irc wrote: 10 Feb 2025, 1:10pm
Cycling has a hard sell considering weather, security, perceived danger. I know the risk can be drastically minimised by various methods. Most regular cyclists I know have crash stories to tell though. Even without the car option most people seem to prefer bus/subway, walk, taxi.
Perceived danger. So take away the risky-seeming environment and people are enabled to do it. Similarly security. Yes, Glasgow has bad weather... but so does Amsterdam.
There is nothing magic about Dutch turf or Dutch people. It's about planning for people rather than cars leading to a relatively benign environment. The turnaround of Paris from very car-centric to increasingly people-centric shows this can be done.
irc wrote: 17 Jan 2025, 10:26am.I have no interest in whether or not more people cycle.
I have an interest in the number of people cycling!
The more the merrier, cyclist need a stronger voice to fight for decent cycling infrastructure to improve cyclist safety and make cyling a more convenient and attractive transport option for all.
Not sure facilities are the issue. In my town people travel a mile and a half from the furthest areas to the town centre. Easy cycling. There are good off road paths. A seperated cycle lane on a main road. Plenty low traffic side streets.
People choose to use mostly cars. Thereafter walking and bus/train. Cycling? Not so much.
Similar in my town. 3 miles from one end to the other, mostly flat, busyish main road but plenty of quiet side roads with through routes for cycling. People complain that the main car park is always full, spend time cruising around looking for a space, whilst the nearby covered cycle racks stand empty.
Ron wrote: 8 Feb 2025, 11:18am
I have an interest in the number of people cycling!
The more the merrier, cyclist need a stronger voice to fight for decent cycling infrastructure to improve cyclist safety and make cyling a more convenient and attractive transport option for all.
Not sure facilities are the issue. In my town people travel a mile and a half from the furthest areas to the town centre. Easy cycling. There are good off road paths. A seperated cycle lane on a main road. Plenty low traffic side streets.
People choose to use mostly cars. Thereafter walking and bus/train. Cycling? Not so much.
Similar in my town. 3 miles from one end to the other, mostly flat, busyish main road but plenty of quiet side roads with through routes for cycling. People complain that the main car park is always full, spend time cruising around looking for a space, whilst the nearby covered cycle racks stand empty.
Much of this is habit.
Our culture is incredibly car-centric to the point where people select cars as a default mode irrespective of the job at hand because they're used to doing that. Thinking is not involved.
In such a situation if you ask someone why they don't ride it's entirely typical to reach for rationalisations of their existing behaviour rather than thinking about if alternatives are possible and whether they may be advantageous.
"The school run" by car is a terrific example of this, something that pretty much everybody involved in dislikes, that there is vastly less need for than is actually done, and where alternatives are typically available to those who bother looking for them. 45% of trips to primary school are by car...
My Mrs is too scared by the traffic to cycle to work. I have offered to buy her an eBike. Hope to get her cycling to the local gym now the days are getting longer.
I would be interested to learn what women members of this forum like ElaineB and awavey think of CUK's recent article linked below, which launches its new campaign 'My ride. Our right':
well it echoes I think alot of the touch points Id highlighted earlier as what I felt were the barriers stopping more women from cycling, safety or the perception of safety being a keystone, and certainly as things Ive experienced for all the time Ive been riding and what my friends perceptions about cycling are some of which they get from me some of which they learn themselves. its a really hard push to get someone cycling who has concerns about safety perceptions when nearly every week you are chatting with them about the latest near death experience some motorist gave to you on the road.
and the personal stories definitely struck a chord with me like Erica says "you have to be quite bolshey on the roads, and take ownership of your space on the road", which is something I found took along while to get the confidence to do. Or Tina highlighting the thing about thinking more about which routes to take in the winter months at night, because badly/unlit paths and underpasses raise red flag safety issues that maybe some men dont always see.
whilst Im not at all sure the gender gap has grown because barriers to cycling for men have reduced as such, I think the barriers are still there, I just think the perception is different between genders especially on the safety part. As I often debate close passes with male colleagues at work as we ride similar routes, and their threshold for a close pass is very different to mine, theyd be totally comfortable with stuff that would be well above my tolerance levels.
and one of the things I kind of learnt from those debates was I am just naturally a more defensive rider, because past experiences had been bad Id adopted very defensive riding tactics. So as an example when I signal to turn right, I shoulder check, signal, then shoulder check again to make sure the drivers are still all behaving. That moment of hesitation though is actually when alot of drivers decide whether to still overtake you, and they nearly always (still) do so I get close passed and flustered about it and wonder why people were driving like idiots.
Whereas my male colleagues always ride the same turn in a more attacking style, it would be shoulder check signal move across in one movement, no pause or hesitation, anyone thinking of overtaking doesnt get given the choice anymore, they might also have ramped up the watts to accelerate into it so they get a jump of speed, consequently they dont get the same experience on the road, but the barrier is still there in that drivers MGIF at all times its just our experiences of it a vastly different.
all that said and done, whilst its great to call this issue out, bring more attention to it, maybe prompt some people to ponder what can be done about it, whats really going to be the outcome of it ultimately ? ideally more segregated cycle routes, that are well lit, and that may well happen in some parts of London,but what happens for the rest of us ?
its been two years (three if you count the feasibility funding) now since Suffolk county council were awarded a significant chunk of money to invest in cycling infra, only in a few locations, so its not exactly going to transform cycling across the county, but two years so far and they might publish a report by the end of the month about it, because its Easter right, into what they plan to do next. Two years, millions of pounds of funding and all we have to show for it so far will be a report, which will inevitably recommend some watered down proposals that arent worth the paper the report is written on.
And thats before the local council reorganisation kicks in which will kick the can further down the road and who knows what some mega new super council authority will have its eyes on, but I suspect providing segregated cycling infrastructure wont be top of the list.
I will play devils advocate here. As I see things, there are basically two types of riders, both male and female.
On one side we have people who ride purely for fitnes and competition.
They should appreciate the privilege they have over drivers, many of whom have a schedule.
On the other side, we have people, particularly female, who gallantly try to reduce car reliance by using a bicyle purely for domestic reasons eg carry their children and shopping and visiting their family and friends.
I'll probaly antagonise a great many here, but urban roads are primarily distributor thoroughfares meant for domestic traffic. They are not race tracks nor are they gymnasiums. The myriad confrontations, cyclist/motorist are predominantly urban, in inner city and residential areas.
Our useless Police have retreated en mass from any responsibilty for road traffic/road safety patrolling, leaving large numbers of mainly children and young mothers completely at the mercy of White Van Moron.
Is it any wonder that women are loosing out here?
This "Club", (though the very word has been expunged) should be focussing on road safety and should be shaming our lacklustre politicians into getting the police off their butts and doing right by citizens.
We need to put our weight behind traffic free segregated cycle ways and reducing speed limits.
In other threads, people have berated sustrans for not understanding the difference between leisure and necessity. Well I think Sustrans have done sterling work, especially developing disused railway corridors enabling Mums and Dads to take their youngsters out in safety.
At present my cycling companions, when I have them, are two women and one man. One of the women is my wife* and I cycle mostly with her. In past decades I've cycled with clubs that included several women. These various ladies have/had various levels of fitness, from pootle to racer and various levels of fitness in between.
None of them have trouble with confidence or technical control aspects of a bike in traffic. This is partly to do with having lots of experience (including the experience of riding with and copying others) but also to do with their attitudes. They haven't given in to the patriarchy-pressure that's forever telling women that they aren't as capable as men in all sorts of ways. Many of those women I've cycled with were far more capable at it than me! And this has been true for endless other activities and skills during my lifetime.
Yet one still comes across women a lot whom, even in this day and age, have assumed that a lot of what the dominant patriarchal attitudes espouses throughout our culture is true - that women are somehow more feeble than men or other wise incapable of doing a lot of things that are "manly". Quite frankly, these assumptions are nonsense**. In my experience women can in fact do most of what men can do - if they persist at it long enough to gain the experience, "training", confidence and eventual ability. Their assumption that they can't is a self-fulfilling prophecy as it stops a woman who has been patriarchally-oppressed from ever really trying at many things.
**********
So, I suggest two things: stop assuming its harder for a woman to cycle on the roads than it is for a man; get out with others (of any and all genders) who have experience and learn how to do it well.
* Before I met and married her, my wife rode motorbikes and got so good at it that she was used by the local police to teach bad lads had-up for dangerous roaring about how to develop a proper roadcraft. This used to annoy then impress them, as she showed them what fools they'd been when roaring by riding the motorbike rather better than they could.
** The patriarchy assumes that a crude muscular strength makes men better at all sorts of things, including lots of things that don't really require ultimate muscular strength. And, should one go to a modern gym, ladies who have rather a lot of muscular strength will demonstrate to the wee laddies that women certainly can develop muscular strength well above that of a patriarch with a big beard and a belly to match, should it be needed to, say, tear the head of some silly wee macho fellow intent on abusing them.
“Practical men who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence are usually the slaves of some defunct economist”.
John Maynard Keynes
Cugel wrote: 25 May 2025, 5:43pm
So, I suggest two things: stop assuming its harder for a woman to cycle on the roads than it is for a man; get out with others (of any and all genders) who have experience and learn how to do it well.
On the one hand, yes, but on the other it's easier said than done for a great many people.
Very many people need to see someone they feel to be like themselves doing something before they'll have a go.
When considering that, It's a lot easier for men and boys to get into cycling because they can see lots of men and boys already cycling and feel reassured it's "for them". In somewhere like NL you can see anyone cycling so it's not nonconformist to join them. But even in NL there are initiatives to encourage immigrant women onto bikes because they still have cultural baggage of it not being "for them".
Yep, our local club has gone to great lengths, with some considerable success, to get women involved, because there is definitely “a barrier to entry” in terms of perceptions. It’s helped locally that probably the two most influential cycling advocates are women, one a near perpetual (I don’t know how she finds time to do anything else!) ride-leader and now i think chair of the “cycling council”, and one the recently left office mayor.
Cugel wrote: 25 May 2025, 5:43pm
So, I suggest two things: stop assuming its harder for a woman to cycle on the roads than it is for a man; get out with others (of any and all genders) who have experience and learn how to do it well.
On the one hand, yes, but on the other it's easier said than done for a great many people.
Very many people need to see someone they feel to be like themselves doing something before they'll have a go.
When considering that, It's a lot easier for men and boys to get into cycling because they can see lots of men and boys already cycling and feel reassured it's "for them". In somewhere like NL you can see anyone cycling so it's not nonconformist to join them. But even in NL there are initiatives to encourage immigrant women onto bikes because they still have cultural baggage of it not being "for them".
Pete.
What you describe as the "cultural baggage" effect is certainly the case. Yet there are plenty of women out in the world, these days, demonstrating in no uncertain terms that they can do what the patriarchy still likes to allege only men can do. Many of these women "do it better". Consider the lady who has recently lopped a huge amount off the double JOGLE time, for both the men's and the women's record. (Can we now drop the spurious gender differentiation for this record, I wonder?)
One suspects that with some, the "not for me" feelings are driven by something other than feelings of gender inadequacy or some other "cultural baggage". For many men, as well as women, such stuff can be used as a handy excuse to avoid all sorts of activities requiring initial learning, application, persistence and physical effort.
But its certainly the case that a bag of cultural claptrap is more often imposed on ladies than on gentlemen. In fact, many political domains seem now to be trying to fill the bags with a lot of fusty old Victoriana concerning women and their supposed limitations or "proper place". There are also lots of little creeps such as the Tate-thing encouraging stupid and infantile men-yoofs to assume they are a superior gender because of their ability to develop a fat and baldy bonce with a snarl on its lips.
****************
Well, we humans are rather sheep-like when it comes to deciding which way to run (or drive/ride, in this case) so the issue comes down to: how to make cycling fashionable. In some ways the baldy fat heads, Tater-creeps and other great dafty-men full of macho-pomp will do the job, as more introspective folk react agin' their various stupidities by adopting the very things they rale against.
“Practical men who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence are usually the slaves of some defunct economist”.
John Maynard Keynes
Cugel wrote: 27 May 2025, 11:51am
Yet there are plenty of women out in the world, these days, demonstrating in no uncertain terms that they can do what the patriarchy still likes to allege only men can do. Many of these women "do it better". Consider the lady who has recently lopped a huge amount off the double JOGLE time, for both the men's and the women's record. (Can we now drop the spurious gender differentiation for this record, I wonder?)
I'll consider that when a woman beats the mens LEJOG (1-way) record.
Or the mens hour record.
How many men have run the 100 meters faster than the woman’s world record?
Most high school state champions run faster than the womens world record (10.49). If that helps answer the question by matter of scale.
Some states will have several each year. Florida, for example, will have the entire state final heat filled with young men who have the beaten the women’s world record (10.1–10.4). The womens record is no joke compared to the average man, but competitive men are way faster.
Cugel wrote: 27 May 2025, 11:51am
Yet there are plenty of women out in the world, these days, demonstrating in no uncertain terms that they can do what the patriarchy still likes to allege only men can do. Many of these women "do it better". Consider the lady who has recently lopped a huge amount off the double JOGLE time, for both the men's and the women's record. (Can we now drop the spurious gender differentiation for this record, I wonder?)
I'll consider that when a woman beats the mens LEJOG (1-way) record.
Or the mens hour record.
How many men have run the 100 meters faster than the woman’s world record?
Most high school state champions run faster than the womens world record (10.49). If that helps answer the question by matter of scale.
Some states will have several each year. Florida, for example, will have the entire state final heat filled with young men who have the beaten the women’s world record (10.1–10.4). The womens record is no joke compared to the average man, but competitive men are way faster.
Ah - the patriarchal history-defence of their innate superiority over the matrons.
There were no women doctors just a few decades ago. The patriarchs insisted that this was because they lacked the ability. They did, after a fashion, the fashion being for the patriarchy to prevent and disallow women from being doctors. Ditto several other supposedly unsuitable-for-women activities.
Of course women are allowed to race bicycles and pursue other sports. But they're often excluded from competing with men and must suffer often second rate training facilities. Their targets-to-beat are confined to the best of other women rather than the best of all humans. I suspect that if mixed-gender competitions were the norm, we would see a gradual increase in women's performances until they reached and, in some cases, surpassed those of men.
No doubt sporting events can be arranged to favour the particular differences found in men rather than women; and vice versa. But one has to ask: are these differences truly innate to a gender or are they just currently as they are because of the historical favouring of one gender's opportunities to get good at it over another's?
Anyroadup, I suspect that it won't be long before a women emerges to better the current men's LEJOG or JOGLE.
“Practical men who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence are usually the slaves of some defunct economist”.
John Maynard Keynes
