Shannon Galpin

Galpin at the 2014 Texas Book Festival.

Shannon Galpin (born 1974) is an American activist, artist, and author.

Shannon is a Fellow with Royal Geographical Society and a Fellow with The Explorers Club since 2017. She founded the non profit, Mountain2Mountain, in 2006 to work with women and girls in Afghanistan. She worked in Afghanistan from 2008-2016 and helped support the first right to right cycling movement for women and girls in multiple provinces. In 2009, Shannon became the first woman to mountain bike in Afghanistan and continued cycling across Afghanistan for several years researching the gender barriers and cultural taboo with cycling and women and girls. She spent several years evacuating hundreds of Afghans athletes and family members during the collapse of the Afghan government and subsequent evacuation efforts. She is an outspoken two-time whistleblower against the Afghan Cycling Federation. In 2013, Galpin was named National Geographic Adventurer of the Year.[1][2]" Shannon was runner up for two consecutive years in Elevation Outdoors Magazine's Resident Badass poll, in the Humanitarian category.[3] In 2011 Shannon founded, Combat Apathy as an art and activist umbrella for street art, public art installations, film making, graphic novels, and multi-media story telling.[4] Shannon's latest project is the Afghan Women's Sports archive. The archive will preserve the history of Afghan women's athletic achievements through oral history, and preservation of photo, film, media, and artifacts before the history is erased forever.[5]

Life

Galpin was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota and grew up in Bismarck, North Dakota. She moved to Europe in 1994-2002. In 2006, she founded Mountain2Mountain.[6][7][8] She founded Combat Apathy in 2011.

Galpin was a whistleblower against the Afghan Cycling Federation in 2015. In 2018, the President of the Afghan Cycling Federation was found guilty in a civil case in Kabul. She produced her first feature length documentary film, Afghan Cycles, with Let Media which premiered at Toronto Hot Docs in 2018[9]

In 2021, she moved to Edinburgh, Scotland. In 2021, she began evacuating hundreds of Afghan athletes. In 2022 she opened a second whistleblower case against the Afghan Cycling Federation with the UCI Ethics Commission. In 2024 they issued a guilty verdict against ACF President Fazli.[10]

She founded the Afghan Women's Sports Archive in 2025.[11]

Works

  • Streets of Afghanistan: Bridging Cultures Through Art, Photographs by Libero Di Zinno, Hatherleigh Company, Limited, 2013, ISBN 9781578264674 [12]
  • Mountain to Mountain: A Journey of Adventure and Activism for the Women of Afghanistan. St. Martin's Press. 16 September 2014. ISBN 978-1-4668-4705-7.

References

  1. ↑ "Shannon Galpin, 2013 Adventurers of the Year - National Geographic". nationalgeographic.com. 31 October 2012. Archived from the original on November 5, 2012.
  2. ↑ "Liv Beyond – Shannon Galpin & Afghan Cycles | Coven Magazine". Archived from the original on 2014-10-28. Retrieved 2014-10-28.
  3. ↑ "We Asked, You Voted | Meet Colorado's Resident Badasses - Elevation Outdoors Magazine". Elevation Outdoors Magazine. 2016-02-07. Retrieved 2017-03-26.
  4. ↑ "Combat Apathy". Combat Apathy. Retrieved 2026-03-24.
  5. ↑ "Afghan Women's Sports Archive". Combat Apathy. Retrieved 2026-03-24.
  6. ↑ Lipinski, Jed (April 16, 2013). "Cycling Past an Afghan Taboo". The New York Times. Retrieved 28 October 2014.
  7. ↑ Whipple, Kelsey (Jun 13, 2012). "From Colorado to Kabul and back, Shannon Galpin's wild ride". Denver Westward. Retrieved 28 October 2014.
  8. ↑ "Names You Need To Know In 2011: Shannon Galpin, Mountain2Mountain". Forbes Magazine. 11 May 2010. Retrieved 29 October 2014.
  9. ↑ "'Afghan Cycles' Premieres After 5 Years of Controversy, Corruption, and Violence". Bicycling. 2018-05-08. Retrieved 2026-06-06.
  10. ↑ "The UCI Ethics Commission issues decisions in two cases". www.uci.org. Retrieved 2026-06-06.
  11. ↑ "Afghan Women's Sports Archive". Combat Apathy. Retrieved 2026-06-06.
  12. ↑ Miller, Sharry (January 24, 2014). "Bringing Afghan Art to Afghanistan". Women's Adventure. Retrieved 28 October 2014. Libero's photographs and Shannon's text provide a fascinating look at a region most of us view as war-torn and worthless. Through their eyes, we can clearly see that we are wrong in that assessment.
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