Student cyclist documents local female riders
Zoey Mauck
May 15, 2017
Zoey Mauck, senior, came to Iowa State for its highly ranked landscape architecture program. While there, she’s brought attention to female cyclists through a portrait project.
“Growing up, biking was everything to me. It was my favorite evening activity in elementary school, my mode of transportation to my friends’ houses in middle school, and my favorite way to exercise and socialize on group rides once I got to high school,” Mauck said.
Her dad would take her and her sister to the school and church across the street to ride their bikes in the parking lot.
“Biking has brought me such a great community of people. In high school, I created a cycling club with my friend and we rode each week to a coffee shop or park or event, it was tons of fun to see so many people on bikes,” Mauck said. “We even did ragbrai twice, which I think everyone who lives in Iowa should do at least once.”
Mauck hopes to use her degree to help bicyclists.
“With the combination of landscape architecture and planning, I hope to help not only implement, but design better bike systems,” Mauck said.
Mauck uses her bike for transportation and leisure. This year she’s also gotten more involved with the Ames Bicycle Coalition.
“I started a photo documentation project this year documenting female cyclists, since they make up a fairly small percentage of total cyclists, and the coalition was instrumental in helping me locate women who were interested,” Mauck said.
Mauck said she first noticed the lack of female riders in high school.
“It wasn’t even necessarily that there weren’t women riding, but it was the lack of confidence I noticed among female riders,” Mauck said. “The girls I rode with were afraid to bike alone because they didn’t know any bike maintenance if something were to happen, or they were concerned about being a female alone on the trail or road.”
When Mauck got to Iowa State, she joined the ISU Cycling Club, hoping to meet other women cyclists.
“I was excited to meet other women that like biking through joining the ISU Cycling Club, but only met a couple other women in the group of 15 or so people,” Mauck said. “Throughout college, this has been most of my experience. I see groups of guys riding recreationally all together, but mostly only see women commuting occasionally.”
Working at the Des Moines Bike Collective, Mauck planned a women’s bike ride last summer to raise money to start a weekly women’s workshop at the collective.
“Seeing so many women come together to learn together and share their appreciation for biking was inspiring, and made me think about the future of the cycling community,” Mauck said.
Mauck applied to the focus grant program at Iowa State to document what she was seeing.
“I knew I wanted to make a statement about the women of the cycling community. My idea was that giving faces to the female cycling community would help people understand that there are women out there riding bikes, there just aren’t as many of them as there could be–so I started a portrait series,” Mauck said. “I first reached out to the circle of women I met through planning the women’s ride in Des Moines, but as word spread, I was able to meet women in the Ames community, and eventually started accepting portraits that people sent me of themselves from all over the country.”
Putting this project together introduced Mauck to a strong community of women who are confident riders.
“I just didn’t know they were there. And that’s what the problem is. These women are doing amazing things for the community through biking, but men are still the predominant gender known for riding bikes,” Mauck said. “I want these photos to normalize the female cyclist, and expose this truly amazing community.”
Mauck said the takes any opportunity she sees to make a difference. Two summers ago, Mauck biked across the country with a nonprofit called Bike & Build alongside 29 other young adults from around the US. They would work with non-profits to build homes at each stop.
“I learned so much about bikes, the value of a home, and how amazing it feels to live such a simple life,” Mauck said.
On the trip she had two t-shirts, two bike kits, a pair of shorts and one dress to wear.
“I did have a close call in Utah where a driver with a boat trailer drove way too fast and close beside me and broke their side mirror off on my back,” Mauck said. “It propelled me forward off into the shoulder, but I somehow managed to stay upright. I only ended up with a bruise and a glass shard sliced into my camelbak backpack, so I was very lucky but still terrified.”
