Oh the irony of a national cycling charity being SO OBVIOUSLY CIRCULAR.

Bah. As predicted, I received an email yesterday (12 May):

Thank you for your motion regarding the continuation of Cycling UK’s 100 Women initiative. Since your motion was submitted, a communication has been sent to members setting out the future direction of how women’s contributions to cycling will be recognised and celebrated. That update explains the context for change, the feedback received from members and the community, and the approach the organisation will be taking going forward. In light of that communication, the AGM motions selection panel considered your motion against the criteria set out in Cycling UK’s AGM motions process and agreed that it should not be taken forward to the AGM.

I have been doing cycling and thinking today. So I sent off my AGM motion proposal (let's keep 100 Women in Cycling, because it's fun and it's in the 2024-2029 strategy) in mid-April. I sent it to the relevant address and Cced Sarah Mitchell. There is supposed to be some selection committee who review motion proposals, and inform the proposer about suggested rewording or if they have decided not to send it to the AGM at all. The CUK AGM is in September, our member group AGMs are supposed to be roughly May-June time.
I haven't had any info about the motion proposal yet, but I wasn't expecting to because they're probably busy with year end submissions from member groups.

But how does that work with the message from Sarah Mitchell above from last week? I mean, her message - four weeks after submitting my motion proposal - has made my proposal meaningless hasn't it? We members can't vote on my proposal in any meaningful form, because the CEO has already ousted it. And that's before I'd even heard back about the success (or not) of my proposal.

I want to say, I don't understand how this is fair. But that's true of everything this ideology touches, isn't it; it never was about fairness. It certainly seems like a poor way for a charity to behave. How depressing.

I didn't explicitly say "let's keep 100 Women in Cycling just one more year" but I'd be happy if that were to happen - and from the message above from Sarah Mitchell, it could still be the case. The internet says that nominations in previous years ran from about mid-May to mid-June. So this is something to keep a really close eye on in the next couple of weeks.

Hash, space, word.

#Fail

Bigly

thank you @selffellatingouroborosofhate

Maybe we needed to speak in bigly words all along!

edited to remove my failed attempt at bigly words and add:
I don't really understand why there is any need to say anything at all. Does Sarah have to bow and scrape to escape the wrath of those who don't like women to have nice things?

Hooray for the bigly words

Nobody ever apologies for “hurting” women, do they? Just let us have stuff of our own, Cycling UK!

A line starting with # will be displayed as bigly text. Two # is a little smaller.

Bigly one hash text

Smaller two hash text

all the way to

Six hashes is the lowest supported heading level and apparently looks like normal Mumsnet text.

It's a convention used in a documentation language called Markdown to represent headings and sub-headings and sub-sub-headings.

I recall considerable excitement on this board when posters first discovered bigly text.

An update today from Sarah Mitchell, CEO:

============================================================
I’m writing to share an update on the review of Cycling UK’s awards, which we committed to doing when we last spoke earlier in the year.

Firstly, before going any further I want to acknowledge that last year’s 100 Women in Cycling Awards caused hurt, and I want to apologise to all the trans and non-binary people in our community. Cycling UK has always worked to be a truly inclusive organisation. We have learned from what happened, particularly about the importance of listening to and consulting our community before making decisions of this kind.

We have reflected carefully on what happened, and our first step afterwards was to speak to you and get your feedback.

As part of this review and consultation period, we heard from over 900 members, supporters, former winners of 100 Women in Cycling, Community Cycle Club reps, sector stakeholders and staff. It showed there was a real appetite to have this conversation with us, and help us find a way forward, so thank you.

We didn’t just rely on survey responses either. Our senior team met a number of groups in our community to hear from them directly and those conversations were invaluable.

So, what was all this feedback and what might be next? The clear message was that people feel strongly that Cycling UK should continue to run a national awards scheme, but to do so in a way that celebrates the people and groups helping to make cycling more diverse and inclusive, regardless of identity.

Based on this feedback, we’re now going to start working on what this could look like, with the intention of launching a new awards programme in 2027, and we’ll share more information once we have it.

Thank you again for taking part in the review, giving up your valuable time, sharing your thoughts and ideas and helping shape the future of these awards.

Vom. I wonder who the "groups in our community" were. Because, oddly enough, they didn't ask the women's task force that they got together in about 2020-2021 (or if they did, I missed the memo).

edit: arg, how do I remove those enormous words?!

Excellent ranting, @FlirtsWithRhinos ! Trying to spot the difference between BC and CUK is hard enough if you aren't closely involved, never mind trying to spot the difference between an inclusive ride and a mixed ride.

I feel like we need a massive table to summarise everything here. But the important bits seem to be:

Cycling UK:
Inclusive rides: Legal? ✅ Plain English? ❌
Women-only rides: Legal? ✅ Plain English? ✅
Mixed rides: Legal? ✅ Plain English? ✅ up to a point

British Cycling:
Breeze rides: Legal? ❌ Plain English? ❌

Of course, a woman-"focussed" ride is an interestingly sexist concept. What is the "focus" here? Being pretty? Being non-competetive? Saying nice things about women? I'd love to know how what BC think these cycling needs are that are specific to "women".

It's worth pointing out that it's not clear that 'woman-focussed' is legally compliant. Just the attempt to make men feel unwelcome in a mixed-sex service is enough to raise the expectation that the service is single sex and therefore legally should be for biological women only. One can easily see why this should be the case - if you have three official types of events (women: single sex, inclusive: wrong sort of men discouraged, mixed: for both sexes) but only one type, inclusive, in practice is ever held, then you're essentially back to the status quo that existed before where no events in a (once) women's sporting association is single-sex.

Ah apologies, you are right.

Rest of my rant stands though - if "woman-focussed" means anything other than "focussing on the needs/priorities of biological women" within a mixed sex group it's just sexism rebadged as inclusion.

Is this not the Cycling UK advice, not British Cycling?

And what the heck is the difference between 'inclusive' and 'mixed'?!!!! They're tying themselves in knots trying to be legally compliant AND give the men with the ladyfeels what they want ... I cannot wait for this all to be over - it has to be soon, surely?!!

[essentially a duplicate post, sorry]

They aren't. As PP noted, it's just weasel words.

"Inclusive" is woman-"focused" but open to all including men. They just don't bother to list regular men like they list the special gender types of men. To give the special gender types and others the impression that special gender types are being specially included, when really they are just included like any other bog standard men.

They also have specifc "Women-only" rides and these are legally compliant.

Of course, a woman-"focussed" ride is an interestingly sexist concept. What is the "focus" here? Being pretty? Being non-competetive? Saying nice things about women? I'd love to know how what BC think these cycling needs are that are specific to "women".

And to be clear, I'm 100% in agreement that socialisation, sexism and differing capabilities and expereinces mean many men enjoy cycling in environments that put off many women. I'm not at all against having less competetive or more supportive rides with the hope that these are more appealing to many women, and indeed plenty of men including special gender people of either sex. I just really object to labelling them "women-focussed" as some sort of shorthand for "girly coded stuff".

Woman-focussed, even when mixed sex, should be focussing on or celebrating cycling for biological women. If BC very laudably also want to do inclusive, non judgemental and gentle rides, just bloody call them that rather than "women focussed".

But we all know, what they really mean by woman-focussed is "a ride where we can pretend women are of both sexes" - nothing to do with actual women at all.

It is interesting and puzzling how British Cycling and Cycling UK appear to be following different legal advice. I am not sure how British Cycling are maintaining their inclusion of trans-women and non-binary in a women's programme, and therefore ignoring the Supreme Court ruling. But I guess unless there is a legal challenge, they can keep doing what they want ...

The Cycling UK definition in the Group Ride guidance that I linked to gives the impression that "inclusive" also means excluding regular men, which is neither inclusive or legal; let one in, you've got to let them all in. However the new handbook, released at the same time, recognises this: "inclusive" rides are "Rides open to all, including biological women, transwomen and non-binary people."

https://www.cyclinguk.org/sites/default/files/downloads/2026-04/handbook-for-cycling-uk-groups_stage-3b.pdf

Makes me think of, "I'm Brian, and so's my wife!". Progress of a sort anyway!

As ever "inclusive" means excluding actual women. Hey ho. The New Misogyny, same as the old Misogyny.

Good digging there @YerWot
British Cycling receive millions for their podium programme but they also receive substantial amounts for their Breeze programme - the one to encourage women into cycling because they are massively underrepresented but also allows men into dressed to attend.
I think the money comes via Sport England who used to be all over gender ideology

Regarding Cycling UK getting government funding - according to their Charity Commission accounts, last year it was £438.94k from government contracts and £6.47m from government grants.

https://register-of-charities.charitycommission.gov.uk/en/charity-search/-/charity-details/5026584/full-print

I don't really understand any more than that. But my impression is that this money is mainly spent on the bigger expensive projects that happen in specific locations. Like an e-cargo bike trying out scheme in Manchester a year or two ago. I think they are very poor on reporting things like that in the magazine - for example the Manchester project I only knew about because a family member tried it out, and a trustee at the time was telling me about the scheme.

I don't know anything about how British Cycling are run - presumably it's very different as they are getting sporting funding? (as well as their money from Shell? don't really know anything about either) I see on the Charity Commission website that there is a British Cycling Foundation which has recently been set up.

Gosh I am so nervous about my motion proposal. In a way, I really hope it doesn't make it to the AGM because the board feel like they've already made a commitment to 100 Women in Cycling in the 2024-2029 strategy, and so it has to go ahead in its current form.

Interesting to see MrsO's reported comment above in that light. The spokes person can want diversity and inclusion etc etc, but the 2024-2029 strategy refers to 100 Women as is. And the strategy predated FWS, but now the language is on the side of women. Interesting times!

I’m not sure Cycling UK received any government funding. British Cycling, on the other hand, receive millions

How much government and lottery funding do these clowns get?

I went for brief, light and women-focused in my proposal. Figured the less I say, the less likely I am to dig myself into a hole. Keeping it women-focused was central. I was over the moon to be on the 100 Women in Cycling list: I'll be blowed if other women don't get that brilliant feeling just because someone's bullied you out!
Hopefully my proposal won't make it to the AGM because they already feel that they've committed to 100 Women in Cycling in the 2024-2029 strategy. This is also fine, I just want it to carry on at least one more year!

@MissGendering aww, thank you so much! Sadly I have already submitted my motion proposal - the deadline is tomorrow at 9am, I got my seconder this afternoon and sent it off straight away as I couldn't bear to think about it any more.

Would anyone like to submit @MissGendering 's proposal?
Details here: https://www.cyclinguk.org/agm-2026
You need to download the form there, find your Cycling UK membership number, get a seconder (and his or her membership number), submit by tomorrow (Wednesday 15 April) at 9am.

In my proposal, I referred to the 2024-2029 strategy: https://www.cyclinguk.org/strategy which specifically mentions 100 Women in Cycling on p10-11.

It's probably poor form for me to second someone else's proposal on the same subject. But it would be really good if we can get another proposal in - it would show strength of feeling. All proposals have to be considered by some selection panel, so it might not make it anywhere. But at least we've tried!

@YerWot Any use?

Title:
Continuation and reporting of the “100 Women in Cycling” programme

Motion:
This AGM notes that Cycling UK’s “100 Women in Cycling” initiative, established in 2017, was created to increase the visibility of women in cycling and address their underrepresentation in participation.

It further notes that women remain underrepresented among people who cycle regularly in the UK, and that targeted initiatives are widely recognised as necessary to address barriers to participation.

The AGM recognises that the “100 Women in Cycling” programme contributes to Cycling UK’s charitable objective of increasing participation in cycling through visibility, recognition, and encouragement.

This AGM therefore resolves that Cycling UK should:

Continue the “100 Women in Cycling” programme as an annual initiative;
Maintain its focus on supporting and increasing women’s participation in cycling;
Ensure the programme is appropriately supported as part of its participation work;
Report annually to members on how the programme contributes to increasing