • Jenny Tough • Jools Walker • Kitty Dennis • Mel Nicholls • Vedangi Kulkarni
Schedule
Join us for talks, panels and conversation on the Saturday or make a weekend of it with rides and a lunch time social on the Sunday. Don’t forget you can camp for just £5 in our central Oxford campsite on Friday and Saturday nights.
Our amazing speakers
Anisa Aubin
Anisa started out cycling to raise money for educating disadvantaged youths in Malawi, after spending time there helping out.
She signed up for TCR before she knew what it entailed, after only learning of its existence from the local bike kitchen. It was a journey of “learn on the go”, with training that included club rides and audaxes. Following that she raced North Cape to Tarifa (finishing first woman), and then topped that with an impromptu entrance for TCR6.
Addicted to the beauty of the world, experiences that can be had at cycling pace, and the goodness of people – especially when presented with a most vulnerable cyclist – she has continued racing.
Anisa loves a challenge or competition to see how far the body can go and what the mind is capable of. She was one of a handful to attempt and complete GBDuro 2020 (self-sufficient version).
Biola Babawale
Founder @cycletogether.com_
Chair of @velociposse
@velocioapparel
Having only started cycling in 2018, Biola immersed herself in the cycling community, showing great enthusiasm for her own progression and that of other women too.
She is the chair of London-based Velociposse, a club for all women; including transgender, intersex, and cis, as well as trans-men and non-binary people.
Highly aware of the hurdles to join cycling clubs, Biola works hard alongside the wider committee to reduce barriers within Velociposse. The result is a club that is more accessible for women, trans and non-binary people of colour, and as disability-friendly as possible, and still constantly challenging itself to improve.
She has gone on to set up Cycle Together which was created to help achieve the same goal: helping more people of all ages, backgrounds, and cultures to get cycling in their local clubs and groups.
Cheryl Reid
President of the Cowley Road Condors cycling club and loud laugh enthusiast.. Went from years of commuting to joining a cycling club and trying all sorts of fun things (including running it). Loves long distance, tea, snacks and getting the sleeveless out.
El Jaskowska
El grew up roaming the Welsh hills and first discovered bicycles at uni when she was looking to take her procrastination to the next level.
She started the School of Rocks last year when she saw her friends struggling to find their flow with off road riding. How were we going to see a seismic change in the number of women and gender variant people on the trails, if everyone needed a friend or a partner to show them the ropes?
El saw two opportunities; firstly, to break down the complexities of off-road riding into some fun and achievable steps aka 'The Curriculum'! Secondly, to harness the power of community to start a scalable movement, a network of schools across the UK, now spreading to the Netherlands and USA.
Emily Chappell
Emily Chappell is an author, adventurer and advocate, known for her long-distance bicycle journeys and the words with which she shares them. Her first book, What Goes Around, was described by the Guardian as “a lovely lyric poem to the city,” and told the story of her years as a London cycle courier.
Her second book, Where There’s A Will, follows Emily’s journey into the curious world of long-distance self-supported bike races, and gives a unique insight into how it feels to race across a continent: cycling through both sunrise and sunset, navigating through mountain ranges and along remote unpaved roads, and searching out food along the way.
Emily has cycled thousands of miles in dozens of countries, and now spends her time trying to help as many other people as possible to experience the joy, growth and liberation that she has obtained from cycling.
Jenni Gwiazdowski
Director, Mechanic, Author, Entrepreneur
Jenni is the founder and co-director of the London Bike Kitchen, a DIY bike workshop that opened its doors in 2012 to teach home mechanic bike maintenance both in-person and online.
For 5 years she co-hosted the Wheel Suckers Podcast with Alex Davis of Look Mum No Hands. Jenni also helped set up LBK's Women and Gender-variant night and the Women of Colour Cycling Collective, two stepping stones to help marginalised people get into cycling.
She has written the instructional book "How to Build a Bike" and is currently working on ideas for Book 2. It's probably safe to say that she likes bikes and believes that cycling will save the world. It is her raison d'être to deconstruct bike maintenance and make learning about mechanics fun and interesting.
In the end, she just wants you to pump up your tyres on a regular basis. Is that too much to ask for? ;p
Jenny Tough
Jenny Tough is a writer and adventurer, and an enthusiast for all things endurance challenges, particularly in the mountains. Whether it be a race or a solo adventure, her desire to push her limits has led her to numerous corners of the world.
In 2021 she completed a global challenge to run, solo and unsupported, across a mountain range on every continent, including three world-first traverses. She’s also competed in long-distance bikepacking races, including becoming the two-time first woman in the Silk Road Mountain Race and first woman in the inaugural Atlas Mountain Race – considered two of the toughest off-road bike races.
Outside of her personal pursuits, she is on a mission to get more people outside and challenging their own comfort zones, particularly women and girls, which she has championed by launching a book called Tough Women: Adventure Stories.
Jools Walker
Jools Walker (aka LadyVelo) is a best-selling author, freelance writer, podcaster and cycling community builder.
Jools started her writing career in 2010 on her award-winning blog, Vélo City Girl. Since then, she has published her first book, Back in the Frame – Cycling, belonging, and finding joy on a bike, with Little, Brown and written for publications including The Guardian, Glorious Sport, Time Out London, Cycling UK, Grazia, and Refinery29.
Jools has worked within the bike industry for over a decade to widen participation and increase diversity in cycling for marginalised and under-represented groups.
Kitty Dennis
@Bluberrysmoothie
@steezycollective
Kitty found cycling in 2015 after recovering from some rugby related mishaps. With a newfound love she found that the most enjoyment came from riding with friends.
After growing and diversifying the UCL cycling club, Kitty met Taylor Doyle and together they started Steezy with Alice Clews-Smith who joined a little later. Kitty has now stepped into the director role at Steezy and aims to make her love of cycling a shared passion up and down the country with trips, regular rides and exciting adventures. She also, in her 9-5, sits and watches some small dots move across the screen in her role as managing editor at DotWatcher - the home of ultra distance cycling.
The Steezy Collective is an all inclusive cycling collective, a space for women and non-binary riders to cycle together.
Mel Nicholls
Mel is an athlete at heart with a soul for adventure. While she continues to take on the world representing GB from marathons to paracycling to paratriathlon, Mel’s passion for pushing what is possible in the world of ultra cycling drives her mission to educate and bring about positive change in a predominately able-bodied, male dominated world.
A multiple world record breaker, Mel is as much at home in the high performance world as is living off the road, carrying her world on her handbike, collecting stories of human kindness and fuelled by Feast ice creams and canine friends.
Mel firmly believes there shouldn’t be barriers to anyone riding a bike and shares her experiences through journeys far and wide to champion the simplicity and purity of cycling, and the crucial need to remove barriers, both literal and archaic society driven.
Vedangi Kulkarni
Vedangi Kulkarni is an adventure traveller, endurance athlete, public speaker, writer, expedition manager and a business owner. In 2018, she rode 29,000km around the world in 160 days, mostly solo and unsupported, at the age of 19/20, becoming the youngest woman to circumnavigate the globe on bike.
She’s always keen for an adventure, be it cold water swimming, long distance hiking or cycling, climbing, mountain biking, skiing or travelling through remote places. Her happy place is anywhere outside, in the wild, and on the move. She loves to write about bikepacking, mountain biking and just about anything adventurous. You can find her work on www.vedangikulkarni.com
Our partners
Thanks to our wonderful partners:
Rapha • Komoot • Velocity Cycle Couriers • Velovixen • Cowley Road Condors • Trek Bicester
If you would like to support the event, please get in touch with Jo Lankester.
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Outspoken
Celebrating women’s voices in cycling
All photos copyright @honorelliott, @theoclarkes, @calvinoooooo and @scoot_ with thanks to Rapha
