Zwift recently announced the launch of the Black Celebration Series (BCS) – a year-long initiative designed to “celebrate the history, athletes, heritage, and joy the Black community brings to Zwift from around the world.”
BCS kicks off today, the first day of Black History Month. But it will run for 12 months. There are actually three components to BCS:
- In-game activities: these events are open to all Zwifters and include daily (except Sundays) group rides and runs for the month of February. Many of these events include special guest leaders from Black Cyclist Network and Level Up Movement plus notable athletes like Cory Williams, Ama Nsek (both from L39ion of LA), the legendary Nelson Vails, Rahsaan Bahati, and Aisha Praught-Leer.
- Social impact initiatives and partnerships: Zwift is donating to the Los Angeles Bicycle Academy and committing to ensuring that 10%-20% of their summer intern cohort is “students who attend Historically Black Colleges or Universities and Hispanic Serving Institutions.” Read more about these initiatives on Zwift’s blog.
- Employee-facing events: Zwift is hosting a series of events for internal staff which “provide pathways to learn about Black experiences within sport, further equipping our team to be ever-mindful of inclusiveness in our work.”
Event Details
All BCS events will be held in New York, the city where many legendary Black cyclists (including Major Taylor and Nelson Vails) got their start.
Ride leaders will keep between 1.5-2w/kg along the Mighty Metropolitan route with the event lasting for one hour. Runs will be along the Grand Central Circuit and will cover a distance of 6.8km (4.2 miles).
Kit Unlock
Complete any BCD ride or run and unlock the BCS kit!
Learn more about the Black Celebration Series and see upcoming events at zwift.com/bcs
Just when I thought I couldn’t love Zwift any more than I already do <3
Those kits are amazing, love everything about this.
It’s panderific!
Oh my sweet summer child… It’s called representation. Let’s imagine your white avatar could only choose between cornrows, jheri curl and afros for the last three years— I think you’d find it pretty timely when they finally implemented the “can I speak to the manager” haircut
Please help me understand why a white person would welcome a “can I speak to the manager” haircut. Though not white myself, my Irish-American wife would like to know if your comment is racist, misogynist, or both, and I’m not sure I have the background to shed light on your snark.
Maybe I can provide some insight for your wife as a fellow Irish-American. While I agree the misogyny of the afformentioned comment is not cool, representing black heritage in a sport that is historically elitest and almost entirely white is a step in the right direction for more equitable cycling. Clearly addressing this racial discretion in the sport needs a lot more action, but this is a small step. Additionally it sounds like pete is speaking to the hypocrisy of people like your wife. To put it brassly, the fact that your wife feels offended by the mention of the “Karen cut” seems to speak more to white fragility than reality. Not sure why fellow Irish-Americans feel distraught by a celebration of black cycling…
White fragility? Quite a nice slogan. Now no white people can point out any issue with any sentiment that seems unbalanced or even offensive in their direction.just white fragility then isn’t it?
I didn’t know Marjorie Taylor Green was a Zwifter…yuck
Thank you for your helpful reply. You’re clearly concerned about increasing equality and fairness, and those are admirable goals. I’m going to assume that it was your honest exuberance about those targets, rather than a lack of reading comprehension skills, that led you to believe that my wife is distraught about a celebration of black cycling. Her concern was about a hurtful meme that – while applicable to some subset of women with that haircut – does not represent opinionated white women, and shouldn’t be any more acceptable than Don Imus’ hurtful comment about a hairstyle worn by many black women. It seems that we’re likely on the same team, but that you’re in search of something to be outraged about. That outrage can certainly be put to good use, but talk is cheap. Put brassly: what have *you* done to increase black participation in cycling?
Can someone help me out. I’m not going to dive into the whole discussion of who what and why we’re being offended. I just don’t understand why Pete started us off into this to begin with. Was the comment he replied to not mean to combine the words “pandemic” and “terrific”?
I read ‘panderific’ as a combination of pandering and terrific….the implication being of course that this move by Zwift was pandering to one movement or another.
If was meant to be a combination of pandemic + terrific, then I don’t know why that was relevant in any way to the original feature.
It’s not really clear