{"id":120276,"date":"2020-01-10T15:13:33","date_gmt":"2020-01-10T23:13:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rei.com\/blog\/?p=120276"},"modified":"2020-07-06T14:10:25","modified_gmt":"2020-07-06T21:10:25","slug":"hey-bladies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rei.com\/blog\/fitness\/hey-bladies","title":{"rendered":"Hey, Bladies!"},"content":{"rendered":"

A version of this story appeared in the winter 2020 issue of\u00a0Uncommon Path<\/a>.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

I<\/span>t\u2019s a chilly September evening in Park City, Utah, though you wouldn\u2019t know it from the bare arms and midriffs the women are showing in the ice arena parking lot. The PC Bladies, as they call themselves, are gathering for their weekly blade through town, looking like they put the \u201980s in a lidless blender and hit puree.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m sorry I\u2019m late,\u201d gushes Megan Harrod, a former U.S. Ski Team (USST) athlete who helped start the group three years ago. \u201cThe traffic and pasties\u201d\u2014she sticks her chest out to show the outlines of star-shaped stickers under her neon-green tank top\u2014\u201ctook longer than anticipated.\u201d Harrod, who by day is the alpine communications manager of the USST, also wears leggings with a velvet-Elvis-style unicorn on one leg and something resembling a Transformer with laser beams coming out of its eyes on the other.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a robot dinosaur,\u201d she says when she sees me squint-ing at it. \u201cNaturally.\u201d<\/p>\n

The PC Bladies made their debut when Harrod and Claire Brown, publisher of Ski Racing magazine, bladed onstage during the 2017 World Cup bib draw in S\u00f6lden, Austria, wearing USST speed suits and waving at the crowd of thousands. Sounds intimidating, right? Yet tonight, when first-timer Megan Dingman rolls up in an outfit that Cyndi Lauper probably wants back, these highly decorated athletes erupt in a resounding chorus of \u201cBabe alert!\u201d that instantly converts the newbie\u2019s palpable anxiety into open-mouthed laughter.<\/p>\n

\"Bladies

Bladies co-founder Katie Ryan leads the way. (Photo Credit: Nate Abbott)<\/p><\/div>\n

This inclusivity is, Harrod says, the whole point. \u201cI had a really hard time when I moved here,\u201d she says as we wait for a few stragglers to join. \u201cI didn\u2019t know anyone outside of the team, and I traveled a lot. There was this book club I wanted to be a part of, but you needed a formal invitation. I felt like Park City was everyone else\u2019s place, but it wasn\u2019t mine. I wanted to create something that everyone could join.\u201d<\/p>\n

So she, Brown and other skiers Susie Theis, Katie Ryan and Kristina Tauber set up a weekly skating event with\u00a0a theme\u2014this week\u2019s is neon\u2014open to all women. Since then, participation has skyrocketed and the group has even spawned offshoots in Minneapolis; Sun Valley, Idaho; and Tahoe, California. Fans have driven to Park City from as far as Pennsylvania to join the Bladies\u2019 annual prom, a fund-raiser for a local nonprofit organization that helps victims of domestic violence. \u201cI have people all over the country messaging me to say, \u2018I want to do that,\u2019\u201d Harrod says.<\/p>\n

T<\/span>he sun has finally vanquished the clouds now, gilding the surrounding sagebrush and grass in slanted light, and the women are ready to start the 4-mile blade to downtown. We take off in waves down the path\u2014some holding hands, some holding White Claws\u2014while everyone laughs at a steady volley of off-color jokes.<\/p>\n

I roll alongside Erin Ruzek and Jill Johnson, both of whom are in their 40s, and the latter of whom was a big-deal mogul skier on the USST in her 20s. Our kids are all nearing the terrifying teen years, so we slip into easy conversation about parental settings on devices, how to handle awkward birds-and-bees talks (or penguins and sea hawks, in Johnson\u2019s case) and what the heck a VSCO girl is anyway. But mostly, we just skate and soak in the feeling of freedom, pavement sliding beneath our wheels and mountain air rushing past our ears. \u201cThe minute you put on your blades, you feel like a kid again,\u201d Johnson says, her pink fur leg warmers fluttering in the wind. As we pass a man riding his bike, he breaks into a huge smile and yells, \u201cHey, Bladies!\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Bladies

Bladies Blake Peterson and Megan Dingman. (Photo Credit: Nate Abbott)<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cWhere\u2019s Megan tonight?\u201d I ask my partners, referring to Megan Brown Brent, another former U.S. Ski Teamer and ski-cross world champion. Johnson says maybe her knees are bothering her, a result of 20-some surgeries from ski injuries. \u201cI\u2019ve had two surgeries,\u201d Ruzek lobs. \u201cBoth of them elective.\u201d<\/p>\n

As we make our way to the Bladies\u2019 unofficial HQ, Old Town Cellars, I catch up with Dingman, one of the newbies. She\u2019s wearing Pit Viper sunglasses, a rainbow-striped half shirt, a pink miniskirt and 1990s skates. \u201cMy blades might be retro, but they totally slice,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Dingman\u2019s declaration catches me off guard. It\u2019s so different than the ubiquitous self-defeating chatter inherent to girl code. There\u2019s confidence, sure, which is expected among elite athletes, but that it\u2019s shared by all the women\u2014including a brand-new one who showed up alone, knowing no one\u2014is remarkable. No one downplays their abilities here, and no one apologizes for any lack thereof.<\/p>\n

Part of this bravado might stem from the silly nature of the sport itself. But part of it is simply the fact that there are no men here. The group has provided a safe place for women to be unfiltered and bawdy, to show some skin and to be totally confident in who they are or want to be. \u201cWomen have a lot of pressure to be a certain way,\u201d Johnson says when I bring up the topic. \u201cTo be classy or professional or whatever. We\u2019ve had to fight harder to be taken seriously in our everyday lives, so this is a release.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"A

Photo Credit: Nate Abbott<\/p><\/div>\n

Mostly, though, PC Bladies is about community\u2014one carved out by women for women in a town and culture dominated by men. It\u2019s happening elsewhere in the outdoor world, too, evidenced by the recent proliferation of women-only ski, surf, run and bike groups and camps. It\u2019s like hanging out with other women has finally become cool, and we\u2019ve figured out we don\u2019t have to eschew our femininity to be powerful. Perhaps we have more role models than ever before, thanks to the popularity of athletes like Lindsey Vonn and Mikaela Shiffrin\u2014not to mention the entire women\u2019s U.S. national soccer team. Or maybe our current political climate has brought us together in a more profound way, with the linguistics alone of \u201cme too\u201d suggesting a force of conver-gence. Whatever the case, the Bladies have built a culture that lifts women up in a world that has traditionally torn them down\u2014and they get to put on party pants and laugh their asses off as well.<\/p>\n

W<\/span>e stagger awkwardly on our blades up the stairs into the OTC, a little wine bar in Old Town, and the bartender calls out casually, \u201cLadies, blades off in the bar, please,\u201d like it\u2019s a completely normal request. We sit down around a low-slung table upon which are several bottles of ros\u00e9 and a fleet of glasses, and the women help one another take off their skates. Ruzek puts her feet on the table to reveal socks on the wrong feet, with soles that say Bring me a glass of wine and If you can read this. \u201cWell, I usually cross my legs,\u201d she explains, \u201cso it makes sense.\u201d<\/p>\n

We order pizza and fries, which we devour immediately\u2014another sign that girl code is notably absent\u2014and go around the table introducing ourselves for the newbs who might not have met everyone yet. There\u2019s Heather, a 44-year-old midwife and single mom in baggy silver pants, a bright green shirt and purple dreads down to her waist. She found the group through Instagram. Carla is a first-timer who joined tonight because her daughter is a friend of Harrod\u2019s. The group spans all ages and income brackets\u2014as many walks of life as there are in a ski town, anyway.<\/p>\n

\"PC

PC Bladies is about community\u2014one carved out by women for women. (Photo Credit: Nate Abbott)<\/p><\/div>\n

Then we just hang out, a bunch of women in ridiculous outfits laughing about nothing and everything. \u201cI have a BeDazzler,\u201d someone yells over the merriment. \u201cYou look like Christina Aguilera right now,\u201d shouts someone else. Then\u00a0Johnson tells the story of a woman who approached her in the grocery store with a pair of 1970s gym shorts that she wanted the Bladies to have. \u201cWe can pass them around\u2014after we cut out the built-in undies,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019ll be like the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants!\u201d<\/p>\n

Johnson\u2019s phone rings. It\u2019s her son. \u201cI\u2019m busy right now, honey,\u201d she replies. \u201cCan you call your dad?\u201d Kids grow up watching their moms sacrificing so much for their families, she says after she hangs up, and it\u2019s good for them to see her putting herself first. \u201cBladies is my form of self-care,\u201d she says, reaching for the bottle of ros\u00e9. \u201cI\u2019m going to have one more.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A version of this story appeared in the winter 2020 issue of\u00a0Uncommon Path.\u00a0 t\u2019s a chilly September evening in Park City, Utah, though you wouldn\u2019t know it from the bare arms and midriffs the women are showing in the ice arena parking lot. The PC Bladies, as they call themselves, are gathering for their weekly […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12183,"featured_media":127493,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[1984,727,770,1934,2024],"internal-tag":[],"class_list":["post-120276","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fitness","tag-issue-2","tag-latest-posts","tag-salt-lake-city","tag-uncommon-path","tag-uncommon-path-issues"],"parsely":{"version":"1.1.0","canonical_url":"https:\/\/rei.com\/blog\/fitness\/hey-bladies","smart_links":{"inbound":0,"outbound":0},"traffic_boost_suggestions_count":0,"meta":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","headline":"Hey, Bladies!","url":"http:\/\/www.rei.com\/blog\/fitness\/hey-bladies","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"http:\/\/www.rei.com\/blog\/fitness\/hey-bladies"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.rei.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2020\/01\/190911_Abbott_PCBladies_320.jpg?resize=150%2C150","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https:\/\/www.rei.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2020\/01\/190911_Abbott_PCBladies_320.jpg?fit=2000%2C1200"},"articleSection":"Fitness","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Maren Horjus"}],"creator":["Maren Horjus"],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Uncommon Path \u2013 An REI Co-op Publication","logo":""},"keywords":["issue 2","latest posts","salt lake city","uncommon path","uncommon path issues"],"dateCreated":"2020-01-10T23:13:33Z","datePublished":"2020-01-10T23:13:33Z","dateModified":"2020-07-06T21:10:25Z"},"rendered":"