Woman competing in Tour de France

[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.

[shootingstar]

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.

Agree with him --just wait for Trek's response.

Don't take this too personally --a tendency of many women re: jokes/pranks. Alot of guys laugh off this stuff, when they do it among themselves. After all, I nearly fell for it myself, since I wondered who this 'woman' was.

I do think this was delibrately planted into our forum to see our response..a women's cycling forum.