Elliott Jackson on a mission to grow cycling

Professional mountain bikers Elliott Jackson and Katie Holden founded Los Angeles Grow Cycling Foundation in 2020 in the wake of the killing of George Floyd and the resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement. (Holden is white, Jackson is black.) The foundation was needed, said a press release launchto challenge systemic racism and create “new avenues for inclusive community building.”

Five years later, and true to the release’s press release, the non-profit organization continues to “break down the barriers to entry into cycling for marginalized communities.”

And these barriers can be significant: in America and Europe, the bicycle industry is overwhelmingly white, as are cycling sports, with Tour de France stage winner Biniam Girmay from Eritrea very extreme.

For the health of the sport of cycling and the growth of cycling in general, the two-wheeled world needs to become more inclusive, and for ex-pros like Jackson, that means providing wider access for beginners. “Sports, in general, is an amazing way to change the world for the better, both financially and for better health and better mental health,” Jackson said. “To get into cycling, you need a safe place to cycle, so we raised $1.5 million to build a pump track.”

The priority of the Grow Cycling Foundation’s original five-year plan was to build this pump track in Inglewooda majority black and Latino city south of central Los Angeles. Pump tracks are undulating, curvy skate-park-like tracks covered in smooth, fast asphalt and are kid magnets. Children – of all ages – move by “pumping” their hands on bumps and rollers.

“Within the first year, we had 100,000 people at the Inglewood pump track,” said Jackson, now Red Bull race commentator and podcastercycling data geek and ambassador—read sponsor endorser—for brands like Santa Cruz Bicycles, Smith Optics sports glasses and Thulithe swedish company car luggage racks.

“SoFi Stadium [due to host the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2028 Summer Olympics] it is two miles away [from the pump track]. But many of the people in Inglewood won’t set foot there. But here, with the pump track, it’s a field open and free. And that’s really special.”

Demonstration

I was talking to Jackson the day after he and other Thule ambassadors walked, rode and rode a long catwalk in a former train factory in Malmö, Sweden. This took place at the Thule Experience, a media extravaganza highlighting the brand’s extensive and expanding product range and was watched by an audience of almost 1,000 Thule employees, sales teams from around the world and across automotive, outdoor, parenting and other titles.

“I grew up in Oklahoma, moved to California, discovered my first bicycle, and later it took me around the world,” said Jackson, 35. “Paving those kinds of paths for others is what we’re trying to do with the Grow Cycling Foundation.”

“I’d love to be able to snap my fingers and make cycling more inclusive,” he added. “It’s changing, slowly. There are definitely more people of color now than when I first started. I’d go to races and I’d be the only black person starting a World Cup downhill race.”

With pump track acting as a gateway to the sport of cycling — and fun for all ages and abilities: “here, everyone belongs, regardless of background,” says the venue’s website — Jackson hopes more black youth will catch the cycling bug, and there are plans for the Grow Cycling Foundation to support other community-building projects.

“Everything we do [at the Grow Cycling Foundation] it’s project-based,” Jackson emphasized. “100% of the money raised for the pump track went to the pump track. The foundation charged no administrative fees. I didn’t get any salary or any other money from it.”

He encouraged his mother, a former investment banker, to return to work part-time to help run the foundation. “One of our principles has always been to be lean: we didn’t want to have a foundation where you raise money to sustain the foundation.”

Education is now a key part of the foundation’s activity — it co-organizes Aspirea conference for the next generation of professional riders at the annual Crankworks mountain bike event in Whistler, British Columbia, Canada. “Flipping the script on the typical conference landscape by welcoming young athletes, underrepresented families and communities, and today’s sports superstars to the stage, [Aspire provides] valuable introductions to the next generation of talent by extending a warm invitation to industry professionals to participate in networking sessions,” the conference’s opening bibliography states.

“We’ve been doing Aspire for two years now,” Jackson said. “We work very closely with the indigenous community where the event is taking place [the Lil’wat and Squamish Nations] and bring diverse groups of people together to expand opportunities.”

The foundation’s website says it “combats the barriers underrepresented communities face in cycling” and that, whether it’s “technical expertise or understanding the business side of the industry, we invest in sustainable education programs that create lifelong cyclists and industry professionals.”

The foundation’s solutions, according to the non-profit organization, “are designed to be entry points that make cycling accessible and attractive to all, fulfilling the sport’s potential as a conduit for physical, mental and social well-being.”

Community

Jackson was one ambassador of Thuli from 2021the year after the Grow Cycling Foundation was established. He believes it was his community outreach that put him on Thule’s radar—brand ambassadors aren’t all gold medalists. one is a doctor, the other is a musician.

“We all have our passions,” Jackson said. “What we do for our wider communities is a huge part of it. Thule has done a really good job of saying, ‘What are our brand values?’ and then choosing ambassadors who embody them. If you choose a global champion, why not choose the global champion who also does good?”