KICKSTARTER

Update, June 22: Three days left! Any extra funds raised at this point will be going towards production of Taking the Lane #2. The next issue is already starting to come together and will hopefully go to print in the fall. I'm really excited about the primary contributor who's volunteered, a tough, smart lady who builds her own bikes and rides at the front of the pack. Watch this space for details in the next few months.

Update, June 5: Thanks so much to everyone who's helped this little publication along! As of this week, the funding goal is met, the final design is in hand (thanks to Ian Lynam for his badass professional skills), and the printer is set to start actualizing its analog existence. Hurray!

The catch: it's going to cost more to print than I originally expected. The good news is that we're well on our way there! $500 will cover printing + postage costs as these little beauties wing their way towards all you good people.

I'm very touched by how many folks have kicked in. You all rock and I can't wait to send you mail!

I'm starting a zine about feminism and bicycling for a bunch of reasons: To wrap my head around things I've seen as an activist and professional in various parts of the bike world, to reach out to others who've had similar experiences, and to keep the conversation going about how to make the world of bicycling better for women (and better in general).

This first issue is called Sharing the Road with Boys. It's about my experiences bicycling for transportation and working in various parts of the bike industry and as a journalist. It ends with some solutions I've been trying out recently. It's based on this frustrated essay that I wrote last January and contains a couple of the same stories.

The next two issues are going to be all about you and your stories, insights, questions, ideas, hopes, and dreams for bicycling from a gender perspective.

Support this project with at least $1 and contribute something to one of the next two issues! Anything goes, from a fully fleshed out story or drawing to a simple idea, quotation, or piece of clip art. I'll try hard to include everything and to work with you in the editing process.

Better yet, buy the zine itself! Your $4 contribution pre-orders the zine at its cover price and makes it possible to print it! If you can give more, I'll send you more good reading material, the next issue will have a seed fund, and everyone will win!

Taking the Lane will be the first zine I've made since I was a teenager in the early 90s. Back then we used typewriters and gluesticks; this time around it's more of a cyborg operation, with polished graphic design and professional offset printing instead of scamming photocopies. (Though the graphic designer, printer, and editor are all grown-up teenaged zinesters too.)

If you run into trouble with payment, contact me directly and we'll work it out the way we used to do it in the 90s.

Thanks for supporting this project and with it bicycling, feminism, and independent publishing. I'm excited to put this out there. And I can't wait to see what contributions you all come up with. Start thinking about yours!