Today, MAAP and Haley Smith are launching the Canadian’s Privateer kit. It’s a limited run kit created for each of the brand’s athletes to help support their racing. Smith, on Trek’s new Driftless team, requested that the proceeds from her kit sales go to support the work of the Indigenous Youth Mountain Bike Program (IYMBP).
We think that’s a pretty cool decision, so we reached out to Smith to ask her what inspired her to support IYMBP in this way. We also talked to Patrick Lucas, founder and director of IYMBP, to find out more about the program.
Canadian Cycling Magazine: Why did you choose to work with IYMPB?
Haley Smith: My brother actually has worked with Patrick Lucas academically, so I knew the organization through him. Just in my own experiences, riding in the Yukon last summer and trying to be more mindful of my privilege – and how mountain biking relates to both colonialism and reconciliation – I just felt like it was an impactful organization and like something I could do, an action I could take. And I think it’s a really great organization that’s doing really cool stuff and it is based within my home country.
CCM: IYMBP operates mostly within what’s considered B.C. – you have a much broader geographical reach, what would you like others to take away from IYMBP’s work?
HS: I think IYMPB do a good job of acknowledging the history of land access, and the history of access to land. I’m not going to be able to talk about this very eloquently, but I think something they have done is make the indigenous presence present. In other places, like in Ontario, that’s still not really talked about or acknowledged within the mountain bike community.
The trail advocacy work and the understanding of how we can relate to the trails is really valuable. For me, personally, I spent a good majority of my XCO career preparing and riding on Vancouver Island. So I feel indebted to the trails and the land out there. It’s what shaped me as a rider.
CCM: Because this kit is for IYMBP, I’ll admit I was initially framing my questions around trails, but Driftless is both a mountain bike and gravel team. And gravel faces a lot of the same questions about how riders and the sport negotiate their relationship between recreation and reconciliation. Like a more serious side of the much-meme’d “Spirit of Gravel” debate. Do you…
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at Canadian Cycling Magazine…