Trans Solidarity Ride, December 14th 2025
You're warmly invited to join the Queens of Pain, School of Rocks and the InfraSisters for an afternoon of bike rides in solidarity with trans women.
Meet at Milk Cafe, by the bike path in Newhaven, Edinburgh:
- Gravel rides: Meet at 1pm for a 1:30 start - choose between a longer ride for experienced gravel cyclists, or a shorter less technical ride with guidance and support.
- Road ride: Meet at 2pm for a 2:30 start - a more relaxed "party pace" circuit suitable for less adventurous riders, but a good distance of about 20km.
- Converge at Dreadnought Bar in Leith at dusk (around 4pm)
We'll have a sign-up on Outliers soon - the organisers will see your contact details but signups remain anonymous by default.
Why are we doing this?
You may have heard that several recipients of Cycling UK’s 2025 100 Women in Cycling Award have declined it, because for the first time trans women are excluded from the award. One of those women, Claire Sharpe of All Terre Adventures in Bristol, has set up a Trans Solidarity Ride. We stand with Claire!
We think Cycling UK is a brilllant organisation. It is a fabulous advocate for leisure cycling, for community cycling initiatives, for wacky extreme adventures, and their 100 Women in Cycling Awards is an important annual event, recognising community and industry work. However, in 2025, these awards now exclude trans women.
WE THINK CYCLING UK ARE WRONG.
The decision to exclude trans women in cycling from an award that has nothing to do with the Equality Act is unnecessary, discriminatory, helps set a terrible precedent, and needs to change.
In Edinburgh we stand up ON OUR PEDALS to acknowledge and celebrate the contribution of our trans sisters to the vibrant women’s cycling community in and around Scotland’s capital, and we will not accept their casual erasure.
So, on Sunday December 14th we will express our solidarity with the trans community in the best way we can – by cycling! We invite you to join us on one of several mass cycles through our city. Everyone is welcome, whatever your gender. Let us show that Edinburgh respects and celebrates gender diversity. Let us tell Cycling UK, and any other bodies introducing exclusionary policies, that they are wrong!
We are planning several routes to follow:
- An "introduction to gravel" ride - about 25km of road and (possibly muddy and messy) gravel routes
- A longer gravel ride intended for experienced cyclists.
- A gentle escorted ride mostly on off-road cyclepaths for newcomers to leisure cycling.
All routes will be starting at Milk in Newhaven (tables reserved, so fuel up there – they support us!), and we aim to finish around dusk at the Dreadnought Bar in North Forth Street.
As Emily Chappell writes in this excellent open letter to Cycling UK, Setting an Example: "Trans women are warmly invited to join any ride, group or event for which we are responsible. This has always been the case, and it always will be."
See you at Milk!
Poster download links:
- Print-at-home PDF (makes 2 A5 posters)
- Insta-compatible square image
