Brendan Holer on Beg Out as a Gay Cyclist | The Pro's Closet

Contents:

• GAY CYCLG LOVER
• GAY BIKE
• MOST CYCLISTS ARE GAY?
• ARIZONA MISSN TRAIL: GAY TRAVEL BICYCLG ADVENTURE TOUR
• FLAVORS OF TNY GAY TRAVEL BICYCLG TOUR ITALY
• THIS GAY TEENAGE CYCLIST IS ONE OF THE FIRST PRO MALE RIRS TO EVER E OUT
• THIS CYCLIST STARTED GAY’S OKAY CYCLG TO CELEBRATE DIVERSY AND IMPROVE REPRENTATN
• GRAEME OBREE REVEALS HE IS GAY

GAY CYCLG LOVER

Each October, on the anniversary of the send March on Washgton for Lbian and Gay Rights 1987, Human Rights Watch leads the celebratn of Natnal Comg Out Day as “a remr that one of our most basic tools is the power of g out.

I remember noticg openly gay upl together, and the sire to experience that openns was stronger than any other want or need I’d felt before. Wh that motivatn, I phed forward and me out a big way—announcg that I was both gay and HIV posive at once.

GAY BIKE

And each graduate of the program earns a ee bike, helmet, and out, claimg my thentic life as an HIV posive gay man, fdg muny, and givg back has ma my life worthwhile.

“It’s not that we don’t like straight people, ” explas Jeff Rogers, print of the Wdy Cy Cyclg Club (WCCC), Chigo’s olst lbian, gay, bisexual, and transgenr bicycle group. But gay and lbian people have a fort level wh each other that’s different than wh straight people.

That sense of belongg is easy to see as we hang out at T’s, a buzzg lbian, gay, and straight pub Chigo’s LGBT-iendly Anrsonville neighborhood, on a sunny Febary afternoon.

MOST CYCLISTS ARE GAY?

The WCCC formed 1992 to get the wheels of fellowship turng among lbian and gay folks. Munchg a veggie burger at a nearby table, Drew Jeo, a spng stctor who found the Chigo Razors gay triathlon team to pete the 2006 Gay Gam here, says he only ris wh LGBT clubs.

“A lot of gay men weren’t to sports high school but we got to our 30s and 40s, ” he says. “In a gay group you might have guys who like to bike really fast, but there’s ls petn and more mararie. “Gays and straights do social ris for the same reasons, ” she says wh a gr.

ARIZONA MISSN TRAIL: GAY TRAVEL BICYCLG ADVENTURE TOUR

” swagger (thk Dick Vale, not At Powers), all the trappgs of a tradnal cis whe male, or at least those of a ago, a time that now feels curly antiquated nsirg how far we’ve e — Holer was gay. After his parti wrapped, he’d feign fatigue, tell iends he was head to bed, then meet lol men onle and later that same night person (anywhere except for Rochter’s gay bars, which he avoid for fear that a straight iend might spot him). “I had a iend whom I told I was gay, and he was like, ‘You’re kiddg me, right?

You CANNOT be gay.

FLAVORS OF TNY GAY TRAVEL BICYCLG TOUR ITALY

Growg up durg the ‘80s and ‘90s suburban Rochter, Holer didn’t have any gay role mols.

“I had no gay iends. My fay didn’t know any gay people. I had no accs to a real gay human, which sounds crazy to say…” he adms now.

’ So, to a kid the msage was, ‘Hey, if you’re gay and you have sex wh someone of the same sex, you’re gonna get AIDS and die. ’ There was no Michael Sam om the Rams beg like, ‘Yo, what’s up everyone, I’m gay and I’m cshg people on the football field. "To a kid the msage was, ‘Hey, if you’re gay and you have sex wh someone of the same sex, you’re gonna get AIDS and die.

THIS GAY TEENAGE CYCLIST IS ONE OF THE FIRST PRO MALE RIRS TO EVER E OUT

A gay athlete like Sam, the first openly gay NFL player, was the type of role mol that Holer need. By llege, partyg replaced those activi, but he tackled wh the same gto and palled around wh a crew of straight male iends typil of that ilk and era, one which a certa homophobic slur was so woven to the vernacular that Holer sometim heard g out of his own mouth.

Perhaps wantg to repture some of that magic of his first weekend as an openly gay man, he moved to Nashville, and not long after that, he met Chris Cooley, a silver-haired ntist 25 years his senr.

THIS CYCLIST STARTED GAY’S OKAY CYCLG TO CELEBRATE DIVERSY AND IMPROVE REPRENTATN

Though tergeneratnal relatnships are mon  the gay muny, Holer wasn’t eager to expla to straight iends, and so he’d rigned himself to the ia of beg out while somehow remag hidn.

Walle ti his iend’s talent as a ach to that of his g-out journey as a gay man.

It’s a photo he proudly shared on Instagram, along wh the hashtag #gaycyclist — somethg he clus wh nearly everythg he posts.

GRAEME OBREE REVEALS HE IS GAY

“I have iends who make ments like, ‘Du, no one r that you’re gay. As a teenager and young adult, Holer never got the gay mentor he need, one who might have broken the mold for him by monstratg that there are untls ways which one n rve out a gay inty.

It’s a statistic that don’t add up, as Cyclg Weekly poted out, nsirg the percentage of the world’s populatn who are gay. This “nspicuo absence” suggts that a stigma of the gay male athlete persists. Here’s what one versn of that life looks like: Brendan Holer standg atop the podium as natnal champ, all his different selv alcg to his 6-foot-5 ame, skny, sg, arms raised triumph, a gay man lookg directly to the mera, unaaid to fully be himself.

Of the 978 rirs the men’s pro peloton, none are this statement is te on the surface – not a sgle male rir at WorldTour or ProTeam level publicly intifi as gay – ’s starkly implsible as soon as that surface is scratched.

Estimat on the proportn of UK and US people who are gay or bisexual range om about three to seven per cent. If we take the low-end timate for men, three per cent, then you would expect there to be about 30 gay or bi rirs the pro peloton – enough for a whole WorldTour squad.

The qutn, then, is not whether there are gay pros but why none of them feel ee to be open about who they really are. As a gay man who has worked sports media sce the mid-Noughti, I n appreciate why a rir might feel pelled to keep their sexualy a secret.