“We’re a lifestyle brand for all people who share the road. Through kindness our goal is simple: to be a positive voice in the cycling community and support a kind and compassionate environment on the road.”
This is the mission statement for a company called Positive Cycology, started by Kat Fowler in 2011. You may remember the name from Bike VA last year, or this logo:
But regardless of whether you remember Kat sitting serenely at her table, you probably haven’t heard the full story. And believe me, it’s about much more than t-shirts.
“I so vividly remember learning to ride a bicycle when I was a young girl in Brunswick County, VA,” Kat recalls. “If I wasn’t at summer camp, I was on my bike. It was one or the other, without fail.”
After moving a few times during her formative years, graduate school brought her to Florida, and it was there that she experienced one of two very important events that would mold her mentality and passion for her project. “One day riding through campus, I was stopped by a bike cop who wanted to ticket me for having an earphone in. He told me I could pay 75$ or take a bike safety class. What college kid has 75$ to spare? I had to take the class.”
Quite contrary to her expectations, the class was excellent. Despite its cheesy movies, it “opened her eyes” to the way one should ride.
Fast-forward a few years. Kat is driving her car, pulling very slowly to a stop sign. Suddenly, a cyclist barreling down the sidewalk the wrong direction reaches the street where Kat now sits. He slams his brakes and careens into the front of her car. “Without thinking about it,” she tells me, “I just assumed it was my fault, just because of how vulnerable he was, and because he had hit the car. Later I realized he hadn’t been obeying the same rules I had learned a few years before. But that realization of a rider’s vulnerability on the road– that stuck with me, and always has.”
Another scenery change: Kat’s in LA, working with a foundation for Creative Activism. Kat is riding her bicycle for the 20-minute commute that would have taken her 45 by car. “I was riding down the road, thinking about what I could do to be safer when I was on the bike. I thought about how there are people that move– that carry themselves– in such a way that you see them. They are noticed. How could I do that on my bike? How could I establish a connection with drivers that was authentic?”
That was when Kat had her epiphany. “That’s when the phrase ‘Thank you for seeing me’ came to me,” she explains. “It was something that praised drivers’ compassion and awareness, and communicated my gratitude.”
If the idea was malleable in her mind that day, it was to be solidified the very next one. Kat tells the story of being at the bus stop, and sitting down on the bench next to a blind woman holding her iconic red and white cane. “I spoke to her, and introduced myself,” Kat explains. “I asked her how she managed to get around a city like LA without her sight. She told me that she ‘hadn’t lost all of her sight, but that she hoped people noticed the cane and saw her.'”
Kat was floored by the experience. To her, the connection was anything but coincidence. In her own words, “Like that woman at the bus stop, ‘Thank You For Seeing Me’ is about a connection between drivers and cyclists. It’s about a dialogue, however brief, that promotes compassion, awareness, and positivity. It operates on more than one level, and it goes beyond any one rider or one area.”
Kat saw the logo in her head immediately, and after being encouraged to pursue her idea, she posted the idea on Kickstarter.com, a site for collective funding of creative projects. Her idea was supported from all over the globe, by both men and women who believed in the importance of what Kat was doing.
Surprisingly, it was Kat’s desire that riders be seen that influenced her decision to promote her message through t-shirts. “It’s been shown that riders wearing their normal kit are more likely to be hit by cars,” Kat explains. It turns out that drivers see a rider in their cycling gear and make an automatic association with the most negative stereotype they’ve experienced. Usually, that stereotype is the rider who refuses to follow traffic laws, rides without awareness, and essentially embodies everything Positive Cycology is trying to avoid. “A girl wobbling down the road on a beach cruiser is given more space and care than a rider hunched over his road bike,” Kat says.
In summation, it seems like Kat’s message, though ultimately manifested in a t-shirt slogan, is about the promotion of a new cycling awareness. The tension between cyclists and drivers may vary in degree, but is rarely absent. If there’s to be change, it needs to be a shared effort. We need to be safe, assured, and grateful. We need to create a connection. We need to say, “Thank You For Seeing Me.”
Check out the site, and snag a tee while you can, here.