Women’s cycling questionnaire

[Quadzilla]

Do we have any feminists on two wheels? Scottish Cycling want to hear from you. Out of their membership only 19% are female and they want to understand why.

www.britishcycling.org.uk/scotland/article/20200923-Help-increase-women-and-girls%E2%80%99-membership-in-cycling-clubs-0?fbclid=IwAR37OAmTvKT8LK5S-8DZutTWeU0vuC6r7n9Qucmfq_kP7VM2mYzqh6muurY

A bit of background:
British/Scottish Cycling run a Sport England funded grassroots women only initiative called Breeze which is open to anyone who identifies as a woman. This policy has cause many female volunteers to complain be ignored/called a bigot and leave.

British Cycling have had well publicised accusations of sexism levelled at them over the years by many of their athletes including Nicole Cooke, Lizzie Deignan, Jess Varnish and Victoria Pendleton.

Whoever wrote the questionnaire fails to mention sex yet there’s lots of mentions of gender. In my experience women do not want to cycle with men as men are physically stronger and faster therefore club runs become men only unless you are a super strong female athlete. I left a cycling club because I couldn’t even keep up with the overweight middle aged men. Sex is the divider in sport. If sporting organisations don’t understand that, is there any hope for them? I’ve filled in the questionnaire in vain hope that they will do if we point it out to them.

@ThinkWittyThoughts the website is letsride.co.uk

Yep that's the site I ended up on.

14 rides near me (as crow flies but different county & toll road in between).

13 rides are 20 miles long & steady.
1 ride nearly 23 miles and challenging.

I can't see anything on that site about building up confidence, or building up the distance. The lovely photos this club put on site actually make me feel they're a tight knit group and I would just be intruding.

I’ve answered the questionnaire. I’ve had pretty good experiences with cycle clubs, but only in the sense that I’ve joined them, struggled mightily with getting dropped on every ride by packs of men, then joined forces with other disaffected women to do our own, informal rides!

TL;DR couch to 50k is a good starting point
Although in the UK, NI is covered by Cycling Ireland so it may not be quite the same. Last summer I participated in a 'sofa to saddle' / couch to 50k initiative mentored by the local cycling club. It had around 25 participants and all but 3 were women. It gave us the confidence to ride on roads and socially in groups. One of ladies that took the course was really nervous and had a big heavy traditional bike. She struggled at the beginning but the mentors and the rest of the group were very supportive in building confidence and fitness, people volunteered to go out with her for a few miles in between the official sessions and she began to really enjoy it. At the end of the 10 weeks she had a holiday to majorca booked. She sent us a WhatsApp from it, she had hired a bike there and on several days of her holiday rode 50km+ around the many bike routes there. She never imagined that she would love cycling in her late 50s. I also joined the club and began doing weekly rides in the 'slow group' (women, [much] older men and club riders looking for an easy recovery ride). It's fun and the mix of people means that you learn a lot. But as a mum of two primary school age kids I did have a lot of guilt spending half a day out cycling each weekend. This never seems to be an issue for men who take up cycling and I think it is one of the bigger barriers causing an imbalance in the men/women who ride in clubs. Over lockdown I switched to mountain biking as there is a forest / trails centre near where I live and I wanted something energetic to do with the kids. They absolutely love it and it works better for us as a family to do a hobby together. Persuaded DH to join us, he hadn't been on a bike in 30 years and he is now totally hooked.

I'm in a local women's cycling FB group and have signed up for a Breeze ride (but I'm on the waiting list). I'm pretty sure the FB page doesn't mention "identifies as" but I'll be making loud noises if there's any men on any rides.
The FB group is working to affiliation with UK Cycling - rather than British Cycling - anyone know if they have the same policy?

@Quadzilla - please look out for my pm.

@drspouse British Cycling don't make it clear, but their policy is that anyone 'living their life as a woman is welcome on a Breeze ride.

If you (or anyone) disagrees with that policy for Breeze rides please, please write to British Cycling and tell them. With a history of treating women badly (as in @Quadzilla's op), they will probably ignore it, but the more people who protest, the better.

There's something about club membership.

The cycling club men (it's mainly men you see, all sporting the club jersey) act like they're in the tour de France, they drop litter/throw litter, and refuse to slow down for any other road user, let alone give way. They basically behave like dicks.

Often I also see men, not wearing club jerseys, in groups of 2 - 4, cycling and talking and behaving like normal humans, e.g. complying with highway code, saying hello as they pass.

There seems to be a transformation when they put on a club jersey.

I don't think that 'the rules' paint cycling as a female-friendly activity. It assumes a default, competitive male. A few examples below.

www.velominati.com/

RULE #11 // Family does not come first. The bike does.

RULE #29 // No European Posterior Man-Satchels.

RULE #50 // Facial hair is to be carefully regulated.

RULE #70// The purpose of competing is to win.

RULE #91 // No Food On Training Rides Under Four Hours.

I'd be out for rule #50, my chin hair can get a bit out of control 😂

I don't think 'the rules' are supposed to be taken seriously.

Those rules are bollocks. Whilst they are meant to be lighthearted you’d be amazed by how many blokey cyclists adhere to them and it just perpetuates how deeply sexist the sport is.
In my volunteering roles in cycling, I spend a lot of time reassuring women that if their bum is on a saddle, their legs are pedalling, they are a cyclist.
It doesn’t matter what you wear, how fast you go or how far, it’s the doing what counts.

Cycling UK’s take on women only spaces

"women in cycling is open to women and men who say they are women"

do they not ever stop and think?

ducktape where do you go in NI with the kids for mountain biking? I’d love to get my kids into it as a family activity

I go out with 3 friends who are all about same standard and have similar time available. Really enjoyable am fortunate to have them.

@Quadzilla

Cycling UK’s take on women only spaces

Actually I think that's the FB group I'm in. Hopefully any transwomen would be put off by our talk of female anatomy and cycling while pregnant.

That’s the thing, I don’t think they are. And it’s like everything else we discussed in here - we’re not being exclusionary to males for no reason. There are plenty of places to ride/discuss cycling in mixed sex groups for male people.

drspouse no they're really not.many find it validating of thir womanhood that you talk about things like that around them

i cant mention the actual 3 word initial because id get banned but id be wary of how much detail you go into...

I've done the survey.

One of the positives from this year for me is that I've got into cycling. However, I rarely get more than 30 mins free time in which to go - up to an hour when I'm lucky. I'd love to do more.

Any advice from anyone on here for what I need for wet / cold weather? I'd love to keep going over winter if I can.

@Quadzilla

Cycling UK’s take on women only spaces

Quadzilla I am intrigued to know what 'the important reasoning behind' opening Women in Cycling to folk who identify as female can possibly be.

I identified as a cyclist for the purposes of this questionnaire, the free text boxes got some stick. But I reminded them several times what a woman is, and if they could maybe set aside a weekend soon for all the men to stay home and do child stuff and boring shit so the women could get out. Radical eh? Never gonna happen.

sultana I'm not sure its Cycling UK's official stance. They seem to have employed the very woke Anna Glowinski to run the Womens Cycling Festival and the associated Facebook group. She's the admin of the group so I presume they are her rules.

I am a cyclist and a member of a wonderful women's only cycling club in West London. There is no sign of any "identity" bollocks on their rules.

I'm not sure if this is the right thread for this or if maybe it needs its own...

A few times recently we've driven back from a walk passing by the local secondary school at home time. Probably because of bus avoidance there are more cars picking up but also lots more kids on bikes (the local cycle routes have been improved too, which may help). Dozens streaming out....great... except they were all boys. Not one single girl on 2 wheels.

Why? Is it just because, although they can wear trousers most seem to prefer skirts? But then, I used to cycle happily enough in shortish skirts, and my student DD does too. Are any of the cycling orgs actively engaged in trying to get girls to cycle as a means of transport?