Girls

Page may contain affiliate links. Please see terms for details.

hubbike

Senior Member
hi, my mate says that his daughters (14 and 16) are not interested in cycling because its not "cool". bloody hell!! whats going wrong when I was this age i was loving the freedom and independence only attained by me bike. whats wrong with them. any ideas how the balance can be redressed? I guess sites like this could help. . .www.copenhagencyclechic.com/
 

Keith Oates

Janner
Location
Penarth, Wales
The first thing to find out is, can they ride a bike and if not there could be the answer. I tried to get my daughter (when she was about 8 or 9) to ride a bike at the same time that I taught my son. She was slow at getting to balance without me holding the bike but once she did get the balance she went quite well until she went to stop. This created a problem for her as somehow she could not coordinate pulling on the brakes to stop and then putting her foot to the ground at the same time as the bike actually stopped. I few cut knees was the result. Now she is 15 and won't go near a bike!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 

summerdays

Cycling in the sun
Location
Bristol
My children can all ride perfectly fine, but the teenage girls really aren't keen and basically only cycle when we do family cycle rides. They aren't keen on exercise full stop (apart from walking around shops:biggrin:). Just occasionally they might cycle somewhere to save a bus fare. The youngest he cycles to school every day and enjoys cycling when we do family things.
 

wafflycat

New Member
*thinks back to the dawn of pre-history when I was teenage girl*

Even back in the dim recesses of time when I was a teenage girl, by that time many a girl was giving up exercise, as not enjoyable. This is no new thing. Whilst I was quite fit (years of dance classes and school sports' teams) the *enforced* fitness of school hockey & cross-country running in all weathers, tennis, netball, rounders, athletics, etc., swiftly managed to put most of us off, thus to many pretty much all exercise could be tarred with the same brush of awfulness. Shame really. Add into the mix the current obsession with *celebrity* where female rolemodels are not exactly fit & healthy, but anorexically skinny, so it's much cooler to smoke and not eat as any fule noes that if you're above a size 6, you're a fat slob who doesn't deserve to be acknowleged as a human being. Besides which, once you've starved yourself to a socially suitable size, one doesn't actually have any energy left for exercise... and as any fule noes once more, exercise plays havoc with the carefully applied make-up and ruins the hair...
 

dellzeqq

pre-talced and mighty
Location
SW2
hubbike I'm not entirely sure that a parent can persuade his or her daughter that anything is cool. It needs a bit of third party validation. The Kid does have an ancient bike that she gets to school on, but it's only since she's aquired a boyfriend with a bike that she's been interested in getting something decent.
 

rich p

ridiculous old lush
Location
Brighton
My kids had little interest in bikes, walking for pleasure, mountains etc but they now do all of these things. The trick is not to force it and they'll grow up to appreciate them and you've just led by example and osmosis.
 
Teenage girls are irrational. They get better when if they realise it's better not to care what the 'masses' think of you but to be happy in your own skin.

As for it not being cool, it could be

(a) not wanting to get all sweaty and put the boys off
(:tongue: it being seen as a male thing to do not a female

Either way, finding a 'cool' bike might work (a nice ladies' classic style bike in purple anyone?) or suitably 'cool' accessories?

Alternately Dellzeqq's solution of finding a suitable boyfriend who's into cycling would also work ;)
 

Badbunny

New Member
Location
Buckshaw Village
lids! my daughter won't ride because the lid messes her hair and all the other girls think shes uncool. Bizarrely those same girls think her mums cool because she cycles/runs/etc.etc - go figure!
 

lady_rider

New Member
Location
Norf Yorkshire
I grew up in South Africa where doing a sport was made compulsory by schools. Everyone had to do at least one team sport, and classes were put on in the afternoons. Every (white) school had several rugby/football pitches, a 25m pool, and tennis courts. Being good at sport was 'cool', both for boys and girls. I've grown up now (in body, if not mind), and still I fit my life around my sport, not the other way round.

The UK just gives way too little prestige to sportspeople (except footballers!) and also money for sport in schools has been removed in favour of... well, I'm not sure where the money's gone, but to other stuff. Hence the 'it's not cool' tag for cycling. When I was doing GCSEs I cycled to school and the girls thought I was mad, but the boys thought I was cool cos I had a Saracen (which I now wouldn't be seen dead on ha ha ha ha ha!!!)
 

Paulus

Started young, and still going.
Location
Barnet,
My daughter who is now 19 learnt to ride a bike at the age of 8. She has not touched a bike for years, even though she has a perfectly good Dawes Discovery in the shed, she recoils in horror if I suggest a ride (she will go out running). Maybe it is a teenage girl thing.
 

brokenbetty

Über Member
Location
London
The imprtant thing for teenagers and teenage girls in particular is to give the impression you never try hard for anything.

Cycling properly is uncool. It's all hi-vis and mucky chains and puncture repair kits and special-needs helmets and healthy pink cheeks and having to stop outside the shops to lock it up and *shudder* hand-signals.

The whole excercise says "I plan ahead and take precautions - I put some work in".

Hence why most teenagers on bikes are teenage boys with no lights, low saddles and low gears - it's the nearest you can get to slouching on a bike.
 

Sh4rkyBloke

Jaffa Cake monster
Location
Manchester, UK
My Eldest learnt to ride at 4 (although more properly at 5 - i.e. she could then start and stop by herself rather than just being able to go for ages once she got moving) and seems to love it. If we decide to go into the local town which is about 1/2 mile away she always want to ride there... whether this will diminish as she gets older though, who can tell?
 

patheticshark

Well-Known Member
Location
Clowndon
brokenbetty said:
Cycling properly is uncool. It's all hi-vis and mucky chains and puncture repair kits and special-needs helmets and healthy pink cheeks and having to stop outside the shops to lock it up and *shudder* hand-signals.

You don't live in London, do you?
 
Top Bottom