This workshop will offer a perspective on how to address the needs of one's local cycling community, from an individual who had no prior related experience. While the March Abundance Workshop focused on sharing resources and using cross-community support to address community needs, here the listener will learn how to devise a project plan that is focused on an identified need, and will be offered some suggestions on how to use skills they already have to turn that plan into reality. 

Sheila Mahadevan (she/her) is a resident of Washington, DC, who loves bikes, riding bikes, and the community built around bikes. Sheila has been riding bikes in the DC area for over 10 years and enjoys mountain biking and gravel cycling the most. 

In 2020, Sheila started Melanin Base Miles, a project aimed at removing barriers and increasing racial diversity in her local cycling community. Since 2020, Melanin Base Miles has administered two gravel scholarship programs that have sent 20 BIPOC athletes to gravel events in the Mid-Atlantic. Program participants have received cash stipends, free coaching, mechanical support, and the opportunity to join community gravel rides. 

In 2022, Melanin Base Miles launched a BIPOC gravel racing team. The team currently has 12 members that race competitively in the largest Mid-Atlantic and national gravel events. Further, Melanin Base Miles is a DC-based non-profit corporation.

Sheila serves as the Chair of the Board of Directors for Melanin Base Miles and was also recently appointed to the Board of The Roam Collective. By day, Sheila is a lawyer who loves cats.

Presented by: Bronco Wild Fund, Zwift, Liv, & SRAM