New Black Cyclones, by Marlon Lee Moncrieffe

Title: New Black Cyclones – Racism, Representation and Revolutions of Power in Cycling
Author: Marlon Lee Moncrieffe
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Year: 2024
Pages: 212
Order: Bloomsbury
What it is: Marlon Moncrieffe’s follow-up to Desire Discrimination Determination in which he again addresses the issue of racism in cycling and raises some challenging questions about the ways in which we might rid cycling of its colour bar
Strengths: Moncrieffe acknowledges that none of the solutions available to us are simple
Weaknesses: If all you think is needed to solve cycling’s racism problem is assimilating some Black riders into the sport, you probably won’t like some of the issues raised here by Moncrieffe

Cycling is a white sport. Think of a cyclist and chances are you’re thinking of a white cyclist.

A few years ago, asked to think of a cyclist, chances are you would have been thinking of a white, male cyclist. Today, there’s a good chance you’ll be thinking of a white, female cyclist.

What changed?

On one level, we did. Society changed and we changed with it. On another level, the sport changed. Women are more and more prominent in the sport. Conscious decisions were made to make that happen.

What will have to change in order for cycling to stop being seen as a white sport? What will have to change in order for more people to think of a Black cyclist – male or female – when asked to think of a cyclist?

Early in New Black Cyclones – Marlon Moncrieffe’s follow-up to his wildly successful Desire Discrimination Determination: Black Champions in Cycling this time with a more forward-looking perspective – the author discusses a social media poll he came across in 2022 which asked the question “Who is the greatest cyclist?”. After taking suggestions, the choices were narrowed down to four: Eddy Merckx, Bernard Hinault, Marianne Vos, and Other. As you might expect, Merckx won.

“Still, what this cycling poll and some of the public responses to it gave to me was the Eurocentric view on ‘greatness’ in cycling and cycle racing. The dysconscious racism in this was the tacit acceptance of dominant white cultural norms that have been passed on and learned as…