HELP NEEDED PLEASE! Opinions and comments wanted :)

[Melalvai]

On a slightly different note - as people who cycle regularly and enjoy the sport; what do you like best about it? What aspects of cycling would you promote in order to encourage young females to participate more? In my earlier research, I found that health and body is a very prominent issue with females aged 20-25, and so was hoping to use that as a possible direction perhaps....

This research approach makes more sense: ask people who bike why they do, and ask those who don't why they don't.
I started biking 5 years ago so I can answer why I didn't bike before, and why I do bike now.

I bike for transportation. I started biking because we had only one car and couldn't afford a 2nd. So I started biking because it was cheap! I loved it, and now we will never have two cars. I loved losing weight, I love saving money, I love not driving a killing machine around. I feel safer on a bike than in a car.

Why didn't I bike until I was 31? It didn't occur to me. I didn't realize that people could bicycle for transportation, unless they were poor or had DUIs. (In fact, someone assumed I was "green" because she knew I wasn't too poor or drunk to own a car, and that was the only reason she could think of that I would bicycle!) I recommend education & role models to encourage women to bicycle.

[zoom-zoom]

When I was 20-25 I was in college full time, working part time...I was broke, tired, and didn't have a lot of spare time. Had money not been an issue I have a feeling I would have made time for cycling.

[GLC1968]

When I was 20-25, I was athletic, but I was still in college and participating in a lot of team sports. It wasn't until I got out on my own and found I didn't have time for team schedules that individual sports like running or cycling became a draw for me.

Cycling just never even occurred to me at that age.

Actually, let me correct that....road cycling never occurred to me. I did own a mountain bike and I did enjoy mountain biking when I could get the time. My roommate in college had a bright yellow Trek mountain bike and we all drooled over it. If our dorm room door was open, people would stop in and ask what kind of bike it was...mountain bikes were so rare back then!

I have a theory though. I don't think that most young women think about cycling as a sport because they don't have a lot of role models and a lot of exposure to it like guys might. I mean, my husband grew up riding BMX bikes, so transitioning to mountain biking and then road biking was a natural transition, even if he didn't race or get involved with teams. Most women do not have those kind of early influences. It's the same reason that women in fields like electrical engineering are so rare. MOST women are just not exposed to things like electronics at an early age...where as boys often are...it's a societal influence (wrong or right).

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

Here is my personal thought on this subject.

Aside from the obvious hair messing type stuff that can prevent women from riding bikes....

I myself don't really do 'sports'. "Participating in a sport" sounds like way too much fuss and trouble to me.
I'm 55, and I bicycle, I snowshoe, I do vegetable gardening, I dance, and I fitness walk...all to stay active. I do all these things for fun and as a normal part of my lifestyle.
When it snows, I put on my snowshoes. When it's a beautiful day, I get on my bike and go for a bike ride. Or I go to the store on my bike and climb back up the killer hill to my house. I meet my friend for breakfast once a week and we typically go for a 4 mile brisk walk afterwards. I go to the local dance here in town once a month and I dance my head off for 3 1/2 hours. I hoe and weed in the garden.

I don't compete, and I do these fitness activities just as a part of my every day life. I don't think of them as sports, and therefore they don't require much special preparation and planning set aside. It's just my own mind set, but to me bicycling is just a part of my normal lifestyle, whereas I think of a 'sport' more as something special and separate from your normal day that you plan and set out to do.

Decades ago, average people and kids just rode their bikes and had fun doing it. People didn't think much about it. Nowadays I think the general non-biking public in America gets the idea that 'cycling' is something you have to have very specific skills and equipment in order to do. And you have to have Tour de France type outfits and do lots of Training too, preferably with a look of intense suffering on your face. LOL! The gear required is bewildering. That's what the average person sees when they see cyclists whizzing by. Looks too expensive, too complicated and looks like a lot of WORK.
Now I'm not saying there isn't an exacting real sport of cycling where serious athletes are competing in cool ways. There is!
But I am secretly convinced this whole concept of riding bicycles as being an exacting sport and no longer just a part of every day life is responsible for a lot of average women thinking that riding a bike is something too involved, competitive, expensive, and difficult. Men are slightly different, as in general men tend to be less afraid to take on a competitive activity, which is what they see in 'the sport of cycling'. And men also tend to not be scared off by having to buy expensive equipment. Sad but true.

My two cents as to why more women don't ride bikes.

[NbyNW]

In your study it might be helpful to distinguish between whether a woman is active or not and how that relates to her attitude towards cycling. I would argue that women who are less active might have very different attitudes than women who are active but might be focusing their energies on other activities.

I remember at that age wanting a bike but not being able to afford one, not to mention that it was very difficult at the time to find a road bike my size. That was when I first heard about Terry, which I definitely could not afford. I was 26 before I finally felt comfortable spending money on a low-end mountain bike. Up to that time I borrowed bikes from friends in the bike industry when I had the opportunity.

I was also hanging out with a very athletic crowd at the time. I think that for active women that age, if they are busy with school/establishing careers, there are other sports you can get involved in that don't cost as much. You can run and enter 5ks and marathons. You can join a community soccer league.

I wouldn't make too much of the helmet head thing. It's more of a humorous aside for active women, who at some point accept that they're not going to look fresh as a daisy, but that's fine because you can always clean up afterwards. The rewards of feeling strong and confident far outweigh the price of helmet hair. It is probably more of a barrier for people who haven't yet found a sport that they love.

[Zen]

As a graphic design student myself, I'm wondering why you have to ask this question. What exactly is your assignment?

[OakLeaf]

Community barriers to non-motorized transport are a huge issue keeping people of every age and sex off bicycles. As a side question, I'd be curious to know what fraction of women who do ride, do it only as a sport.

(That said, I live four blocks from a middle-aged man who insists on driving his road bike to the start of the club ride... three miles from his house, all of which has either a bike path, a wide shoulder, or low traffic. )