It strikes me that most of the issues people have raised on this thread (differences of ability, being patronised, lack of technical knowledge) could be addressed by rides and workshops aimed at beginners, rather than women. Although there’s definitely a place for women-only stuff like the Dirtgirls weeks, I get the impression that lack of numbers is going to be a big problem until more women have been brought into the sport in the first place.

yup, I’d say lack of numbers is one of the biggest problems, (for me anyway)

As a girl who has been riding bikes for 6 months, I have ridden with one other female once. Maybe it’s where I live or just bad luck, but I can’t seem to find anyone to ride with!
Which is a shame, because I personally find riding alone gets a bit boring after a few hours.

I think it is more about ability rather than gender though. I’ve never felt intimidated by a group of men, but I am very much aware that the guys I ride with have been riding for many years more than me, and I end up feeling frustrated with my lack of fitness and skills.

I think you get less females out riding simply because less females are willing to get wet, cold, muddy, brusied (I myself am terrified of falling off my bike) and out of breath.

Before biking I had never done anything remotely like exercise in my life. I think it’s such a steep learning curve that it’s very discouraging for those women who haven’t ever done something like mtb’ing before.

I remember my BF taking me round Laggan many months ago. I told him I didn’t think I was ready and he just said I wasn’t confident enough. I found myself walking the entire section of the wide-plank-north-shore bit because I was sure I was going to fall off. I felt humiliated and ended up sulking for about half an hour…

I think many women (not all) just don’t have the balls, and perhaps progress is a little bit slower. But I’m happy to say I persevered (with help from my very patient BF) and I now enjoy it a lot more. I now have the confidence to tackle things I wouldn’t have dreamt of doing just a few months ago.

So yes, I personally wouldn’t need ‘women only’ rides, but just rides that have more women in them, might be a good starting point. I think they are more likely to adjust their pace so that others don’t feel like they’re getting left behind. That or I need to find a cycle club where they cater for all abilities 🙂

I personally find riding alone gets a bit boring after a few hours

make that “minutes”!

I myself am terrified of falling off my bike

this is something to work on, there are worse things than pain, like boredom and obesity. For a start you should know that it’s possible to fall repeatedly with only minor or even zero discomfort, but in any case, your body will heal 🙂 Even when I’ve broken something, my first thought has always been “How long before I can ride again ?”

I agree with mr agreeable, a lot of these issues raised are down to people being beginners, not women.

Miaowing_Kat, where do you live? I was in exactly the same situation as you when I started (have mentioned it earlier in the thread) as I had never done any exercise at all before starting riding. Last year I did mountain mayhem solo. You will get there!

Someone has just pointed me in this direction… 🙂

I have taken both my other half and sister out on the bikes…the GF even had a go at Laggan a couple of years back…

My sister likes MTBing and not long back bought a decent GT bike…

IMO it was more down to being a beginner and lack of riding/skills that was the issue…just my tuppence worth…

well, at the beginning I was quite happy falling off the bike, but then I went a period of months where I didn’t and now I’ve developed the fear…

and I live in Dundee, though my main riding spot is Glentress

I think mrsflash sould ratehr said:
I did mm solo and kicked the other half butt 😀

but hey I have said nothing 😉

kat, I find the fear comes and goes quite a lot, you need to have a couple of falls where you don’t hurt yourself to reassure yourself you can.

Juan, round two this year, bring it on! 😉

Okay so who is going to arrange a girlie ride to Swinley one weekend? anyone got the bottle 😉

I personally don’t know if gender has a whole lot to with it or not, I’ll mull it through out loud…. I know both male and female MTBers, the females tend to be a bit more cautious on what they’ll attempt but still give it a go. The blokes are blokey blokes, the girls are out-doorsy girls who are perfectly feminine just not your shopping/handbag types. I’m fairly sure the girls wouldnt do long off-road trails if the blokes weren’t about, but they like riding and suggest doing it without prompting so must enjoy it.

I dont really see the whole macho male oriented thing going on, never seen blokes doing MTBing (in reality, other than in mags) who were at all like that, normally group rides are an invite to men and women. Who cares what sex you are?

But I wouldnt be surprised if women did like (and it seems they do) women-only rides etc, I like man-only events sometimes (no rude comments please!) and men and women ARE different after all – doesnt mean it’s a bad thing.

Never met a woman who really wished she could do MTBing but felt unable to because of the male-oriented sport. Maybe that’s because the women I know are independant, strong women who do what they like if they want to regardless.

Maybe most women just dont like blasting around in the mud at risk of their lives – what’s so wrong about that, why do we always need to “fix” things? Move on, find something more pressing to worry about.

I like man-only events sometimes

me too, it keeps all the knobjockeys out of my face as I shun such unwholesome gatherings :o)

I’ve noticed the fitness issue coming up alot.
It’s always been my problem. Even when I was a gym junkie, the fitness still wasn’t there. Some people have certain genes and others don’t.
The girl only group I used to ride with is so competitive and fit now, that I no longer ride with them.

My first foray into off-road cycling was from going into the local mtbing shop and coming out clutching the phone number of a female gym instructor who had set up a mixed mtbing group. It was all about fun, banter, getting out into the fresh air and helping each other to learn new skills. It’s still going after 10 years and there’s never been a problem with there being females in the group.

There was an interesting article in an issue of ST magazine last year, where they explained that the weight of a womans bike compared to a mans was always going to be a problem, as a woman was normally smaller and weighed a lot less in relative terms than the man with a bike a few pounds heavier, ( hope you understood that?). I think it’s a factor in some women being at the back of a group.

It’s interesting that you’ve brought that up Bunnyhop. I always thought that (surely??) the last thing a girl wants is to have a bike and kit designed by guys who *think* they know what women want – when Womens Specific stuff first started coming out a few years ago the vast majority of it was simply a slightly tweaked version of a mans bike with a pastel paintjob and (often) a lower spec, therefore heavier…
Or conversly, something designed to appeal to the magazines and the market and deliberately designed to be “hardcore” but quite blindingly overbuilt for even the most ham-fisted trail rider, let alone a 50kg girl who’s just getting into riding.

It has got better but the UK bike market is extremely fickle and pretty much unique and, as long as certain magazines continue to promote the whole macho “you-need-a-6″-travel-full-sus-to-ride-along-a-canal-towpath” thing then that will continue to put off many newcomers (of both sexes).

There were 2 common scenarios when I worked in a bike shop, both involving “A Couple”. Man would always do all the talking, often even answering questions on behalf of Girl (that used to really wind me up!), but would start by saying “I’ve got x thousand £ to spend on a bike, oh and she [indicates bored looking Girl] wants something for about £300”.
The other one would be “I want a 19″ [brand] in black, oh and she [indicates bored looking Girl] would like the same bike but in a 15” and pale blue. Some guys remained adamant that Girl wanted [brand], even when it was obvious that it wouldn’t be right or wasn’t fitting properly. Girl was rarely allowed a say which I used to just find upsetting.

Interesting point about bike weight, but that would suggest women are vastly different to men in body weight, and would also put elite male riders (who are often very slim) in the “need lighter bikes” category – I can think of one friend who despite being very light can easily out-pace me all day long despite my bike being proportionately a hell of a lot lighter (I weigh close to 80% more than him!)

One thing that recently came up while riding was the fact that women seem to have much smaller hands and find the whole bar-brake distance quite a difficulty – even with the brakes set at min adjustment (at which point the levers hit the bars at full force) their fingers were struggling to reach the levers without unweighting off the bars. This meant they spent a lot of time riding balanced “on their thumbs” just so they could reach the brake levers with a finger, plus the likelyhood that they have slightly less strong fingers means they’re more likely to need more fingers on the brake. This took a lot of re-arranging of the bars from the usual angled-down position and still leaves them feeling uncomfortable over the compromise of grip and braking efficacy, with arms that ache more easily due to the odd positioning.

FoxyChick
Oh, and what’s all this digging in the woods about?

I think he meant dogging

I’m only 9 stone, and as weak as a kitten.

I too am 9 stone and tbh, the only time I ever notice the weight of my bike is when I have to push it!

I’m only 9 stone, and as weak as a kitten.

Your problem is your riding not your weight 😉

woo, stereotypes a-gogo!

my experience was that mtb just wasn’t on the radar in any way until a (female) friend asked me to join her for a ride. Before then it had never crossed my mind. Like some others have said, unless you live in an outdoorsy place, its easy to not know this cultish world of mtb even exists, especially once the kids bike gets swapped for a driving license. There is probably more involvement in roadieing because more people know about it (TdF etc).

In a similar vein perhaps folks don’t know that it exists at an amateur level – what exposure is there of biking at a level between the Olympics (I’m thinking Shaznay and rad-core jumps) and old-duffer-paddling-to-shops-with-shopping-basket-gaffered-to-rack? In some ways it’s only accessable if you know the right people…

As for womens specific kit…its hit and miss…some gals don’t like pastel colours…some girls are over 50kgs and 5’2″… so its just a matter of having a range of sizing and styles…much like anything really.

Womens specific rides…like others have said, its often more a case of how folk treat beginners, which can be done brilliantly by guys (lots of encouragement and support and help with maintenance til you get your own tools), and rubbishly by girls, and vice versa. Its more a matter of individual personalities than gender stereotyping.

Long and short: if you want more women mtbers then more women need to know about it, and the door doesnt need to be slammed in their face by chauvanist oiks.

Long may (blue and pink) pedaling continue 🙂

Now we have moved onto the topic of women’s specific kit this is something that does still irritate me. I went shopping for some MTB shoes and found a particular brand (men’s) picked them up and asked shop staff if I could try them on in a size 7 (and they were dark blue) shop staff says “oh we have those in a women’s specific cut” I ask what’s the difference and his reply was “they come in baby blue and they are slightly narrower, oh and £10 more expensive”. What a rip off £10 more for exactly the same thing in some guff girlie colour!! Things have come on in leaps and bounds however I still get frustrated at buying women’s specific shorts.

I think women do struggle riding heavier bikes. I have a Giant Reign 2 which is awesome for going to Morzine however riding around Swinley it’s quite hard going. However for my DHing I started doing weight training and can now bench press 55k (I weigh 63k), problem I now have is women’s specific clothing won’t go around my biceps!! So how did I solve that, got Mr MC to buy me a nice new Cube women’s specific hard tail for my birthday!! I can now deal with the weight of my bike and getting more muscular certainly helps with the battering my arms get when we go to Morzine every year. But again most women don’t want big biceps, or to spend a reasonable amount of time in the gym.

To be honest I think every women has different view and opinions on riding/groups/kit etc etc that we have to take them all differently and despite how many men (and women) think it’s cr**/unfair/silly whatever we need to cater more specifically for women, such as on rides etc. I have seen this through 15 years experience on trying to get more women into riding and so far I’ve only managed o get about 3 and honestly … they probably only do it coz their blokes do!!

Me on the other hand would not be able to live without MTBing and there’ no bigger buzz than beating a man down a hill!!!!!

But again most women don’t want big biceps, or to spend a reasonable amount of time in the gym.

Works for mens too. and kit issue it’s not only a matter of being a women.
Try being short/skinny with no beer belly…
I am glad I like pink