Woman competing in Tour de France

[oz rider]

Another vote for poor taste. And a useful demonstration of Trek's attitudes to women.

[moderncyclista]

I'm not "that" offended.

I don't think Trek meant to jab at women with this. Many companies are doing April fool's jokes. I have a lot of other things in the world that I can be indignent about. Unfunny joke to be sure, but what else do you expect April 1st? I'm tired of hearing everybody is pregnant, divorcing, etc on facebook too. Just isn't funny to me. I'm not offended though. I just wish a woman was competing in the Tour de France. That would be cool.

[WindingRoad]

Yeah, that wasn't really funny at all. I would chalk it up to a brain fart but it does really illustrate the collective thoughts of the people working for Trek. Somewhere along the line they thought it would be funny to take a shot at women athletes, Heeelloooooooooow. To me that could only have been thought up and decided appropriate by a bunch of men. Not cool.

[ny biker]

Another vote for poor taste. And a useful demonstration of Trek's attitudes to women.

There must be something wrong with me because I've read it 3 times now and I don't see how it says anything about their attitude toward women.

[smilingcat]

I think more companies need women on their marketing decision making.

Trek's lame attempt is the latest but not the last. Look at iPAD from Apple. Really!! if there was a woman on that decision making, I don't think it would be named iPAD. geeze. Some of the men I'm sure were married and I'm sure they have come across a pad or two... I really liked the iSLATE for the name but that

Naw. Trek's April Fool's fall flat. It's not funny, and I'm so desensitized to sophmoric remarks like this, I just yawn.

Boyz, lets see how tough you really are with the original epilator. the "streaming" coil of spring that would catch your body hair and rip it out. I don't think they are tough enough for that. I learned it the hard way.

As for the right stuff, pilots should be small, light and short. Shorter person can withstand G's far better than a taller person. The heart has to fight less to pump the blood to the head. The old belief of good looking tall, macho man is all wrong. Besides, which gender is better able to multi-task? well okay guys have better spacial and directional sense than women. part of evolutionary development. Men went out to hunt, and they better know how to find there way back to the camp. Those who could, survived. Those who couldn't, went the way of evolutionary dead end.

[MartianDestiny]

There must be something wrong with me because I've read it 3 times now and I don't see how it says anything about their attitude toward women.

Not just you, I don't get the issue.

If anything it's complimenting her abilities in my mind. April fools "jokes" are supposed to be BELIEVABLE enough that you have to do a double take or read through to the last lines (where normally April 1st or similar is mentioned). If they were demeaning women athletes then this wouldn't have been much of an April Fools stunt (it wouldn't have been "believable" in their minds).

I don't find it particularly amusing but that's probably more from a poor execution standpoint (now Fatty's this morning was pretty good, at least from a funny writing perspective), I'm not offended by it though.

[lunacycles]

There must be something wrong with me because I've read it 3 times now and I don't see how it says anything about their attitude toward women.

Er, they are implying it is a joke to think that women can compete with men.

I am not overthinking this. Or dwelling. Just observing.

[Trek420]

Guess Trek doesn't know their racing history either

http://forums.teamestrogen.com/showthread.php?t=10230

[ny biker]

Er, they are implying it is a joke to think that women can compete with men.

I am not overthinking this. Or dwelling. Just observing.

No, I saw it as pretending that a non-professional would be so very very fast that she would miraculously be chosen as an alternate for Johan Bruyneel's TdF team. Which is ridiculous regardless of whether the non-pro is a man or a woman. For so many reasons that have nothing to do with how fast said non-pro can ride.

But maybe I just have been following Bruyneel's teams too closely over the years, up to and including this one.

Not to mention, the joke involved the president of Trek Travel. If Trek Travel was run by a man, I'm sure it would have been about a man.

Anyway. I really hate April fools crap. Waste of my time.

[XMcShiftersonX]

Also, I don't think it's impossible for a woman to do the stages of the Tour de France... I'm sure some of the best women pro cyclists are more than qualified to do it, if they wanted to and trained for it, they're just not allowed to currently, which is the real tragedy (at least as I understand it, but I'll be honest, I don't pay attention to all the ins and outs of it). It would be nice to see women compete in races like this, and I would hope it's not out of the realm of possibility for the future.

[andtckrtoo]

I'm usually not offended by such jokes, but this one does rub me the wrong way. I don't care how they meant it, it does come off as "Ha ha, silly people, thinking a mere woman could POSSIBLY be in the Tour de France - oh get real." If they wanted to make a point about an unknown riding getting a spot on the team - use a man. I don't think this kind of sexism has a place in any US company.

I think the joke was in very poor taste and I'm glad to support Cannondale and Surly over Trek now.

[MartianDestiny]

I'm usually not offended by such jokes, but this one does rub me the wrong way. I don't care how they meant it, it does come off as "Ha ha, silly people, thinking a mere woman could POSSIBLY be in the Tour de France - oh get real." If they wanted to make a point about an unknown riding getting a spot on the team - use a man. I don't think this kind of sexism has a place in any US company.

I think the joke was in very poor taste and I'm glad to support Cannondale and Surly over Trek now.

But that's just as sexist "use a man". Seriously, this stuff does go both ways. They chose to use the PRESIDENT of Trek Travel; it couldn't possibly have anything to do with the fact that she's overseeing an entire branch of the company and is clearly highly respected and valued to be offered such a position (and incidentally in charge of the branch that happened to publish this) and probably had something to do with it (or at the very least approved it). Nope, gotta be because she's a girl and that makes it somehow more absurd

99.9% of guys aren't physically capable of riding in the Tour, 99.9% of girls aren't either. Really lacking to see the distinction in why one is more absurd than the other if you take the WHOLE of recreational/no-pro cyclists (or population) into account (and not just the pros, which, you will realize, they DIDN'T use a PRO women cyclist...)

[beccaB]

OK, maybe I'm just gullible but I didn't even catch that as an April Fools joke. What I mean is, It didn't even occur to me that they would pull something like that. I'm in a real steam here because I have a Trek 7.7fx on order. It should be in by next week. If the corporation would stoop so low as to pull this on me I'm going to have to cancel my order. I'm very upset about it and even more sorry I generated this thread. But even worse would be nobody knowing about it. Did anyone else get that original e-mail? I really don't know how to proceed.

[VeloVT]

My take on this: it's probably true that the joke was intended to be about the president of the company and not about women, but there is enough latitude to reasonably misinterpret it that they should have killed the idea anyway. It's a little bit like that New Yorker cover with the Obamas dressed as militants/extremists with a picture of Osama Bin Laden and a burning American flag behind them in the Oval Office. The cover was actually poking fun at the fear-mongerers/hate-mongerers, NOT at the Obamas, but the image was so powerful that the fear-mongering message subsumed the irony/subtext. While the cartoon was actually quite clever and punchy, putting it on the cover was a bad decision for the aforementioned reason. Sometimes you have to look at all of the messages that you could be sending, and not just the message you intend to send.

[beccaB]

I called Trek travel who sent me the original e-mail and asked to speak to the person in charge of that e-mail and was actually directed to Tania Worgull's voice mail. I left a message about how upset I was and about how poor taste this is and left her my phone number if she has the courage to call me back. I was told that she actually generated the e-mail. I'm really upset that I actually fell for it. Yes, I know about the gullible thing. I also wear my heart on my sleeve and have given to causes I later found out were bogus, thus changing my attitude on charitable giving. This certainly changes my attitude on the Trek bicycle company, although my husband thinks I should sit on it and calm down before I cancel my order for the new bike.