Where were the women?

[chap]

Well the one round here, runs on an incredibly unimaginative easy peasy well established commuter route where you often see other cyclists - sometimes quite a few. So you end up saying what causes these people to cycle, the people living there are likely to see other people on their bikes and say well I could get down into town instead of getting the bus so you will have some people interested. On the other hand might these people work it out for themselves? Why not run the train somewhere else? On the other hand I know for a fact as I've seen it that people say I'm x from this area and I was thinking of commuting into town, can you send me some routes/who to talk to etc. Additionally to that there seem to be quite a few unconfident cyclists as it's one of the few places where I see people hopping on the pavement.

A similar argument can be made for a person who has been made salaried to try and encourage people to get to work and this sort of thing. One could argue it is poor value for money from a taxpayer's perspective, especially if you know that your council has just junked a proper "dream" secure cycle parking facility for similar running costs to the hired hands.

That makes sense I guess to move around and find new potential cycle commuters. Although it probably is a good idea to still have some sort of presence amongst the established groups, much in the way the Parisian rollerbladers still have the organised element to their weekly event which has been going on for perhaps 2 decades.

With reference to the salaried ancillary hands, there already is a lot of wastage in local governance, if they were effective then perhaps that wold hold the council to be accountable, then next time they wouldn't be so cavalier about cycle parking.

In the end, what is popular is what captures the interest of politicians, which is why road transportation, lower taxes, and immigration controls rank so highly. In a local scene less numbers are required to shift the councils approach from apathetic to serious.

 

[summerdays]

Anyone else's inner lady have different ideas?

I think cycling is one of those activities that you almost have to try to believe in - so once you cycle on the road and realise that every car isn't out to get you that is a start, and then you realise you can cycle in normal clothes if you want and you don't have to get sweaty if you don't madly race. And also the timing of it all ... you know "its so much quicker by car" ... I have to admit I have been surprised that it is quicker than I expected.

I usually see females commuting and I think that they are increasing in proportion. I thought about going out and counting bikes on the nearest main road next week then realised that the reason I could would be because it was half term and so I'm not working ... equally a large number of other women won't be.

As I do the school drop first before heading to work I think that this timing changes the proportion of women seen - so that there are more on the road after rush hour proper and then through out the day when the roads are a bit quieter perhaps. The number of parents dropping their children to school with their bike is probably 70:30 women:men.

I think the publicity given to cycling deaths in London doesn't help. Of course every death is one too many and I fully understand why cycling groups use the publicity a death generates to push for improving bike safety /driver awareness, but the perception created is that cycling is dangerous and kills people.

It's that weird distortion whereby an event is newsworthy because it's out of the ordinary, yet people take events on the news as representative.

I think that cycle deaths should be covered ... but where it needs to change is in the reporting of motoring deaths... these are treated as completely normal so that we "accept" that some people will die because we want the freedom to drive our cars.

 

[Origamist]

It would be great if as much effort spent on lobbying for improved safety was spent on publicising how safe cycling is already.

There's the rub though - the notion that cycling is inherently dangerous has become deeply embedded in our culture.

Statistics are pretty useless in trying to counter this view as "cycle fear" insidiously contaminates people's modal choice (as does perceived inconvenience).

 

[Tollers]

If you want to see women in lycra go to the USA. On a recent visit to San Francisco I was amazed at how many female cyclists there were - at an estimate about 40/60 female/male ratio!

Hehehe 6 weeks and counting. Do you think they'll let me join Velogirls if i wear wig and makeup

 

[Browser]

Returning to the threads' subject, nary a female cyclist do I see on my normal commute route, save for the odd indigenous Crowland-dwelling one when I am a few minutes from home, and the less said about them the better!

 

[brokenbetty]

I do think that London is a perfect example for many towns and cities, once again mentioned in my thread (shameless I know ) It is large enough, yet small enough (boroughs) to be representative. The quality and standard between boroughs varies dramatically, and in between you have just about every architectural, and town planning style that has ever hit the nation. There is enough politics going on around the city to count for the EU, let alone Britain, so it isn't quite the metropolis of out beyond yonder that it is often portrayed to be.

I think London is a valid test bed for cycling provision, but not for cycling advocacy.

London is different to a lot of the UK in that far fewer people commute by car to an office with a car park, and I assume fewer do a car-based weekly shop or mall shop. This means we have a lot more local facilities than non-Londoners do apart from a few city-centres and suburban enclaves (interestingly polarised into the ones rich enough to want to walk to the local organic butcher, and the ones too poor to run cars. Everyone else drives to Tescos.).

The argument in London is often to switch from public transport to a bike, which I think is an easier sell. Suburban commuters on their rat runs listening to their favourite music with a weeks shopping in bags on the back seat are a lot harder.

 

[chap]

I think London is a valid test bed for cycling provision, but not for cycling advocacy.

London is different to a lot of the UK in that far fewer people commute by car to an office with a car park, and I assume fewer do a car-based weekly shop or mall shop. This means we have a lot more local facilities than non-Londoners do apart from a few city-centres and suburban enclaves (interestingly polarised into the ones rich enough to want to walk to the local organic butcher, and the ones too poor to run cars. Everyone else drives to Tescos.).

The argument in London is often to switch from public transport to a bike, which I think is an easier sell. Suburban commuters on their rat runs listening to their favourite music with a weeks shopping in bags on the back seat are a lot harder.

I do see where you are coming from, and to a certain extent agree with your post.

There are many parts of London which do have the shops closer to the residential area, there are several small shops which will serve the local community (as was the case across Britain not that long ago.)

However, London does have its fair share of longish commutes to the markets for the weekly shop. If you go to any large ASDA, TESCO, or Sainsbury the same issue that occurs across the nation with lack of car parking space is repeated here, especially over the weekends. Plus, there are several shopping centres (malls) - after all Oxford Street is more for the tourists ... and Christmas time (after a few Brandys - Dutch courage), many of these will have their car parks far from empty, although many customers would also chose to use alternative means to travel there.

You have a point about the planning: the layout of London is normally better than much of the country, one is seldom (from the places I have knowledge of) cut off from resources and segregated from the functioning community such as is the case in many other places e.g. Basingstoke and Milton Keynes. Plus we do have superior transport, even despite various problems in the outer boroughs such as Crystal Palace.

However, London is a large ranging place, with many boroughs which effectively were self functioning towns and villages e.g. Richmond and Harrow. These places have their own issues, and it is from these especially where the comparison with teh rest of the countries towns and cities could work very well. One much also remember that the patterns present in some of the Greater London boroughs (such as Lambeth, Camberwell, and Greenwich) are relevant to many parts of the country. Even parts closer to home such as Chelsea, Knightsbridge, and the General Kensington area have plenty of workable examples which since they serve as good examples of cycle planning, with such a large number of people, really ought to work its way into Cycle Advocacy as tried and tested measures.

Unfortunately, like the statistics on cycle safety, perception is all that counts. When people continue to view London as such an exception, then it is harder to make the case for any of its working practices to be adapted for use elsewhere. Therefore, one can only hope that London does a good job worthy of accolade, and that perhaps some cities seek inspiration and do not waste too much of their cycle fund on consultants who will effectively look to London before reinventing the wheel as a decagon.

 

[GrasB]

London is different to a lot of the UK in that far fewer people commute by car to an office with a car park, and I assume fewer do a car-based weekly shop or mall shop. This means we have a lot more local facilities than non-Londoners do apart from a few city-centres and suburban enclaves (interestingly polarised into the ones rich enough to want to walk to the local organic butcher, and the ones too poor to run cars. Everyone else drives to Tescos.).

The argument in London is often to switch from public transport to a bike, which I think is an easier sell. Suburban commuters on their rat runs listening to their favourite music with a weeks shopping in bags on the back seat are a lot harder.

One of the problems with people using bikes is that there is the weekly shop, this is a problem as people have a lot of food to take home if it's for more than 1 or 2 people. I don't have a weekly shop, I have a walk into the village centre, which has almost everything I need if I'm willing to visit 4 shops, & I need to do this 2 or more times a week. A lot of houses don't have a shop within 2 mile let alone a nice little selection of shop & this in its self is a show stopper.

What is even worse than not having local shops is with modern life styles most people I know simply can't get to the local shops when they're open that often. Most families no longer have the full time housekeeper that used to be normal (please note I'm not saying the woman of the house should be, only that typically she no longer is) & as such there's no one to go down to the shops during the day. So the issue here isn't just getting people out of cars because they're lazy, it's also changing the business hours of local shop & working practices of businesses.

The upshot is taking the car to the supermarket or having a home delivery, which is open at almost all hours, once a week becomes the only real viable options to family shopping. For cycling advocacy this of course is a problem.

 

[chap]

...

The upshot is taking the car to the supermarket or having a home delivery, which is open at almost all hours, once a week becomes the only real viable options to family shopping. For cycling advocacy this of course is a problem.

You know you are right, home delivery, especially from Tesco and Occado, are really taking off around here. Although, I imagine that this is something more specific to the larger cities, and perhaps more rural parts.

I am realistic enough to see that the advent of Long Johns and Bakfiets are a long long way from being a normal site around Britain. However, even (or possibly predictably) Waitrose have started loaning out bike totes in some of their branches.

In the city particularly, I no longer go for the big shop, now I have more of a running inventory and know to buy a little of this and that, on return from work. Also one can bring their bike, and Basket, to the fantastic markets around them e.g. Chelsea, Smithfield, and Brixton. These are becoming popular again across the country as well.

Therefore, those on the traditional heavy load, shove it in the freezer, weekend spurges are unlikely to become ardent bicycle advocates, however for the rest of us: small families, single people, couples; it really ought to be simple.

 

[marinyork]

You know you are right, home delivery, especially from Tesco and Occado, are really taking off around here. Although, I imagine that this is something more specific to the larger cities, and perhaps more rural parts.

You have to be careful about supermarkets. Many many places actually do have small supermarkets considerably less than 2 miles away. What people actually mean by supermarkets now is large supermarkets or hypermarkets. For example I have a supermarket 0.25 miles away, 0.65 miles away, 0.84 miles, 0.90 miles away and so on (in fact the list gets silly very, very quickly, it's just even as a cyclist and walker I don't go to some). The nearest large supermarket, which people call supermarket is 3.22 miles away. There's one 4.33 miles away and another about that distance and another and strangely enough an additional three large supermarkets all about the 4-5 mile distance away. My area is rated as "very poor" for supermarkets as it doesn't have a large one nearby.

Whilst many people do do huge weekly shops, a lot of them also suffer from bread and milk syndrome. How do they get to the local shops within a mile to get bread, milk, paper, a takeaway or use the cash point? They drive of course, leading to huge amounts of congestion and to the puzzlement of councillors illegal parking.

On the topic of local shops there are three or four sets of very vibrant shopping areas well out of the city centre. These are incredibly suitable to get to by walking or bike. Of course they only serve a small part of the city's population perhaps 15 or 20% but there you go. Although a lot do walk/get the bus to them few cycle in preferring to drive. It is not coincidence that these areas are constantly on the council's radar for starting a parking scheme/modifying a starting scheme/just started one.

On the topic of women commuting, there are very few commuters at all around here and they are very likely to be men. There is one area where there's a very high through run of women commuters though - they either outnumber the men or set off earlier/later.

 

[Arch]

Heehee - I just read that back and I think I've described Copenhagen! Which is interesting as the whole segregated bike thing is not something I personally subscribe to. But then I'm the sort of woman who will ride in London today, and maybe to make it a mass culture thing we do need to go down the segregated route and go for mass but slow.

Anyone else's inner lady have different ideas?

Copenhagen isn't entirely segregated. There are some superb cycle lanes on the main roads (think Oxford Street or Whitehall, with a 3 or 4 foot wide segregated cycle lane each side, and where drivers give way to cyclists when turning across those lanes), but on many of the side streets bikes just mingle with cars, successfully, because of the overall attitude. So many people cycle, that many or most drivers are also cyclists, so they show the right attitude.

Another resource, from Cyclemagic and our very own ladies' man, Hilldodger...

http://velobelle.blogspot.com/

I don't think I'm any better at ideas on this subject than any man, because I'm the ungirliest girl I know. All I can offer is some experience doing Dr Bike for ladies at the York cycling festival, and I think maybe women just like to have a female role model. All I was doing, really, was showing them how to do a basic all over bike check, and the occasional tube changing demo, but I think they appreciated seeing me do it, and explaining it simply. I wonder if men tend (and I'm sorry, this is a terrible generalisation), to either take over the job themselves, or rattle through instructions in such a speedy and lofty way, that the woman gets left behind. It's all down to them thinking, oh, if she can do it, I can, there's no mystery (and that applies to riding as much as technical stuff). Its a bit like the way mechanics used to bamboozle women at garages, when it was a simple thing that needed doing.

I'm sure women have done the same over the years, with their 'traditional jobs' like ironing and cooking and wrapping presents, the whole "oh, give it here..." thing.

 

[brokenbetty]

I wonder if men tend (and I'm sorry, this is a terrible generalisation), to either take over the job themselves, or rattle through instructions in such a speedy and lofty way, that the woman gets left behind. It's all down to them thinking, oh, if she can do it, I can, there's no mystery (and that applies to riding as much as technical stuff). Its a bit like the way mechanics used to bamboozle women at garages, when it was a simple thing that needed doing.

I think you are right, but I don't think it's deliberate bamboozling or obfuscation.

I think that (generalisation ahoy) men get off on complexity. They like their kit, they like to fiddle, they like to improve by their own actions. Women tend to want stuff to work out of the box - we would rather have something that gives us 80% with no setup than something that defaults to 50% but can be tuned up to 95%.

So, a typical bloke trying to share his enthusiasm will get very detailed and technical and talk about all the nuances and fiddly bits, and a typical woman listening to him will think it's all far too much hassle and be completely put off

Gross generalisation I know. The only evidence I have is that I fiddle with kit (PCs, snowboards, bikes, DIY) more than any other girl I know, but nowhere near as much as lots of the guys I know. So what it top end faffing about on the girl scale seems to be only about middle level faffing for men.

(Disclaimer: Yes, not all women, and not all men. Probably not even the majority of women that will read this post, given that we are somewhat self selecting to be here in the first place. And I'm not saying any of this is built-in, it could be entirely social. Just that out there in the big wide world I think it's a valid observation).

 

[summerdays]

I think you are right, but I don't think it's deliberate bamboozling or obfuscation.

I think that (generalisation ahoy) men get off on complexity. They like their kit, they like to fiddle, they like to improve by their own actions. Women tend to want stuff to work out of the box - we would rather have something that gives us 80% with no setup than something that defaults to 50% but can be tuned up to 95%.

So, a typical bloke trying to share his enthusiasm will get very detailed and technical and talk about all the nuances and fiddly bits, and a typical woman listening to him will think it's all far too much hassle and be completely put off

Gross generalisation I know. The only evidence I have is that I fiddle with kit (PCs, snowboards, bikes, DIY) more than any other girl I know, but nowhere near as much as lots of the guys I know. So what it top end faffing about on the girl scale seems to be only about middle level faffing for men.

I agree with you - although I probably come further down the scale ... it takes me a couple of times being shown something technical (ish) like fiddling with gears, tampering with computers etc for me to get it. Once I've understood it, I'm fine, but up till that point I feel thick, and so when it comes to bike maintenance I'm often floundering.

I think for females, family does come into it... when mine were very young I used to see a friend transporting her son on the back of her bike, I was both envious and also scared for her baby. Later on there comes more than one child, and there is the shopping etc. I'm not saying they can't be overcome but that they start off being hurdles which they must pass before they consider the bike as a possible form of transportation.

 

[chap]

No no no! Men also like things to work just right first time too. After some time, we may think of improvements to make (unless it's a fixer upper.) Although, with the Apple Mac it is near perfection, just could do with a bit more memory...

 

[ttcycle]

Chap I do think that ethnicity as one element comes into it- the way people view the world and yes London does have a high proportion of people from all over the world is different and this also influences how they see bikes, cars, public transport ie culture.

We don't look at the world in the same way and to assume so is a bit unhelpful when looking at barriers to cycling. Surely it's be noted there is a gender difference, why is it so odd that there's possibly an age/ethncitiy etc diffference?

Cycling on a club/competitively level is definitely over represented by white middle class men which has been mentioned before on the forums- it interests me to know why...to ignore it as a factor would be missing out on a possible area that could provide a wealth of info. Equally it may not but I am prepared to be open minded about it.