Fighting the Citi Bike gender gap

[Jolt]

Interesting article. As far as the whole fashion/appearance thing, I don't really get it (have always been a function-before-fashion kind of gal) but I know it is an issue for a lot of other women--how do we fix that? I can understand the hesitation about riding without a helmet, especially in NYC...maybe if there were helmets available with the bikes it would be helpful (provided there was a way to clean them between wearers). And, I do think you may be on to something with the weight of the bikes and the difficulty of accelerating to keep up with traffic...I tried out a share bike in Boston once and definitely felt less safe due to not being able to get up to speed as quickly as I could on my own bike. I think a lot of this has to do with the gearing of the bikes as well as the weight...the lowest gear was basically useless (way too low to start in unless on a hill), the second was a little low for getting going on a flat road but the third was higher than I would want to start in (and still managed to be too low for any kind of decent speed once rolling).