The funny thing to me is that, TO ME anyway, the hairstyles that can get messed up the most by a helmet or wind are the least attractive anyway. I'm not a fan of highly-styled hair (or makeup for that matter). I think a fit woman on a bike is about 100x more attractive than the vast majority of runway models, and maybe only 10x more attractive than the rest of them.

That's funny, I know the type. I actually have never been the least bit interested in any vicarious enjoyment of sport; can't stand to watch sports or play videogames of them, and I have no interest at all in really organized sports, but I do enjoy doing them on occasion, though I haven't had the opportunity to play football or soccer much since high school.

+1000000

There is something to be said for a lady who cares about her health and works hard to maintain it.

+ 1x10^(zillion)

I listened to NPR's quirky little report on Sunday morning...were you involved in getting the humble narrator to ride?

Where I work the bulk of the cyclists seem to be older 45+ men, though there is representation from other groups. I think more women are reluctant to bike because it will make them seem different from the crowd--and that can be scary.

On my little 6.5 mile ride to work I usually see about 5 or 6 other commuters, and one of them is female and an extremely strong rider.

There are a multitude of socialization issues involved in the commuter imbalance, I'm sure. I suspect that a big part of it is the perception of riding a bicycle as an athletic activity, rather than a transportation activity. Women are generally socialized to avoid athletic activities to a greater extent than men. After all, witness countries where people of all genders ride in equal proportions: you will almost certainly observe that the bicycle is primarily regarded as urban transportation.

There's also the perception of men as being skilled with machines, while women are perceived as not having these skills. Take for example the fact that most American men believe that they are good drivers, and that women don't drive as well/safely as men. My observation as both a passenger in motor vehicles and a cyclist in traffic belies this belief, but it persists. It doesn't help that these attitudes create and reinforce in women the belief that they are inferior operators of vehicles. Bicycles are another kind of transportation machine, and women are generally assumed not to know their way around bicycles (just as they are assumed not to know their way around machines in general). Why try something as belittling and demeaning as taking up a sport activity that is so centric around machines? It's very clear that women are not particularly welcome in American cycling. Things are a lot better, but the typical LBS is a pretty sexist, threatening place for a woman. There is nothing about women that makes them less likely to take up commuting by bicycle, but there is a lot about how women are socialized in a sexist society (AND a sexist subculture) that makes them less likely to get on a bike. Hey, there are higher proportions of women commuters in liberal, coastal-area cities. Coincidence? Hmmm.

I think that a change in attitude about cycling and in how we think about gender would both go a long way in getting more women on bikes.

By the way, I see lots of women riding bikes around here. It's a good area for that sort of thing. In Northampton, in particular, there are lots and lots of women on bicycles. It's very refreshing to be surrounded by positive people and attitudes! Some of the coolest local folks I know of make their living collecting trash by bicycle. Two of the three (four?) of them (including the person behind getting the business rolling) are women. So they are out there.

Why don't more women ride?
 

May I ask why is your wife not interested?

K

I'm surprised to hear the gender balance so lopsided. We have a TON of female riders up here, and many commuters. It's gotta be 50/50 I would think although I have done no formal analysis!

On my route I regularly see 2-3 women (oh, and that's a lot, I only see about 4-5 people on my ride in). And the women are the ones doing the LONG commutes!

In general though, being active is something most people around here do and we seem to become obsessed with riding once spring/summer hits. Being in the north, I think we're just so damned glad it's finally warm and bright out, that we'll do anything to stay outside longer!! :)

This thread got me thinking yesterday, so I counted male and female commuters.

Total Commuters seen on 8 mile route: 52
Total of Male Commuters: 29
Total of Female Commuters: 23

In the winter it is totally 50/50, there are only 2 of us out there with any regularity that I see during my commuting hours. Myself and one woman. :)

Nicely summed up, grolby. That's exactly the case here - cycling is a form of transportation not a sport. Everyone rides.

In my office there are two regular bike commuters - both women. However I work in a relatively small safe city and perhaps that influences it.

Meh, means we girls can go for group rides and camping trips that don't turn into races and/or peeing contests (... don't ask).

I was struck on the weekend by how many mountain bikes I had to dodge on the trail (I was hiking in Banff Park), how many vehicles in the parking lot had multiple bikes strapped on, and how I only saw ONE touring bike on the entire 150 km of road from Lake Minnewanka back to Calgary. Something's a bit off there.

It's sad what's happening to the Kananaskis these days :(

Out of 900 people at my facility, two of us commute by bike. One is a female. That's 50% baby! My wife commutes also. So of the 3 commuters that I know (including me), 66% of them are women.

Here in Costa Rica bikes are a very common form of transportation. There really isn't a difference between men and women on bikes that I can tell - or on horses for that matter. Of course, among the students, I tend to see the woman on a bike - with the guy pedaling!

Yeah, and then I came home to find the neighBOOR's monster truck completely covered in mud :( You just know some ecosystem out there is reeling in shock. Poor frogs. Heck, I feel guilty because my hiking boots have a Vibram sole that probably is harder than it needs to be.

Monster trucks, ATVs, snowmobiles, and a fair number of mountain bikes (not all - I know that many MTBers are quite conscientious) SUCK.

What I want to know is, does Carl Kassel ride to work?

http://media.npr.org/about/people/bi...ckasell.pb.jpg

When i lived in Austin I knew a TON of women who bike commuted.

In dallas, however, I am the only person male or female I ever saw.

I don't think that's it. In the places I've worked, the single able bodied women don't do any better than their counterparts with kids.

I think it is because even most feminists seem to regard women as fragile and vulnerable. No one thinks anything of letting some guy walk about at night (nor should they), but I can't tell you how many times I've been the token man on hand to make even small groups of women feel "safe". I'm a scrawny 140lbs, so I'd be able to do little more than delay real attackers by more than 2 seconds while I got pulped. When I drove delivery years ago, women drivers never wanted to go to "unsafe" areas or where they felt "uncomfortable," so they'd send me or one of the other guys.

We seem to be conditioned to believe that it's OK for guys to take risks, but not women. Also, when things really go wrong, there is an expectation that guys will somehow adjust, but that women should be emotionally traumatized for life.

It could also be that men just like cycling more than women. The ratio of men to women runners seems much closer than it is for cyclists. Walkers seem to be predominantly women.

I hear the "it'll mess up my hair/I can't wear nice clothes" excuse a lot. But I think there's more to than than simple vanity--women are much more likely to be criticized in a corporate workplace for inappropriate dress, or judged based on their appearance rather than their competence, than their male counterparts are.

There's something to that too, I think. But I also think there's a misconception about what kind of risks there are--on a bicycle, you might get in an accident, you might have a mechanical problem, etc, but those are things that you have some amount of control over if you are skilled at riding and have the willingness to learn some basic repairs. And yet many women I've talked to are unreasonably afraid of the least common forms of attack--namely, being assaulted somehow. You are much, much more likely to be assaulted by someone you know, in a place where you think you're safe, than you are to be jumped on your bicycle--and yet a lot of people I've talked to seem to think it's a major danger.

Haven't seen him, and clearly Bob "Smoke'em Cuz I Got'em" Edwards wasn't a commuter. That guy was out front smoking every half an hour, it seemed.

I should note that after posting that I never see women and their bikes in the NPR bike room, I then bumped into two women in there. Had never seen them there before, but I'm in and out of there in 30 seconds, so my perspective isn't exactly scientific.

19 out of the 66 bicyclists I saw this morning were female, making it about 29%. I saw a group of about 10 riders or so before that, and many of them were women, but I didn't start counting until later. Of those 19 there were some serious all-weather commuters (woman with the funny noodle figure-8 bars) some roadies, some on hybrids, a mountain bike, and a couple on some of those step-through bikes... the whole range... and the same can be said for the guys. Except that many more guys ride mountain bikes.

This is very true. In many offices where I've worked, male workers have gotten away with looking like complete slobs (visibly dirty/worn/torn clothing, body odor) while females have been "spoken to" by managers about wearing (clean!) pants and sweaters rather than skirts, hose, and jewellery. I even worked (VERY briefly) in one place where the dress code stated female employees MUST wear makeup. That one went down in flames, by the way.

And if you have similar problems in a car, you usually have LESS options for on-the-spot repair! Most people don't seem to think of that though.

Most of my current co-workers seem to think that getting caught in the rain is the biggest danger anywhere ever :rolleyes: Once in a while someone will mention "but what if someone chases you?" and they are always very taken aback when I point out that date **** or assault by co-workers and acquaintances is a hell of a lot more common than predators in the bushes. That's not to say there never are any of the latter, but statistically, I like the odds of being on my bike and able to sprint.

Then again, my reaction to "but you can't do that, you're a GIRL" has always been something along the lines of "Bite me, I refuse to live in YOUR fear." Ladylike, I'm not :D

That's a great, great line. I'm gonna hang onto that one, if I may.

Wow, as a guy I'd have a hard time with that. I think I might find myself wearing a kilt to work in such an environment (probably not makeup but I'd think about it). I can't believe that the requirement to wear makeup is even legal, but then again I'm sort of surprised that they can legally enforce different dress codes for women than for men (IE skirts rather than pants).

Most people think of bikes as unreliable. This is because they get them out once a year (maybe) and the tires are always flat, the chain squeaky, etc. In reality a bike is far more reliable than a car but most people don't see it that way.


IMHO that makes you much more of a free person than they are. There aren't a lot of free people around these days.

I was in college starting in 82, and I worked in the same town after so I lived there from 82 to 93. It just so happens that was about the time mountain bikes really started to take off.

There was a falls with a drop of 100 feet on private property. The owner's family had allowed the public in for over 100 years, including students, etc. It was a long drive and a mile's walk to get there, but it was a pretty popular picnic and hiking spot.

I use as my erosion gauge a plastic drainage pipe that ran across the main path which was just barely poking out of the bare dirt in 1982 when I got there. In 1986, when I first started seeing mountain bikes back there, I'd guess there had been MAYBE 1/4" of erosion in the previous 4 years. By 1988, just 2 years later, there were mountain bikes on that path CONSTANTLY and the pipe was now hovering 2 feet over the path, which was now a gully carved into the landscape, so the bikes were now making new paths, all of which were eroding extremely fast.

Within another year, the owners fenced the area off due to the landscape being torn up, and now nobody can enjoy this beautiful area. Yes, I certainly do blame the mountain bikers.

I'm sure there are mountain bikers who respect the landscape, but there are those who don't, and it doesn't take many of them to do more damage than all the hikers put together.

Feel free :D

I credit Girl Guides with showing me that females can do whatever we set our minds to. That's why I've come back around to Guiding as an adult - I had my Pathfinders (13 y-o's) out on the bike paths a couple of weeks ago, building skills and exploring. Their moms came too, which was great because often it's the parents' fears that hold girls back more than their own apprehension.

I've noticed this at the local playground. I have very active and agile boy/girl twins and starting when they were very young, I'd let them climb as high as they wanted on the bars and slides, with me standing close enough to catch them, but not right under them.. I started by showing them how to go from rung to rung and to think about where there feet and hands should go. When they got to the top and cried for daddy to carry them down, I'd say "No, let's climb down together. I'll show you how." And we did. And they felt confident and they never got so high that they couldn't climb down.

Anyway, I've noticed lots of times there'll be moms and grandmoms (and I'm hoping this won't be construed as sexist, it's just my observation that it's always been female caregivers), who'll hover around their little girls and fretting the whole time "Oh, Madison! Don't go so high! You'll fall and get hurt!"

Well, it seems to me that the kid has no intention of falling, and probably hadn't thought about the possibility of falling until the mom projected her fear of falling on the kid, and now it's all the kid can think about.

So, my hat's off to you Buglady for focusing on what girls can do and not what they can't.

Well, the thing is, I don't really believe there IS anything girls can't do :D If it's humanly possible, it's possible for females.