Women's seminar topics

[liberty]

Bikemom - I'm a St Louis rider and would love to know more about your seminar. Is this a closed seminar, or open to the public? I'm fairly new to this and would welcome any available avenue of learning ... You can PM me if you need a mailing address or more info. Thanks!

Liberty

[bike4ever]

Great replies from everyone - please keep them coming.

SadieKate - terrific question on target audience. Our shop is generally frequented by the casual rider/beginning cyclist. We sell many hybrids along with the under $1500 road and mountain bike. The full suspension market in St. Louis was rather flat this year. In the past, our goals have been to get the newer cyclist - looking for women who were re-entering the exercise market - usually age 40 - 60. Our 1st seminar had 6 participants. The 2nd year was 20 women. This year we had 44 women!!

I'm just trying to find out what folks want in a women specific seminar. I regularly have women's maintenance classes - both fix a flat and basic maintenance. My last fix a flat had 15 women - it was terrific seeing them all change a tire on their own - often for the first time!!

[emily_in_nc]

Another idea for a seminar: clipless pedals
Why clipless?
Types of pedals and cleats, bolt patterns, etc.
Types of shoes for clipless - road vs. mountain
How to get started with them (on the trainer, on grass) as well as literally how to start riding (i.e., clip in on one side, rotate foot up, push off, clip in with second foot when you're able, that kind of thing). Little things that we clipless users take for granted that are so foreign to new clipless users...
How to stop and get out of your pedals before it's too late.
Clip in first and out first always on the same side or not...

Judging by the number of threads on this forum with clipless questions, I think this would be well attended!

Emily

[bike4ever]

emily - good idea!

[SouthernBelle]

I noted in your first post you mentioned training with children then you mention a target audience of 40-60 yo. I originally thought that I don't care about the kids' part but some do so I didn't mention it. But not very applicable to your target audience. Just thought I'd mention it.

[bike4ever]

SouthernBelle - Our guest speakers our first year covered the topic of exercising with children. As our classes have evolved, our age population as also. A large portion of our store sales go to families so we never want to exclude any particular group. It has just been that the majority of the women attending our maintenance classes and this last year's seminar were in the older population.

One thing to keep in mind, I completely understand the difficulty of handling a full time job, trying to work time in for my husband, running 3 active boys (13, 11, & 9) places and finding time for myself. It is terribly difficult.

[SadieKate]

Bad JuJu's idea of an introductory ride is good but a lot of time and effort from your store. How about a contact info sheet for those that want to find riding partners? Only those that want to share the info could sign up and then provide it only to those on the list.

I like SB's training list. Add recovery to the training topics. That topic seems to be one of the last mentioned and people new or returning to exercise after many years don't know the concept and tend to do the same intensity ride day after day after day and wonder why they don't improve. The whole discussion of frequency, duration, intensity and recovery seems to be left out so much of the time, yet is is a pretty simple concept.