Female Friendly Audax.

[S2L]

Organisation skills will go so far, but it's probably worth reiterating the onus that is on everyone else to minimise some of the usual shit that women have to put up with: learning to recognise if you're making someone uncomfortable or boring the tits off them (are you dominating the conversation? Getting only bare minimum or monosyllabic responses? Glazed looks...?), calling out inappropriate behaviour from others etc etc.

I think you are referring to the bods I mentioned earlier "borderline between sanity and insanity"... they tend to be more frequent encounters at BRM level (>300)...

[CJ]

On LWL I took advice from a few women.

Kudos to you. Sounds like you nailed it.

Organisation skills will go so far, but it's probably worth reiterating the onus that is on everyone else to minimise some of the usual shit that women have to put up with: learning to recognise if you're making someone uncomfortable or boring the tits off them (are you dominating the conversation? Getting only bare minimum or monosyllabic responses? Glazed looks...?), calling out inappropriate behaviour from others etc etc.

 
This is quite true and made me laugh. It usually takes a little bit of time to establish your credentials and prove that you know something about bikes or whatever it is that they are mansplaining to you. There is always the option of cycling off or letting them drop you.

Saying this, so far I've had great experiences on each qualifier I have ridden and made friends along the way. I'd hate for the guys that I've ridden with to read this and think that it is about them. It's not.

[Wobbly]

I'd hate for the guys that I've ridden with to read this and think that it is about them. It's not.

Being the anti-social old git I am, I rarely ride with anyone. So I'm pretty confident it's not about me 

[Exit Stage Left]

I was always heavier and bigger than the average Audaxer. That means that I'm suited to the type of course that suits tandems. Hills will be a pain, but headwinds will be less problematic. So if I looked round at the start of a ride, and saw lots of tandems, I'd be reassured.

If I looked round, and the only tandem I saw was the Browns, and the rest of the field was small, skinny blokes, I'd know I was in for a long, tough day.

When I first started Audaxing there were rides from Southport which had lots of flat riding on quiet main roads which shadowed the M6. Those don't tend to be run any more, although Andy Corless did run a 600 from Bispham that was like that. Sonya Crawford also ran 'tandem friendly' rides, and a 'tandem friendly' ride is a 'Damon friendly' ride.

I've got a good geographical knowledge, so I can see that the 'A Pair of Kirtons' 600 is going to be fairly benign in contrast to the Pendle 600, even though the former crosses the Pennines twice. I can judge what's best for me and for tandems, and Heather can feed back what's doable for a woman of her build and experience. I wouldn't presume to extend that to a judgment on which rides are 'friendlier' to women or not.

That's why I'm interested in a statistical base for participation and validation rates. Britain has very variable terrain, and a variable road network. It might not seem obvious that a ride starting in Blackpool is going to be vastly harder than one starting in Inverness.

There are problems with judging the difficulty of audaxes, partly down to the culture of modesty, and partly due to the etiquette of not criticising volunteer organisers. Audax is very much a 'Horses for Courses' game, where there's not much in the way of 'form' for the punters to go on.

[rob]

I'd hate for the guys that I've ridden with to read this and think that it is about them. It's not.

Being the anti-social old git I am, I rarely ride with anyone. So I'm pretty confident it's not about me 

Likewise I've spent a lot of the last few years riding on my own.   My old buddies have been doing a lot less for a variety of reasons and I have also increased my pace during this time.   I try not to be away from home as much as I used to be.

When I ride with people I try to ask about what they do and what they have ridden rather than talking about myself.   I don't give advice unless asked to as I don't believe that anyone is really interested in my opinion.

[Philip Whiteman]

Within my club I did moot a women only audax  but after consultation we felt that it was going to be to provocative in terms of AUK regulatory barriers.    I also received some helpful feedback from organiser colleagues.  We may revisit the idea of event targeting women riders rather than making it exclusive.

[Wobbly]

I also received some helpful feedback from organiser colleagues.

Could you share some of it here, Phil?

[wilkyboy]

They recommended two things. They all said that women are more likely to enter a ride if they don't have to commit months in advance and know that they won't be the only women riding.

I've come to the conclusion that both of those points are both true and significant 

[Kim]

Organisation skills will go so far, but it's probably worth reiterating the onus that is on everyone else to minimise some of the usual shit that women have to put up with: learning to recognise if you're making someone uncomfortable or boring the tits off them (are you dominating the conversation? Getting only bare minimum or monosyllabic responses? Glazed looks...?), calling out inappropriate behaviour from others etc etc.

 
This is quite true and made me laugh. It usually takes a little bit of time to establish your credentials and prove that you know something about bikes or whatever it is that they are mansplaining to you.

Having a tech background I've learned to be fairly brutal about establishing my credentials early on.  It probably comes across as intimidating, but it saves time in the long run.  OTOH, I'm quite happy to have a non-patronising technical conversation (assuming I want / can hear to have a conversation in the first place) about anything reasonably interesting.

When I'm on a recumbent, the opening conversation is nearly always about the bike anyway.

There is always the option of cycling off or letting them drop you.

This generally works, though there is a particular class of inappropriate behaviourist who doesn't get the hint, and will wait for you if you stop to add/remove layers or inspect a hedge or whatever.

Less creepy, but more vexing was the guy who followed me half way round the Staffordshire Lanes at a distance of about 100m.  I eventually decided he was shy and navigationally challenged.

[Kim]

They recommended two things. They all said that women are more likely to enter a ride if they don't have to commit months in advance and know that they won't be the only women riding.

I've come to the conclusion that both of those points are both true and significant 

Sounds good to me.  I'm not^[1] especially bothered about the being the only woman thing (although it's refreshing to see otherwise), but I know many are.  It's nice not to be the only full-value rider, though.

Committing months in advance is off-putting, especially if you're prone to Real Life or have doubts about your fitness.  I've pragmatically accepted this is what DNS is for, but some might consider that rude.



_{[1] But don't listen to me, I'm one of the ones who's doing it anyway.}

[wilkyboy]

I'm not^[1] especially bothered about the being the only woman thing (although it's refreshing to see otherwise), but I know many are.

I think it's more for the new-to-audax female audience.  Once they're in, they'll either like it and continue, or they won't.  But for the first step there appears to be some reassurance turning up with a friend or expecting to make a new [female] one.

It's nice not to be the only full-value rider, though.

There are plenty of slow men in that groupetto already, women seem to like to get on with it; a couple of men on our rides have made it their speciality to finish at least two hours HD 

I've pragmatically accepted this is what DNS is for, but some might consider that rude.

Don't feel any guilt — DNSes pay for the hall 

[Kim]

I've pragmatically accepted this is what DNS is for, but some might consider that rude.

Don't feel any guilt — DNSes pay for the hall 

Perhaps the newbies worried about committing in advance would benefit from knowing this?

[Exit Stage Left]

I'm keen to get a handle on current thoughts on women and Audax, as I've got a lot of interviews with women on various Audaxes. I often have to make assumptions, and use my own knowledge to get a response, that's inevitable. An example is this from Ede Harrison at the sign-on and finish of LEL 2017.



The more informed about the current Audax scene I am the better, as I've got to make edit decisions if I want to be more accurate in depicting women in Audax. Blogs can help, as can threads such as these.
I'm more CTC than TCR, so an insight into the adventure scene is useful as well.

Lots of women riding LWL is interesting. The most accessible information is the result on this page.
http://www.aukweb.net/results/detail/this/listevent/?Ride=19-309
Finding that requires you to know that LWL is listed as 'Chalfont St Peter 407', but that's the AUK way.
It could be useful to have a gendered indication of DNF, with no names and no packdrill.
I could then compare that The Lincolnshire Poacher 400 on the same day, or Newark Northgate Station 400 as it's known.
http://www.aukweb.net/results/detail/this/listevent/?Ride=19-723

[fimm]

The Adventure Syndicate is dedicated (I think) to providing women-only events.

This isn't really accurate. I don't think The Adventure Syndicate organise many events*, but they promote women doing long distance cycling of one kind or another in order to encourage others (women and men**) to push their boudaries.

*They run a women-only training camp, and they've done some bikepacking trips with teenage girls, and run quads of teenage women at the Strathpuffer 24 hour mountain bike race. That's the stuff I know about.

** interesting blog here.

[Wobbly]

Thanks for the clarification, fimm 

[Philip Whiteman]

I also received some helpful feedback from organiser colleagues.

Could you share some of it here, Phil?

I'm afraid not as our Facebook Group for organisers operates under Chatham House Rules

[Zed43]

I did have to look that up and found

When a meeting, or part thereof, is held under the Chatham House Rule, participants are free to use the information received, but neither the identity nor the affiliation of the speaker(s), nor that of any other participant, may be revealed.

Which suggests you can publish lessons learned, best practices etc. as long as you can keep it generic and without divulging the sources.

I think?

[wilkyboy]

Plus there's only the one Chatham House Rule, I thought? 

[Peat]

I'm late to the party here, but i feel compelled to share my thoughts.

Firstly, I don't think a lack of female participation is phenomenon specific to Audax. While making an effort to attract ladies is commendable, I don't 'we' ought to shoulder that burden all on our own and beat ourselves up if we fail.

Going from the top down, there are simply less women who participate in sport than men. (https://www.sportengland.org/research/understanding-audiences/sport-and-women/). There are countless studies to support that and hypothesize as to why. 

Next, if you compare cycling to something like running, generally the female participation is far far higher in the latter. I think this is, in part, due to the equipment aspect. Hear me out:

Anecdotally, of all the hobbies I have participated in (motorsports, shooting & cycling) the number of females at any given event is <5% at a guess. Those activities all have something in common = equipment. At a very basic level, a little boy still gets given Lego while his sister is given a doll. I know we've probably come a long way since I was a kid, but from walking past the toy aisle in shops I see this is still very much a thing. Of course, these are very broad generalizations. That's not ALL women, but you can see that the net number of women likely to be interested in something like long distance cycling quickly diminishes.

When you consider that Audax is a niche within a niche, I think it speaks (complementary) volumes that I am yet to ride an Audax where there wasn't females at the start.

That's not to say we can't or shouldn't do more. But I think care needs to be taken how we do it. With regards to a purposefully 'female friendly' event, Liam's LWL is undeniably a success in terms of numbers. But, personally I find the different entry requirements for men and women pretty uncomfortable to swallow on principal. Equality of outcome is never the same as equality of opportunity, never should we kid ourselves that it is. The problem with using cold hard metrics as success indicators carries unintended consequences, take school league tables for example. Gun-in-mouth stuff.  But, as a temporary vehicle to achieve an equality of opportunity, I find it acceptable. Having a visible female presence will doubtless show others that Audax IS really fun and really quite achieveable.

The women I know who are already riding show that there is no physical barrier limiting participation. They are all bloody strong cyclists. The underlying societal sexism that goes un-noticed, certainly by me and i guess lots of other men, DOES exist within Audax as I suppose it does everywhere.  I am told it is very gradually improving but my very esteem'ed female Super Randonneur friend feels it's still MORE remarkable when an event passes WITHOUT some form of back-handed complement ("Gosh, aren't you doing well (for a girl)!")  or swerving inquiry as to her marital status ("So, are you riding with your boyfriend/husband/Male Chaperone?") She was particularly narked that the former example happened at LWL, when she rolled into a later control in the front 10% of the field.

Ramble over. TLDR - Female participation is low because of reasons. While we can do things to help, it's not our sole responsibility to change the world.

[quixoticgeek]

Next, if you compare cycling to something like running, generally the female participation is far far higher in the latter. I think this is, in part, due to the equipment aspect. Hear me out:

Anecdotally, of all the hobbies I have participated in (motorsports, shooting & cycling) the number of females at any given event is <5% at a guess. Those activities all have something in common = equipment. At a very basic level, a little boy still gets given Lego while his sister is given a doll. I know we've probably come a long way since I was a kid, but from walking past the toy aisle in shops I see this is still very much a thing. Of course, these are very broad generalizations. That's not ALL women, but you can see that the net number of women likely to be interested in something like long distance cycling quickly diminishes.

Yes. Cycling requires equipment. Equipment for cycling is not unisex, at least not to the degree people think it is.

Something all cyclists can do, all those who consider themselves to be male allies, is to ask your local bike shop about their women's range. Suggest they should stock more than 1 women's bike, they should have a range of women's clothing.

Right now, If I was to give a man and a woman €1000 in cash, send them into a bike shop and say "Get a bike for audaxing", the man would have a choice, and could walk out with a bike there and then. The woman is unlikely to have a choice of models, is unlikely to find one in stock in the right size, and is probably going to have to wait a few days to a week for a bike to be ordered in.

Now, this is not an AUK problem, this is not a problem AUK can solve, but it is a problem, and I think it would be good if the cycle industry could recognise this.

I would normally insert here a massive rant about how all off the shelf bikes are stupidly over geared and how this disadvantages new women riders, but this week Shimano have announced their GRX groupset, which with it's 46/30 chainset, has the possibility of fixing this. Tho it'll take a while for it to be available on prebuilt bikes.

And while we're at it, if you see shop assistants being sexist shits, trying to sell the wrong thing, upselling pointlessly, etc... call it out. This goes for everyone. The Local Bike Shop is not the welcoming happy place for women that it is for men, but it should be.

When you consider that Audax is a niche within a niche, I think it speaks (complementary) volumes that I am yet to ride an Audax where there wasn't females at the start.

That's not to say we can't or shouldn't do more. But I think care needs to be taken how we do it. With regards to a purposefully 'female friendly' event, Liam's LWL is undeniably a success in terms of numbers. But, find the different entry requirements for men and women pretty uncomfortable to swallow on principal. Equality of outcome is never the same as equality of opportunity, never should we kid ourselves that it is. The problem with using cold hard metrics are success indicators carries unintended consequences, take school league tables for example. Gun-in-mouth stuff.  But, as a temporary vehicle to achieve an equality of opportunity, I find it acceptable. Having a visible female presence will doubtless show others that Audax IS really fun and really quite achieveable.

Positive discrimination is discrimination. There's no beating about the bush with it. I'd love to live in a world where it wasn't needed for things like this, but I can't see a better option.

The women I know who are already riding show that there is no physical barrier limiting participation. They are all bloody strong cyclists. The underlying societal sexism that goes un-noticed, certainly by me and i guess lots of other men, DOES exist within Audax as I suppose it does everywhere.  I am told it is very gradually improving but my very esteem'ed female Super Randonneur friend feels it's still MORE remarkable when an event passes WITHOUT some form of back-handed complement ("Gosh, aren't you doing well (for a girl)!")  or swerving inquiry as to her marital status ("So, are you riding with your boyfriend/husband/Male Chaperone?") She was particularly narked that the former example happened at LWL, when she rolled into a later control in the front 10% of the field.

This, so much this.

"Are you here with your boyfriend?"
"I'm sorry, I didn't realise one was a requirement"

If I had €5 for every time this exchange happened at an audax, I'd be able to buy some new wheels...

I don't get the "aren't you doing well thing", I'm always lantern rouge. But I've friends who have been on the receiving end of it.

Ramble over. TLDR - Female participation is low because of reasons. While we can do things to help, it's not our sole responsibility to change the world.

It is my sole purpose on this rock to leave the world a better place than I found it.

J

[wilkyboy]

Right now, If I was to give a man and a woman €1000 in cash, send them into a bike shop and say "Get a bike for audaxing", the man would have a choice, and could walk out with a bike there and then. The woman is unlikely to have a choice of models, is unlikely to find one in stock in the right size, and is probably going to have to wait a few days to a week for a bike to be ordered in.

I'll fly the flag for our nearest LBS here — Rutland Cycles, our local one being in Histon.  They DO have a reasonable selection of women's bikes on display, at various price points and features, many under £1,000, that you can take out and test ride.  Unfortunately, they don't hold too many sizes, so if you're tiny, like Mrs WB and her sister, they often have to fetch over a built-up XS model from another store to try for any specific model, although generally they do hold most sizes.

And they don't hold backroom stock of hardly any bikes, except the ones on show — all bikes/sizes have to be ordered in from the importer and built up as required, that's just the way they manage their inventory.  I can't see a way around this, as holding stock is an expensive and risky game that can cripple any company.

As for our other many LBS in Cambridge, nobody holds much stock, because so many people are checking in-store and then ordering online, so they've stopped stocking many mainstream bikes.  Unless you want a shopper*, in which case they're legion 

I would normally insert here a massive rant about how all off the shelf bikes are stupidly over geared and how this disadvantages new women riders, but this week Shimano have announced their GRX groupset, which with it's 46/30 chainset, has the possibility of fixing this. Tho it'll take a while for it to be available on prebuilt bikes.

I'm a six-foot bloke and I am also interested in that groupset, now that you've mentioned it.  Compact 50/34 I always find a bit long for my liking, but that's all there has been with a Shimano badge.  Not that I ride with gears that often ...

Positive discrimination is discrimination. There's no beating about the bush with it. I'd love to live in a world where it wasn't needed for things like this, but I can't see a better option.

I agree with this; I am hopeful we can move to a place where it's no longer necessary.


* Just to be clear: in Cambridge, almost as many men as women ride shoppers, even the kids.

[FifeingEejit]

The equipment one is interesting, particularly to me as it was mentioned by someone else who's been involved in motorsports.

There were 2 drivers I can think of when I was hanging around the Scottish karting scene in the mid 90s as dad had to run my mates kart since his dad was chief scrutineer.
Of the 2 one made it to be an F1 test driver.

But there's only 1 person per car there so isn't what I was initially going to observe (im on a train and my book is above my head for some reason I've got loads of time)

No what the comment made me realize is that of all the women in Scottish Road and targa rallying I can think going for as long as I've been involved of every one of them has been in the navigators seat.



Sent from my BKL-L09 using Tapatalk

[quixoticgeek]

I'll fly the flag for our nearest LBS here — Rutland Cycles, our local one being in Histon.  They DO have a reasonable selection of women's bikes on display, at various price points and features, many under £1,000, that you can take out and test ride.  Unfortunately, they don't hold too many sizes, so if you're tiny, like Mrs WB and her sister, they often have to fetch over a built-up XS model from another store to try for any specific model, although generally they do hold most sizes.

Rutland cycles is a notable store that has gone to great lengths to support women's cycling. Their sponsorship of cyclists like Michelle Brideau is great.

And they don't hold backroom stock of hardly any bikes, except the ones on show — all bikes/sizes have to be ordered in from the importer and built up as required, that's just the way they manage their inventory.  I can't see a way around this, as holding stock is an expensive and risky game that can cripple any company.

There's a few bike shops that will for a couple of models, hold the full size range. There's one in Amsterdam that has a certain Bianchi model in every single size from small (yet too big for my 1.7m tall self), upto mutant super giant XXXL (Ok, so it may just be the largest size they stock, but it's HOOOOGE!). But they only have that for the mens model. They have a selection of sizes in many mens bikes, but they have exactly 4 women's models, and all of them in size M...

As for our other many LBS in Cambridge, nobody holds much stock, because so many people are checking in-store and then ordering online, so they've stopped stocking many mainstream bikes.  Unless you want a shopper*, in which case they're legion 

This is why the rise of the brand specific stores, like the trek store, or the giant, or specialised. They don't care if you buy a specialised tarmac from them, or online, it's still a specialised sale, so who cares. Unfortunately, it rather kills the other LBS around...

I would normally insert here a massive rant about how all off the shelf bikes are stupidly over geared and how this disadvantages new women riders, but this week Shimano have announced their GRX groupset, which with it's 46/30 chainset, has the possibility of fixing this. Tho it'll take a while for it to be available on prebuilt bikes.

I'm a six-foot bloke and I am also interested in that groupset, now that you've mentioned it.  Compact 50/34 I always find a bit long for my liking, but that's all there has been with a Shimano badge.  Not that I ride with gears that often ...

Yep, Equality makes things better for everyone.

Positive discrimination is discrimination. There's no beating about the bush with it. I'd love to live in a world where it wasn't needed for things like this, but I can't see a better option.

I agree with this; I am hopeful we can move to a place where it's no longer necessary.
[/quote]

The purpose of any equality campaign is to make itself redundant.

* Just to be clear: in Cambridge, almost as many men as women ride shoppers, even the kids.

I'm in Amsterdam, it's the same here.

No what the comment made me realize is that of all the women in Scottish Road and targa rallying I can think going for as long as I've been involved of every one of them has been in the navigators seat.

In the wider motoring industry, until very recently there was no crash test dummy of a woman. Meaning that all car crash tests were done using a dummy designed to represent the 50th percentile man. This results in seat belts and air bags that aren't designed with women in mind and can in fact cause more harm to women (esp to pregnant women). In the last few years a crash test dummy representing the 50th percentile woman was created, but it is not uniformally used, and in some cases the dummy is actually just the 50th percentile man scaled a bit, not taking into account that the female body is not just the men's body at 80% size, but has a different mass distribution. Finally in cases where there is a 50th percentile woman crash test dummy used, that dummy is rarely used in the drivers seat, and is predominantly only used in the passenger seat.

There are many other issues with the sexist design of modern motor vehicles, and that's before we get into motor sport. I could rant at length about it, but we're getting *VERY* off topic. If anyone is interested, I can recommend "Invisible Women" by Caroline Criado-Perez - https://amzn.to/2Kpf2Qy . I don't agree with everything she as a person says, but this book is a true eye opener. I'm a card carrying feminist, and even I was surprised by some of the things in it.

But we digress. Back to making Audax better for everyone!

J

[marylogic]

My delight at the prospect of the new shimano GRX groupset was short lived - according to what I can see, it is only available in 170mm and larger cranks - so not really very female friendly after all 

[quixoticgeek]

My delight at the prospect of the new shimano GRX groupset was short lived - according to what I can see, it is only available in 170mm and larger cranks - so not really very female friendly after all 

Oh ffs, how did I miss that. Thanks for pointing it out, time for Yet Another Ranty Email to Shimano.

That said, I did a bit of a dig, the FC-RX600-11 (2x) and FC-RX600-1 (1x) both come in 165mm lengths, as does the FC-RX600-10 (2x). But they seem to jump from 165 to 170, then 172.5 and 175. No 167.5mm option.

J