Cycling has been dominated by White athletes.
In 2024, Eritrean cyclist Biniam Girmay, now 25, became the first Black African to win three stages at the famed Tour de France.
A new documentary film will honor Girmay’s historic accomplishment.
On May 3, Austin, Texas cyclists will participate in a community bicycle ride and view the documentary at the Carver Public Library, starting at 8:45 CT.
The event kicks off Bike Month.
The library is located at 1161 Angelina Street.
According to Austin Yellow Bike, “The special event—put together by Black History Bike Ride (BHBR), Major Taylor Cycling Club of Austin (MTCC ATX), and Yellow Bike Project (YBP)—will begin with a community bike ride concluding at the Carver Branch, Austin Public Library.
“Following the ride, we’ll host a film program starting with a screening of the Black History Bike Ride documentary ‘Momentum: The Origin Story of Black History Bike Ride,’ followed by ‘This Is My Moment.’ The featured film follows Eritrean cyclist Biniam Girmay’s historic rise as the first Black African to win cycling’s elite classics and Grand Tour stages.
“The event will conclude with a Q&A session featuring Austin-based Eritrean road cyclist Zemikael Negash, who trained with Biniam during their teenage years in Eritrea.”
Biniam does not shy away from his history-making victory.
But he knows sports are a what-have-you-done-for-me-lately business.
The attention he has received since 2024 has become overwhelming at times.
But Biniam and his team have set their sights on long-term success and not short-term fame.
James Startt of Rouleur reported, “Girmay burst into the big leagues after winning Gent-Wevelgem in 2022, followed by a stage in the Giro d’Italia the same year. But the 2023 season was filled with far more setbacks than success, as he crashed heavily in the Tour of Flanders, and he struggled in his first Tour de France. But he learned valuable lessons that helped guide him to his stellar 2024 Tour. As he enters 2025, Girmay is focused on another goal: winning his first Monument.”
The history-making cyclist said, “Bad things can happen to anyone, but 2023 was only really my second real year in the WorldTour. I was still learning. I was learning how to train. I was learning how to deal with the press or the expectations from fans. In bike racing, you have good races and bad races, but whenever you have good races, people just seem to expect more. And then there was the stress that I put on myself, because me, I always want to improve. I was still giving 100 percent, giving everything, but things were not going how I wanted.”
However, many successful people say that they have learned more from failure than they did from success.
As a result, Girmay went back to the lab with his team to cook up another plan for eventual victory.
Aike Visbeek, Girmay’s performance manager at Intermarche-Wanty, said, “He made a lot of rookie mistakes in the first Tour de France, but we had real conversations. He learned from those mistakes, and we learned.”
The team examined everything from his travel schedule between Africa and Europe.
Changes were made from those evaluations.
Visbeek continued, “One thing we learned about Biniam is that he has great recovery. He recovers better than anyone on the team, really, and at training camps he only got better and better. So, we learned that we were not maximizing that strength and we weren’t training him hard enough. With his trainers, I focused on giving Biniam a harder, more structured training program. We really looked at the maximum number of training blocks we could fit in and just made every day count.”
Girmay added, “I learned a lot in 2023. You can give 100 percent, but you also have to be smart with your training, with your nutrition, with your recuperation. But everything I learned from the past years paid off. As a result, my confidence increased and boom, I had very good results.”
Despite the hard work and dedication, Visbeek did not expect the three victories.
He said, “It’s interesting because sometimes he won where we didn’t even expect it. Take his first victory in stage three for example. We knew that it was going to be a super-fast sprint, but Biniam was ready. He quickly understood that the first two stages were too hard for him, and he just sat up and recovered. Then, on the morning of stage three he said to me, ‘O.K., I feel good.’ He really had the legs to make a long sprint that day, and after he won there, I knew we were going to have a great Tour.”
Girmay added, “Three wins, the jersey was just amazing. The emotions were so strong, not just for me, but for my team and for everybody in cycling, for my fans, for my country. It is hard to explain. It was just amazing.”
Now, cyclists in Austin, Texas plan to honor Girmay’s amazing 2024 victory because it has inspired many, from avid cyclists to casual fans, from Eritrea to America.
