Cycling through women’s adventuring history

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After cycling around the state delivering lectures on adventuring women of the early 1900s, Port Townsend-based artist, writer, historian and bike explorer Tessa Hulls will be riding back into town April 2.

Hulls will be giving a special lecture on women, trans and femme riders in early cycling history at 6:30 p.m. at the Pope Marine Building.

The lecture inlcudes the history of women cyclists, and also lesbian, transgender and non-binary cyclists.

“I’m going back to the 1890s in cycling history, but looking at it through the context of gender,” Hulls said. “Specifically, how it allowed women more freedom than they had ever had before, during a time when they didn’t have the right to vote.”

Hulls is traveling around the state with her mountain bike, presenting her Humanities Washington Speakers Bureau lecture, “She Traveled Solo: Strong Women in the Early 1900s.”

In her lecture, Hulls uses women’s stories, mixed with historical photos and her own pen illustrations to tell the story of how these pioneering women fought for the expansion of gender rights.

“It is equal parts historical context and incredible stories of women in that time period,” Hulls said.

Hull’s program of photographs and words tells the stories of women cycling across the Swiss alps in Victorian dress,  fighting for women’s suffrage, and shows how the history of female cycling demonstrates how women used bicycle adventuring to pursue freedom and to have a place in a largely male-dominated cycling world.

“It was a great platform for activism and social change,” Hulls said.

Hulls carries on the tradition of adventure riding. In 2011, she departed on a solo tour from southern California to Maine, covering 5,000 miles on two wheels. Since then, she has cycled all over the U.S., Alaska, parts of Ghana, Cuba and Mexico.

Along the way, she has delved deep into the history of pioneering female cyclists and found stories and travelogues from the late 1800s and early 1900s of women not unlike herself adventuring on two wheels.

“She has a really special way of illustrating history and connecting it to her own personal history and broader themes,” said Shelly Leavens, director of the Jefferson County Historical Society.

The museum is co-sponsoring the lecture, along with the Port Townsend ReCyclery and the Port Townsend Cycle School.

For the Jefferson County Historical Society, the lecture is the beginning of a partnership with Hulls.

“We are hoping to work with her more on telling the Chinese American history in Port Townsend,” Leavens said. “She identifies as an artist and a historian, so she’s really the perfect fit for us as a museum of art and history.”

When she’s not traveling around the state delivering her lecture on adventuring women for Humanities Washington, Hulls can often be found in Port Townsend on her mountain bike.

“One of my favorite things about Port Townsend is that it has such an amazing network of trails,” she said. “You’re able to go almost anywhere in town, without ever going on the road.”

When she isn’t adventure riding, Hulls is working on a graphic novel about her journalist grandmother, Sun Yi.

Because of her love of cycling, Hulls begins each of her lectures with a group bike ride. The one in Port Townsend will start at 5:15 p.m. at the Pope Marine building, and those attending the lecture are welcome to go for the bike ride first.

The lecture will also be raising funds for the WTF Bikexplorers Scholarship Fund, which is a group of women, trans, and femme bike explorers that hold a yearly summit on adventure riding.