Women and Bikes: How Far Have We Come?

Hannah charts the advance of women in the bike industry, as she sees it. Are you as optimistic? What changes have you seen? Apparently I am now long i …

By stwhannah

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Women in the bike industry are now looking round them and seeing who else isn’t there – look at the growing diversity you’re seeing in the gravel and bike packing scenes. In women-led spaces, we’re often seeing deliberate steps being taken to include others who may have felt excluded from the industry, or to take greater account of the environment that we rely on for our adventures. A great example of this is the New Forest Off Road Club, who invite people coming on their group rides to consider ‘Is this an additional space you get to be or the only space you get to be?’.

Personally, I love this attitude. It’s inclusive beyond just the interests of elevating women. I don’t want to replace the old boy’s club with the old girls’ club. I’d rather it was a We’re All Having Fun Here club, with free membership, no weird judgements-about-clothing entry rituals, and an emphasis on where you’re riding rather than what.

Amen. It’s a shame we don’t have the “like” button for articles, but this was a great read. Thanks Hannah!

I don’t want to fully re-quote what tom just did, but this is the part of the article that seems important/relevant. From my own social bubble and from working in bike shops I reckon to have met only a handful of guys who had any interest at all in the celebrity freeride scene – and not one woman. As the article does point out, I think there’s more interest and familiarity with the women’s bikepacking/gravel scene (Jenny Graham’s achievement was widely discussed) but, even then, I’m not seeing that being much of a driver for more female participation. If there’s industry money sloshing around for the promotion of women’s cycling then it currently seems to be poorly deployed on the basis that there is either (a) some sort of trickle-down, or (b) it’s promoting something many women aspire to. I don’t think either is true.*

*FWIW I’d say it’s the same for men’s cycling.

I have certainly noticed more women on the scene, but I started riding offroad at the end of the 70’s, and the world is certainly a different place now. I have some stats for you.

29% of all direct Bum Butter sales are to women.

60% female on the Hebden Bridge ride I did… and 80% on the one before that (I was the only chap)..

Theory tells us it’s all about tipping points. I think we have already achieved a tipping point where women on the trails is very normal.  We have reached a significant point, its unstoppable, and it won’t be reversed. And the cycling world is better for it, even if some areas need to catch up. I predict a near 50:50 split within 10 years.

When I fell into the single speed scene over 20 years ago. I had found my clan. Hell yes… these people stay up late, stop for a beer, we like similar music, and dicking around on bikes. You can even win a tattoo! If I had not found a cycling family where I felt welcome, that got me excited… I don’t think I would have stuck with mountain biking.  I once did a road race… what a miserable dull bunch they were. Not one person out of over 100 went to the pub afterwards! No one even chatted. One guy seemed offended when I asked him a question.  I never road raced again. Point being… it’s great that women have a happy place / clan / family/ scene within cycling.

 

As the article does point out, I think there’s more interest and familiarity with the women’s bikepacking/gravel scene (Jenny Graham’s achievement was widely discussed) but, even then, I’m not seeing that being much of a driver for more female participation.

Maybe it’s a small start in a big cycling world but it’s certainly influential and growing. I think NFORC and other initiatives like the School of Rocks suggest it is a driver – perhaps the approach they take would work in any area of cycling but the traffic-free and less competitive, any bike goes, in the woods/hills aspect of gravel must help with the social side.

Lael Wilcox’s women’s rally series has also had a big impact on the gravel + bikepacking scene, some events seeing a massive increase in women participating after she started that initiative. There were also a lot of positive ‘hey we did this, so can you’ social media follow ups and online talks that must help. There’s a supportive, inclusive ‘we can do this’ message in it. I think the cycling scene and marketing generally needs to take note.

Back in 1998 there were few female mtbikers in the Peak District which was my area.
I couldn’t buy womens mtbike shoes, gloves, saddles or helmets. The choice of bikes for the smaller rider was limited.
It wasn’t normal back then for women to want to get muddy, wet or cold and more importantly bruised and broken by falling off a bicycle.

Heartening is the amount of young girls I see out, riding proper ‘off road’ trails. Also just women in general enjoying a ride out on their own or in a small group.

I couldn’t buy womens mtbike shoes, gloves, saddles or helmets. The choice of bikes for the smaller rider was limited.

Chicken and egg. Retailers investing in a decent stock of women’s clothing would have to sell it off each year at a heavy discount.

The womens riding scene here in The Tweed Valley is pretty healthy and getting stronger all the time.
With people like https://www.thefnycollective.co.uk/ doing great work to get ladies out riding and also having EWS riders like Bex and Katy out there it’s no surprise.
Most of the group rides we do are a 50/50 split of ladies and men.
Some midweek solo rides I do I see more girls out than guys which is a lot better than some of the groups of guys we see on a weekend that can get a bit lads,lads,lads.

It’s all a very long way from when I started riding back in the mid 80’s and I hope it keeps moving in the same direction.
More people on bikes and less macho BS can only be a good thing.

When I started riding (20 years ago!) I think I knew the name of every woman who rode in my area (the Surrey Hills!), because there were so few of us. Now there are scores of women out there every week, and I know that some of the more familiar faces have good jobs in the bike industry so there is positive change there too.

Social media is packed with women riding bikes and telling others how to ride bikes. There are lovely clothes to choose from. Brands seem to have changed their minds about the need for ‘womens bikes’ with geometry to fit our perceived freaky long legs and teeny short arms. Now it’s ‘bikes for people’ and that’s a marvellous thing (or just driven by economics? Discuss).
When I had my new bike built last year, the mechanic asked me about the components I was using with the casual air of someone who expected me to know the answers, which felt very cool indeed. Random men no longer offer riding tips we haven’t asked for half way round the trails. And when I turn up at a trail centre with the group of women I ride with, no one stares at us in the car park.

Mountain biking is definitely a more relaxed and better place for women to be these days. It’s not perfect but there seems to be plenty of momentum. So thank you Hannah (and Jenn before you) for helping to open the previously jammed-shut door so that women can ride through it.

Thank you too for linking to the posts I wrote for Singletrack – very good times indeed!

For the record, I don’t think any of the women I ride with are interested in free ride or celebrity bike culture. Our priorities are friendship, fitness, challenging ourselves within our own limits and having a laugh. Followed by a coffee.

I also applaud the New Forest Cycling Club for there quite radical approach to group riding – inspiring and thought provoking, which is always a good thing.

who invite people coming on their group rides to consider ‘Is this an additional space you get to be or the only space you get to be?’.

What does this actually mean? Genuinely not a clue…

@footflaps It means ‘are there other rides you get to go on, or is this the only one?’. For lots of women who are juggling childcare, they won’t have other opportunities in the week to ride, or they’ll have gone to some lengths to clear the decks to be there. Add to that, perhaps that ride is the one where they feel welcome and comfortable. In contrast, some people are fairly free to ride on a number of occasions through the week, and may feel welcome wherever they go. NFORC is asking people to be mindful of the difference – maybe even consider whether you could ride some other time and maybe help someone else who would value that place be there instead (eg, maybe by offering childcare, or a loan of a light etc).

Does that help?

On or off road, just see way more women out riding, whether it’s for fun or more seriously.

Our club supports the council cycle for health rides – right through the cold dark winter, they’ve had about 20 out on the Monday evening ride, often 50% women.

I can’t comment directly, as a male, but it would appear to me that cycling has become more accessible, and however much further there is to go still, its better than it was 20 years ago when I started riding.

Does that help?

yes thanks. I though it was something like should you be coming on this ride if you have other options…

More women on MTBs down here in South Wales that I see, but still not many. A much more significant increase in women roadies though. But still not near half.

Interestingly the women I do see are usually 20-something or over 70 riding with someone who could be their husband. As if there’s some sort of 50s cycling attitude that’s still hanging on.

Women are pretty well represented in mtb where I live. I’ve only really one other rider that I ride with every week and it’s a woman. Two local clubs have women-specific rides, plenty represent at mixed group rides, too. A 20-year old woman down the road from me came second in the Oz national U23 XCO championship, then spent summer racing XC and road in europe. One of our local bike shops was until recently owned by a woman, and her daughter who worked as a mechanic recently took out national titles in Enduro (first go!) and E-mtb. She’ll be racing the EWS this year.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CphnQ8AhfnD/?hl=en

A former female world trials champion is local, too. When our club runs open days, the kids see women as the highest achieving local riders which is very cool.

But at grassroots level I normally coach 10-20 8-12 year olds on a Sunday and I think 3 girls is the most we’ve ever had at one time. And one of them absolutely smokes all the boys! And at a guess i’d say 1/3 of our club’s coaches are female.

My wife has no real interest in riding bikes, but she loves watching Darkfest style shenanigans and slopestyle.

For lots of women who are juggling childcare, they won’t have other opportunities in the week to ride, or they’ll have gone to some lengths to clear the decks to be there. Add to that, perhaps that ride is the one where they feel welcome and comfortable.

I’ve a good friend that I coach kids with that i’ve only ever managed to ride with once. Reason being that his wife rides five mornings a week so he takes the kids to school (in the compartment of an cargo e-bike!)

there’s cyclists or non-cyclists.

“apart from an outbreak of white trousers and white shoes at elite level” – that’s just elite cycling. Look at the road pro peloton – you can’t move for pristine white shoes and shin-height white socks. Have they never ridden in the UK?

I do wonder how many sets of clothing, helmets and shoes the pros get through in say the TdF. The support team have got to clean and service all the bikes, change all the bar tape, wash all their clothes, pack all the food / drinks for the next day and scrub their shoes with a toothbrush to get them spotless….

I never really understood why bike (and other sports) brands haven’t put a really big and committed effort into attracting women into the sport (in my opinion until very recently they’ve been half-arsing it). Just looking at it from the perspective of a old and cynical corporate overlord and from a numbers game if they can get more women into the sport (at all levels) then they double the number of customers they can sell to.

And that’s not even taking into account the fact that cycling (and MTB in particular) is a really fun and varied sport/activity that I’d love to share these experiences with everyone.

Skiing and snowboarding figured this out years ago and hopefully biking is getting there.

Fingers crossed it keeps improving.

Skiing and snowboarding figured this out years ago and hopefully biking is getting there.

Snowboarding, and more recently skiing, managed to get the promotion of their activities right in more ways than just promoting gender balance.

I think the key is that they’ve managed to make their sports both aspirational and alternative/cool.

Mountain biking has somehow managed to make itself something that isn’t aspirational (despite bikes costing the same as cars) and also not alternative. Or at least, not alternative in a cool way. Just something that that weird guy in the office does.

I never really understood why bike (and other sports) brands haven’t put a really big and committed effort into attracting women into the sport (in my opinion until very recently they’ve been half-arsing it). Just looking at it from the perspective of a old and cynical corporate overlord and from a numbers game if they can get more women into the sport (at all levels) then they double the number of customers they can sell to.

Maybe the industry could do better by attracting women (and men) into cycling for leisure and transport a little to begin with and not making it all about sport, lycra, performance and tech?
As an industry we default to everything being racing-derived and talking about ‘the sport’ and I think it’s a mistake. ‘Sport’ suggests targets to meet, standards to aim for etc. Who really rides for all that? A minority I think.
The bike industry culture or priorities need to change. Granted there’s a grey area between leisure and sport, most of us describe it as a sport but it’s just active leisure time really.

I tend to agree @jameso, hence my earlier response.

I have to assume that marketing departments have looked at this and come to the conclusion that sporting success somehow translates into sufficient increased sales though?

Granted there’s a grey area between leisure and sport, most of us describe it as a sport but it’s just active leisure time really.

I’m with you there. It occasionlly wanders into amatuer sport territory for me but it’s messing about in the woods with mates 98% of the time.

The gnar marketing we see always feels like it’s appealing to the in-crowd rather than trying to appeal to a broader base.

I’ve always thought of it as a sport. Even if 95% of my riding is messing around in the local woods, the reason for sessioning familiar trails over and over again is to improve my bike handling skills (and cause it’s fun). The reason I need my bike handling skills is to reduce the chances on coming off when I’m in the middle of nowhere on an ‘epic’ ride.

For my ‘proper’ mountain biking I bring along a first aid kit, a survival blanket, and enough food and water so that there’s a chance I can survive long enough for mountain rescue to find me if things go wrong.

It’s difficult to distinguish between a sport and a leisure activity (or game, if you prefer) but in my mind mountain biking is always going to be a sport purely because of the risk factor.

That’s probably the difference between snowsports and mountain biking. When most people think of snowsports they tend to think of highly controlled environments where the risks are severely minimized.

Part of the appeal is that mountain biking is done in less controlled higher risk environments but I think that is also something that’s going to put a lot of people off.

Fair counter, but that Halfords special for pootling along a fireroad with the fam might just be the gateway drug to what many see as mountain biking.

I’d like to see industry lean into that side a little more than it does.

Yeah, I get what you’re saying. However, I think part of what makes snowsports successful from a business point of view is that they’ve managed to make their product aspirational and exclusive but still alternative and cool.

Probably separating xc skiing and downhill skiing helped in that regard. You don’t see many people talking about xc skiing being an entry route to ‘proper’ skiing.

I don’t know. Maybe ebikes will become ‘proper’ mountain biking and the equivalent of downhill skiing. Halfords specials will become the equivalent of cross country skiing.

Long travel non-ebikes will then become the equivalent of Alpine Touring skiing and only truly committed weirdos will do it.

Maybe.

Anyway, I’m not sure if this brave new world will be more or less attractive for women.

I tend to agree @jameso, hence my earlier response.

I have to assume that marketing departments have looked at this and come to the conclusion that sporting success somehow translates into sufficient increased sales though?

Yes – though I said I think gravel etc does have an impact on the social side, overall it’s still in that enthusiast area.
My assumption on marketing in the bike industry is that there’s very few people who both understand the market and innovative marketing (I’m not saying I’m one of them either) and there’s a lot of momentum and ‘we’ve always done this’ thinking going on.
I do believe more women in brand and marketing lead roles would help address this – working with an approach what comes naturally to NFORC and the younger rider’s collectives that form via social media, de-prioritising the (I’m getting into gender generalisations here but..) typical blokes on bikes and performance and engineering one-upmanship that goes with it.

Racing does sell bikes, sure. I just don’t think it offers a proportional return that would compare to getting non-enthusiast marketing right. Creating new non-enthusiast riders grows the entire market and bike community as well as creating a % more enthusiasts simply because riding a bike can be such a positive experience for anyone.