Originally Posted by
njkayaker
Event organizers might not actively increase "diversity" (it can be enough work to run the event and get the participants they end up with). It's very unlikely that they would intentionally do things to discourage those who are not the "right" kind of cyclist. In any case, it would be hard to imagine that there would be any practical way of discriminating participants who don't provide any information that could be used to discriminate against them.
Any bicycling event using public facilities that allows the public (not just "members") to register, such as RAGBRAI, is an instance of "bicycle advocacy".
It isn't clear that event organizers, in addition to the large effort required to run an event, must also actively increase "diversity". Especially given that events are often the work of volunteers.
(I know a person in that last RAGBRAI picture!! Freaky!)
To corroborate this, look at the number of women cycling. If every thing were equal there would be as many women as men across the board in all cycling sub cultures, right?
This isn't so, and I doubt it has anything to do directly with discrimination. The fact is that there are cultural differences between men and women. In terms of race, the cultural differences are in addition to econimic differences that still exist to this day. Still things are changing.