The other day, I found an old Joann Fabrics bag with a couple of yards of leopard-print dancewear fabric I bought over five years ago. The original plan? Make myself a pair of shorts to mountain-bike in. I鈥檇 been riding in leggings for years because nothing from a mountain-bike brand came in my size. I was fed up with being uncomfortable and didn鈥檛 feel like I fit in.

I don鈥檛 consider myself a seamstress鈥攕ewing makes me want to break things鈥攂ut I was frustrated at the lack of apparel for me to do a sport I was obsessed with. It couldn鈥檛 be that hard to design some shorts, right? Well, that leopard-print fabric is still uncut, if that tells you anything. I got a good chuckle out of finding it stuffed in a corner of my house, because it reminded me of how long my now year-old mountain-bike apparel brand, , was in the making, and how it was destined to be bigger than myself.

I鈥檝e always been outdoorsy. I grew up in Corvallis, Oregon, in a family that spent our free time camping, hiking, rafting, biking, and cross-country skiing. As an adult, I moved to Bellingham, Washington, and became totally enthralled with mountain biking. Anyone who has ridden in this town will tell you that the access and the trails are nearly unmatched. The sport quickly became my whole life, but I still felt like an outlier鈥攍ike the sport didn鈥檛 love me back.

My years of frustration came to a head in November 2020. I read an article claiming to be a round-up of kits for 鈥減lus-size mountain bikers,鈥� only to find that the term was describing two women who wear a size XL, which correlates to a 14 or 16. In fact, size 16 is average for American women, and framing that size as plus leaves out a lot of us humans who range from size 16 to 30 and above.

I haven鈥檛 been an XL since I was 19 years old and 100 pounds smaller than I am now. I鈥檝e been active my whole life, and I鈥檝e never fit in women鈥檚 apparel made for the sports I鈥檓 doing. And yet here was an article鈥攐ne of many I鈥檇 seen鈥攗sing the plus-size label for average-size bodies, as though people like me just didn鈥檛 exist in the action-sports world.

So I took my anger to the internet and spent a couple of days yelling on my Instagram story about the state of outdoor apparel. I talked about my experience in the cycling industry, how hard it was to find clothing that fit folks like myself, which brands I thought were doing all right and which ones I wasn鈥檛 stoked on at all. I found I wasn鈥檛 alone: so many people had questions for me, and I wound up doing a Q&A addressing things like bike fit聽for larger bodies and how to motivate yourself to ride with people faster than yourself. I found that I had organically created a small community of people like me, who didn鈥檛 feel seen either.

Someone asked if I had started a cycling clothing brand yet. 鈥淚 don鈥檛 have the time or the money,鈥� I responded. 鈥淏ut if you have one of those things, let鈥檚 talk.鈥� I laughed it off. But here鈥檚 the thing about social media: you have no idea who鈥檚 watching.

The other half of Cosmic Dirt, New York-based Heather Kinal, slid into my DMs that day and quickly became my angel investor, business partner, and close friend. Heather is an avid biker and former part-owner of a shop, and even though she is on the opposite end of the body spectrum, she had similar gripes about bike clothing. Nothing fit the way she wanted, either. As part-owner and bookkeeper for a large food-distribution business (and founder of in New York), she had the business experience that I didn鈥檛. The first time we spoke, we tried to figure out how either of us could possibly trust someone on the other end of the country in a venture like this. I was worried that I鈥檇 invest time and effort to design something I cared deeply about, only to have the funding or business fail. Heather was worried she鈥檇 spend time and money on someone who wasn鈥檛 going to truly deliver. Game, set, match.

We started a Google Doc with ideas almost immediately. Initially, we planned to be a USA-based, made-to-order mountain-bike apparel company with custom fit clothing for women. We quickly realized how hard that would be to scale, so we abandoned our original plan in favor of doing it bigger and better.

We are still manufacturing in the USA, but we decided to design garments that fit a wide variety of people for mass production. We dropped the 鈥渇or women鈥� part, because clothes don鈥檛 care what gender you are, and neither do we. We don鈥檛 want to tell our customers who they are. We鈥檇 rather spend our time telling you who we are and what we care about.

Plenty of brands spend their time trying to tell you what you need and who their ideal customer is, which leaves a lot of wonderful humans out. Other brands claim to be inclusive but don鈥檛 offer anything above an extra large. Plenty of companies will claim they鈥檙e for anybody and every body, but the truth is, that鈥檚 nearly impossible. I want to be the first to tell you, we are only trying our best, and we aren鈥檛 perfect.

We currently have a line of graphic tees, water bottles, hats, and other accessories and are developing a full technical apparel line for sizes XS to 4X (which doesn鈥檛 exist in any cycling apparel currently). We鈥檙e also running a , and we just announced a product launch I鈥檓 very excited about: mountain-bike pants. The 14 ambassadors on our team (women, trans, and nonbinary, all kinds of cyclists, not just mountain bikers) exemplify what we think it means to be inclusive, welcoming, and above all else, themselves.

Through all of this, I鈥檝e had to overcome some pretty serious mental hurdles. I never expected to be a fat activist or a warrior for inclusivity. I grew up as a middle-class white kid in predominantly white PNW cities with a conservative family, and, though I鈥檓 ashamed to admit it, didn鈥檛 really understand what diversity looked or felt like, or why it mattered, for a long time. But I remember one day looking at my Pinterest board and realizing it was full of thin models in clothes I could never wear because they were made by brands that didn鈥檛 carry my size. It was one of the first times I realized how much damage lack of representation can do to an impressionable mind, and deleted the entire board.

Running this company quiets my inner demons at least a little.聽I spent so much of my life feeling like an outsider who didn鈥檛 belong in a sport I loved because of my size. But giving up isn鈥檛 really my style; I鈥檓 too headstrong for that. I鈥檓 feeling more confident that I deserve to take up the space I鈥檓 in. And in learning to make space for myself, I learned to make space for other people.

I couldn鈥檛 have predicted how many other people felt the same way I did. It turns out that more than half the world is tired of being shoved into a closet, told to dress in potato sacks and not to try sports because they don鈥檛 fit. I am inundated with messages from people who say that our brand makes them feel seen for the first time in the bike world. We are building a community of people who want more inclusivity from the bike and outdoor industries. I鈥檝e been learning how important it is to listen, be open-minded, and create safe spaces for people who might not fit the mold the outdoor industry has sold products off of for so long. Bigger brands need to step up and do the same.

I still have a lot to learn, and I want to acknowledge that I鈥檓 a product of my environment and privilege, not my own making: I grew up in an active family with access to the outdoors, call professional athletes my neighbors and friends, and could choose to work for little pay in the outdoor industry. In some ways, though, the challenges I鈥檝e faced because of my size might parallel challenges others might face because of their skin color, gender, or sexuality. I feel a responsibility to take the opportunities I鈥檝e been given as far as I can to make a difference for others. That鈥檚 where Cosmic Dirt comes in.

I鈥檝e said more than once, Cosmic Dirt is like a mushroom, growing beneath the surface where we can鈥檛 really be seen, fertilized by a bunch of shit, and one day we are going to pop out over the top of it all. Keep your eyes on us.

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