Where are the Women?

Camus

I see plenty of women commuting in town, but not so many of the more serious/racer kind out on longer fitness/training rides though, the occasional solo effort, but most of them are out with their partner/SO.

Frank the tank

seanorawe wrote:

A woman burns past me every night going home from work on a cat 4 climb. She is very fast, I dont mind, she has a spectacular derriere. Although, it's only in view for a few seconds.

If ever an incentive was needed to improve your climbing, that, has to be it.

Green_Medic

Camus wrote:

I see plenty of women commuting in town, but not so many of the more serious/racer kind out on longer fitness/training rides though, the occasional solo effort, but most of them are out with their partner/SO.

Its a solo effort for me most of time, i normally get out for a nice long ride on a weekend, don't see too many other ladies out solo but a few. I see a lot of girls on hybrids and shoppers in town on my commute, many of which with wonky helmets and a very questionable interpretation of safety and the high way code, it scares me sometimes!

hjghg5

I'm female. Hello.
Coming from a running background cycling feels a lot more male dominated, amd it can put me off particularly as I'm also relatively slow. I love cycling alone but even with my OH I sometimes feel like I'm slowing him down. (Or rather I know I'm slowing him down but don't believe him when he says he's fine about it).
On forums I can handle the lycra based comments, what sometimes winds me up is the stuff you sometimes see about wives "should be in the kitchen"/hiding purchases from the wife/but what about her shoe habit/not messing up the carpets etc etc as though we're a separate breed, even though a lot of it is jokey.

declan1

hjghg5 wrote:

I'm female. Hello.
Coming from a running background cycling feels a lot more male dominated, amd it can put me off particularly as I'm also relatively slow. I love cycling alone but even with my OH I sometimes feel like I'm slowing him down. (Or rather I know I'm slowing him down but don't believe him when he says he's fine about it).
On forums I can handle the lycra based comments, what sometimes winds me up is the stuff you sometimes see about wives "should be in the kitchen"/hiding purchases from the wife/but what about her shoe habit/not messing up the carpets etc etc as though we're a separate breed, even though a lot of it is jokey.

I'm sorry, but how on earth are you supposed to pronounce your username? :?

Mikey23

The number of ladies training and competing does surprise me. From a running background where the proportion of ladies competing in the London marathon and the Cornish Grand Prix where I live is extremely high, in the latter case as much as 50/50. I'm sure ladies want to compete and are well capable of doing so. My feelings are that cycling can be snobby, elitist, patronising and sexist and this needs to be addressed. On these forums I have seen some very unfortunate comments which are meant to be humorous but indicate some underlying attitudes.

I'm not sure how ladies actually feel when going for a club ride knowing that guys will be leching your Lycra clad bottom. Many will enjoy that attention and be capable of giving it back and more, but I suspect that most will not...

hjghg5

declan1 wrote:

hjghg5 wrote:

I'm female. Hello.
Coming from a running background cycling feels a lot more male dominated, amd it can put me off particularly as I'm also relatively slow. I love cycling alone but even with my OH I sometimes feel like I'm slowing him down. (Or rather I know I'm slowing him down but don't believe him when he says he's fine about it).
On forums I can handle the lycra based comments, what sometimes winds me up is the stuff you sometimes see about wives "should be in the kitchen"/hiding purchases from the wife/but what about her shoe habit/not messing up the carpets etc etc as though we're a separate breed, even though a lot of it is jokey.

I'm sorry, but how on earth are you supposed to pronounce your username? :?

You don't really...
I actually think that running in this country is way ahead of some other places when it comes to female participation. My parents live in spain and I do races out there -10% women is about standard, a half I did at the weekend was fairly unusual in having about 20% women, and a lot of those were foreigners because it was marketed to the marathon tourism market as well as being for locals. And that's better than it was 5 or 6 years ago when I started running out there. I've won my category by virtue of being the only entrant in the past...

Pross

There's definitely a huge amount more women riding now (both in competition and for leisure) than there was when I first started 20 odd years back. My own club has a very successful women's team that compete all over the country (and occassionally overseas). There's still a long way to go though but hopefully from the number of girls we have in our Saturday morning kids sessions it will keep improving. You only have to look back at Nicole Cooke's comments on how things were when she started out as a youth rider to see how far things have moved on. The success of the GB team's women at recent Olympics also helps send out a message that it is a sport for females as well as males.

mhj999

reminds me...was once overtaken (at speed) going up Box Hill by a woman riding no handed taking her jacket off, caught up with her but then she popped the jacket away, put both hands on the bars and dropped me immediately.

Must have been a pro rider (i'll keep telling myself that...)

agz

Indeed, some great responses so far

Personally, I'm just happy to see more riders, no matter the sex.
Always puts a smile on my face when I see another rider