Getting more girls on bikes! ...kinda long (sorry!)

The ratio of girls to guys on the UM cycling team is pretty sad, especially for a campus of 36,000 people... ie: 3-4 on road bikes and 2-3 on mtn bikes, two of those overlapping, so really just 5 girls all together... this is on a team of about 50 (30 guys race regularly, but lots more go on club rides). I was the only female at our last meeting (the conversation quickly turned from bikes to.... other things :p). I don't mind "hanging with the guys," but it's nice to be able to exchange tips with female riders (go figure!) and bike with people that don't turn every club ride into a testosterone-induced race.

The guys this year (ie: next school year) have made it their goal to get more girls on the team (to quote one of them, "we need more chicks on bikes!" ). I question their motives, but I'm all for getting more girls to join.

:confused: the question is, how? i've come up with some ideas, including more advertising (the general response to our jerseys is "UM has a cycling team? wow!"), better on-line links and resources on our club website ( http://www.umich.edu/~cycling ) skills clinics, and "buying a bike" clinics. I was trying to think of how to take some of the intimidation out of being a new cyclist, especially a female one (ie: you walk into an LBS here and get The Look: "What do you want?").

The guys think that them standing on the Diag (the quad) in spandex should be enough. :rolleyes: I laughed hysterically when they said that. I don't think they appreciated my laughter :D

i sent my ideas to the Mountian Biking VP... haven't heard back yet (after talking to him a bit, i do think he was serious about trying to even out the gender distribution).

Do you ladies have any suggestions?

I'm not much help cuz I'm kinda in a hurry, but I think there was a thread last year about getting together a girls bike club, so maybe you can adapt some of those suggestions to apply to your team! Sounds fun!

~Angie

I think one of the best ways to get more girls on bikes is to conitnue doing what we're doing - biking AND being nice. I'm lucky that my LBS is super fantastic and supportive of all cyclists. I also had a great run-in with another female cyclist at a crit. She was the only other woman there. She was super helpful and nice. I did horribly in the race, but I had fun! I probably wouldn't have entered had I not asked this lady about how the whole thing operated. :D

You might want to check the Bay Area Velo Girls website for some ideas. They have a lot of clinics for women, from basic skills up to racing clinics.

http://www.velogirls.com/

I think the trick is to make it accessible and non-threatening. When I started road biking I was so indimidated walking into a bike shop :p - I was afraid someone would walk up to me and say, 'hey chunky middle-aged woman, what'r YOU doing here?' :D I don't quite remember when I started to feel like I 'belonged', it must have been after I bought my road bike and had been riding for some time. The other big help was joining an all-woman training ride series which prepared us in 10 weeks' time for a metric century (again, all women) - it was a great environment for me to learn the basics and get comfortable with road riding.

anyhow, just some random thoughts, - Jo.

thanks so much for your suggestions!
I heard back from the guy in charge of Mtn bike races for the club this season (the one who proposed evening out gender distribution), and he liked my ideas so far.
I'm hoping to get a list of links (I've got about 20, including this site and the Velo Girls' site... that site makes me want to live in California even more!!! :)) on the club website soon, and to organize some clinics for new riders next fall.
I see so many girls riding trainers at the gym, i thought of putting fliers up there and hopefully grabbing their attention. It would be really fun to get a strong women's club/team going here. :)
thanks again, and more suggestions are always welcome!
:D

Fortunately, I had a BF (now hubby) who thought it was cool that I'd ride with him, so he rode whatever pace I wanted to. Made it easy to start.

But, I think a fabulous thing is to stage events just for the girls. The Valleyspokesmen in Dublin, CA have held a women's only metric century, the Cinderella Classic, for something like 28 years. When I first rode it in 1987(?) I think there were only about a 1000 women at most.

This year registration was limited to 2,200 and registration closed in just a few days. An amazing group of women show up. The percentage of 1st timers, older women, youngsters on tandems with mom, etc. is much larger than other centuries. I think the Velogirls have training rides just for this event. It's a pretty cool thing. www.valleyspokesmen.org/cinder.html

You may also want to check outwww.velobella.org. Totally cool jerseys!

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I think the Velogirls have training rides just for this event.

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As do the Fremont Freewheelers bike club, which is the training ride series I took part in, where I met Snapdragen and melissam :)
http://cindy.polakoff.com/

Man, what I a small world. I "met" Mark Polakoff through a watch group. He just e mailed me a few days ago to announce his new purchase - a used Rambouillet!

Veronica

Just came across this in an interview with Amber Neben of Team T-Mobile:

What do you believe are some major reasons more women don’t get into the sport? Do you have any ideas on how to attract more women to the sport?

Amber: "I don’t think they know it is out there, or I think they may be intimidated by the riders, the bikes, the speed, or maybe they’ve tried it once and can’t stand the prospects of a ‘sore butt.’ There are so many women who exercise and are competitive. I think we need to find a way to get them to try out cycling in a relaxed, learning environment. I also think that targeting collegiate cross country runners would be a good place to start. Those are the type of people who would enjoy physical exertion and who may be looking for a new outlet for their competitiveness"

http://www.dailypeloton.com/displayarticle.asp?pk=5975

I think Amber is on target there:

"I also think that targeting collegiate cross country runners would be a good place to start"

I've converted runners, swimmers, soccer players, triathletes and skiiers into bicycle riders/ racers. They already have fitness and competitive drive. XC skiiers in particular need a sport for their "off season".
Find the women on your campus who do those sports and offer a group ride and/or clinic to introduce them to the sport.

Rock climbers tend to make good mountain bike racers. They have good strength and balance and are fearless.
:D

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XC skiiers in particular need a sport for their "off season".

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Speed skaters too. Lots of speed skaters use cycling for cross training, and there are many instances of speed skaters crossing over to cycling, and vice versa. Eric Heiden competed in cycling for a while after his speed skating career, and Chris Witty was competing in both until just recently, when she left T-Mobile to concentrate on speed skating. Dede Barry started out as a speedskater, took up cycling for cross training, started competing in cycling as well and eventually chose to concentrate on cycling.
- Jo, factoid collector