They ride by night. Once a month a couple of hundred female bicycling enthusiasts gather for a “Luna Ride”, in which they take to the streets en masse to reclaim parts of Los Angeles that have been traditionally dangerous for women to be alone after dark. They’ve appropriated gang-style imagery, but with a feminist twist – their bandannas and scarves bear white-on-black images of uteruses and Fallopian tubes.

They call themselves the Ovarian Psycos, and though anyone is allowed to participate in their Luna Rides, membership in the crew itself is limited to women of colour. The women are largely Latina and many have been victims of domestic violence. For them, riding a bicycle is a political act, because in many Latino families bicycling is thought to be a male activity. When they ride across Los Angeles, the Ovarian Psycos are protesting what they feel are the limited expectations for women in their community and in society at large.

And now the Psycos have an even larger platform. At the South by Southwest Film Festival a new documentary about the group has just premiered. Christian Blauvelt reports on the film for Talking Movies.

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