Cyling is a male dominated sport..why?

Michelin

If u go to races on sundays, turn up at randonees or just head out the road training you will hardly see a girl on a bike. I know if your riding around dublin there are plenty of girls that commute but as a sport its totally male dominated! Yes there are the odd ladies specific race leagues now in and around dublin but the numbers generally in the sport are very small. what is it about cycle sport that holds little or no interest for girls.
Im thinkin that its a catch 22 not enough girls involved as it is for more girls to take it up. Girls like the social aspect of sport.
Any ideas?

Lumen

I am always tremendously impressed when I see a lady on a bike, and I try to offer encouragement either by wolf-whistling or shouting something supportive like "Go baby!". So I honestly don't know what their problem is.

</joke>

Actually, there was a thread a while back about someone trying to persuade their sister to do a sportive but she was worried about getting chunky legs. Perhaps I've associated with particularly vain women, but it's not the first time I've heard that.

The perceived danger doesn't help, and neither does the equipment-intensive nature of the sport. I think some women think they'll get patronised/ripped off in a bike shop (like they do in garages).

It's also a sport which appeals to obsessives.

Whatever the reasons, it's a real shame. I'd be interested to compare participation stats with the UK where the female track cyclists would have a fairlly high profile.

jwshooter

possibly they might miss the soaps ,when out training of a eve.

DirkVoodoo

Most sports tend to be though, I'm trying to think of exceptions: athletics, tennis, golf, hockey, etc. I think the latter 2 appeal because they tend to have active club and social scenes. Cycling can be quite antisocial at times, what with the solo training, racing and a lot of clubs don't tend to be very active outside of cycling (I mean, you don't go for lunch in the clubhouse after a race).

Maybe it's a school thing, I know my sister and cousins went to a school that only really played hockey and tennis, which is something they all still play.

If the ladies racing scene is anything to go by here, it's that the ladies enjoy racing amongst themselves and more of them get out to race when they know they can meet up and have fun with the girls, just like Cyndi said.

Victor

There is a severe societal problem with more school girls driving to school than cycling to school. cycling is seen as uncool for female teenagers, whereas male teenagers see it as a means of gaining liberty.

Most of the female cyclists I know are not Irish.

Harrybelafonte

Bikehugger article on the topic

DePurpereWolf

Victor wrote: »

There is a severe societal problem with more school girls driving to school than cycling to school. cycling is seen as uncool for female teenagers, whereas male teenagers see it as a means of gaining liberty.

Most of the female cyclists I know are not Irish.

It's much less a male sport in the rest of the world. I guess women here are afraid of the potholes and a-holes on the road.


Those legs don't look that chunky.
(look at the legs)

ROK ON

You can try and use a lot of excuses to skirt around the issue, but the facts remain that for the majority of sports female participation is significantly lower than male participation.
There are exceptions, but in general this statement holds.

If its any consolation I am seeing more women on bikes, but that maybe due to just a general rise in amount of bikers.
Would be interested in seeing a cross sport study of partipation rates.

Chips Lovell

I agree with Dirk and ROK_ON. You're asking the wrong question. It really should be why are most sports male dominated.

For me it comes down to nuture and not nature. Traditionally, girls haven't received as much encouragement to participate in sports as boys have. It was partly down to parents but also due to the lack of opportunities to participate at an early age. For example, in my primary school there were hurling and football teams for the boys, but precious little for the girls. Our local girls secondary school was a bit better and it had a few sports going on, but by the time someone hits secondary school at 13 or so, their attitudes are already formed. This is backed up by the fact that a lot of the sports that are strong with women such as camogie and hockey are all sports with a strong schools representation.

Things are improving though. I don't have kids, but most of my peers who do I think would be far more inclined to encourage their daughters as much as their sons.

I also think it's a bit of a red herring to say that women like the social aspect of sport. Consider the number of guys who line out on football and rugby teams every Sunday as an excuse to spend the rest of the day drinking with their team mates. If anything, I'd say women are more inclined towards solitary exercise, possibly because they haven't had a background in team sports. Gender balance is far more even in the number of people you see out running or working out at the gym.

As for cycling, you're asking the question at a time when female particpation is actually increasing fairly rapidly. My club ran a women's league this year and even those organising it, who would be among the most enthusiastic people I know in terms of promoting women's cycling, were surprised (and thrilled) at the numbers signing on.

Finally, it's a serious discussion of women in sport. Do we really need to start posting pictures of tits?

ROK ON

On the nature v nurture thing I am becoming highly confused. My eldest daughter is almost 6.
While she likes riding her bike she can be pretty dismissive of team sports (football etc) which she dismisses as a boys sport. Now I have never suggested or intimated that there is a boy sport. On the other hand she goes to dance class and loves it, but already the views that as a girls sport.

She goes to an all girl school and they do play basketball which I gather she doesn't particularly enjoy.
In the end I would like my kids to try lots of sports and find what is the most enjoyable for them. However already there are resistances to certain sports building.
Nature?

jwshooter

DirkVoodoo wrote: »

Most sports tend to be though, I'm trying to think of exceptions: athletics, tennis, golf, hockey, etc. I think the latter 2 appeal because they tend to have active club and social scenes. Cycling can be quite antisocial at times, what with the solo training, racing and a lot of clubs don't tend to be very active outside of cycling (I mean, you don't go for lunch in the clubhouse after a race).

Maybe it's a school thing, I know my sister and cousins went to a school that only really played hockey and tennis, which is something they all still play.

If the ladies racing scene is anything to go by here, it's that the ladies enjoy racing amongst themselves and more of them get out to race when they know they can meet up and have fun with the girls, just like Cyndi said.

you forgot "BINGO" a very female dominated activity

StudentC

There's an interesting Irish Sports Council / ESRI report on participation in sport here.

One of their conclusions:

"The picture is radically different in adulthood, when the choice of sports and decision to participate are more firmly in the control of the individual. Men and women appear to have the same propensity to drop out from sport or take up new sports. The continuing gender gap in participation by men and women, therefore, appears to reflect the continuing influence of their experience of sport as children; the strong or weak association with playing sport it endowed them with.
It is, therefore, difficult to avoid the conclusion that girls and, by extension, women, have been and probably continue to be short-changed by their sporting experiences as children".

This seems to confirm then anecdotal experience of some of the posters above - girls' experience of sport at secondary school has a significant influence on their attitudes as adults.

Elsewhere in the report it reports on gender differences in participation in team sports vs individual sports as adults - women more likely to run/go to gym etc than team sports.

ROK ON wrote: »

On the nature v nurture thing I am becoming highly confused. My eldest daughter is almost 6.
While she likes riding her bike she can be pretty dismissive of team sports (football etc) which she dismisses as a boys sport. Now I have never suggested or intimated that there is a boy sport. On the other hand she goes to dance class and loves it, but already the views that as a girls sport.

She goes to an all girl school and they do play basketball which I gather she doesn't particularly enjoy.
In the end I would like my kids to try lots of sports and find what is the most enjoyable for them. However already there are resistances to certain sports building.
Nature?

Is it really nature though? You haven't influenced her one way or the other, but what about other people and generally what she sees around her? Her dance class might be predominantly girls - therefore she sees it as a girls' sport. Football / rugby / hurling / soccer on the telly - all she sees is men. Local park or pitch on a sunday - men playing matches or having kickarounds. Although female participation in traditionally male sports is increasing, it still tends to be less 'visible' - less TV coverage, newspapers etc but also at a local level - girls training on a back pitch while the boys are on the main pitch etc.

Chips Lovell

ROK ON wrote: »

On the nature v nurture thing I am becoming highly confused. My eldest daughter is almost 6.
While she likes riding her bike she can be pretty dismissive of team sports (football etc) which she dismisses as a boys sport. Now I have never suggested or intimated that there is a boy sport. On the other hand she goes to dance class and loves it, but already the views that as a girls sport.

She goes to an all girl school and they do play basketball which I gather she doesn't particularly enjoy.
In the end I would like my kids to try lots of sports and find what is the most enjoyable for them. However already there are resistances to certain sports building.
Nature?

I think kids can also be influenced by their peers, particularly when it comes to what's cool or not. While you may not have said anything to encourage this view, she may have picked it up elsewhere.

seamus

ROK ON wrote: »

However already there are resistances to certain sports building.
Nature?

Possibly a little bit of both. You could argue that either gender are going to be primarily attracted to activities which their peers are engaging in. So something seen as a "boys' sport" will be less attractive because they have no peers to join in that sport, and they risk ridicule. You also have to consider role models. Little girls will identify with celebrity women - you don't see many celebrity female basketballers, but tennis players or dancers, you see plenty of role models there. That's nurture.

At the same time, we tend to be attracted to sports that we're good at. If you're not very good at something, you don't enjoy it. By and large, women have poorer spatial skills than men, so sports which rely heavily on spatial awareness - football, basketball, etc - tend to attract men more than women. Of course, there are exceptions such as tennis and hockey which are as popular if not more popular with women than men.

It's hard to pin down any particular set of criteria to separate "mens" sports from "womens" sports - perhaps the nurture argument is the most compelling. You could argue that things which require fine motor control - such as dancing - are more female oriented because women have better fine motor control, but then you see golf, where motor control counts for 90% of your shot (as opposed to strength or spatial awareness), and it too is male-dominated.

Ironically what both genders seem to miss when growing up is that a women in a male-dominated sport can often be exceptionally sexy and a man taking part in a female sport has access to lots of women, if even to just practice talking to them

I don't know if it's just me, but I have noticed a lot more women on bikes since the B2W scheme started (including one girl I passed who had been hit by a car on the Rathgar road this morning), and I've even heard women in work talking about switching to road bikes and going out on spins at the weekend. Maybe it's the fine weather - easier to spot lady curves in tight clothing, but the number of even female POBs seems to have shot up over the last 2/3 months.

Caroline_ie

Lumen wrote: »

I am always tremendously impressed when I see a lady on a bike, and I try to offer encouragement either by wolf-whistling or shouting something supportive like "Go baby!".

I was pee'd off at last year's WW200 when a man passed me and said ' Good girl' ... I was fuming!

jwshooter wrote: »

possibly they might miss the soaps ,when out training of a eve.

Balls to that ... you can watch them on the internet players!

Victor wrote: »

Most of the female cyclists I know are not Irish.

I am not but most of the girls I meet at the races are Irish.

DePurpereWolf wrote: »

It's much less a male sport in the rest of the world. I guess woman here are afraid of the potholes and a-holes on the road.

I have cycled in France for days in a row and never met another women cyclist... people were taking photos of me in St Jean de Luz last year as I was passing by ... weird.

I only took up cycling in 2007. I had bought a road bike in 2006 to lose weight. A lot of women do sports to lose weight or maintaim weight.

A lot of women when they have children also don't have the time to get out on a 8 hour bike ride, but their husbands will... ( why is that )

I was at a club race last night, there was about 80 men and 2 women, so I got dropped eventually ...

I am not sure what to say about this, I am not the girly girl type, I dont spend hours on my hair or enjoy shopping at the weekend or meeting up 'with my girls' for a chat, I've no children etc, having said that i know ladies with children and more girly than I am who cycle at higher level than me.

Actually I am too tired to think of it. Yeah, few women cycle that means I get all the points and I am 2nd in the Ladies table of the club league ... when I am not even that good. 'good girl' me!

rflynnr

ROK ON wrote: »

On the nature v nurture thing I am becoming highly confused. My eldest daughter is almost 6.
While she likes riding her bike she can be pretty dismissive of team sports (football etc) which she dismisses as a boys sport. Now I have never suggested or intimated that there is a boy sport. On the other hand she goes to dance class and loves it, but already the views that as a girls sport.

She goes to an all girl school and they do play basketball which I gather she doesn't particularly enjoy.
In the end I would like my kids to try lots of sports and find what is the most enjoyable for them. However already there are resistances to certain sports building.
Nature?

+1 on the effect of extra-parental nurturing. Steeped as I am in cultural studies, feminist perspectives on representation etc., I have gone out of my way to encourage both my girls to participate in all sports. I've had minor successes with cycling, swimming and gymnastics but the idea of playing Gaa (Na Fianna's just around the corner) or soccer is anathema to them. Why would I expect it to be otherwise when virtually every media representation of those sports exclusively depicts men at play rather than boys?

Indeed, in a way, I'm almost grateful cycling receives such poor media coverage since otherwise I'm afraid it too would lodge in their perceptions as a sport for boys.

The way I see it is that culture is likely to win out over anything I say until they're of an age where I can sit them down and start chatting (alright lecturing) about the effect of cultural representations, patriarchy yadda, yadda, yadda. Until then they're wearing pink.

RobFowl

@ Caroline

This is a male only discussion I'm afraid.

joker77

I've another question to add - why is cycling such a white people's sport?

Seems a bit odd.

thirtythirty

joker77 wrote: »

I've another question to add - why is cycling such a white people's sport?

Seems a bit odd.

To put it bluntly:

Asian - amazing technically, not great physically i.e. ping pong.
Black - amazing physically i.e. running
Caucasian - somewhere in the middle. i.e. cyclists are amazing athletes, but at the same time, they're still sitting down! Cycling's too physical for asian, but not physical enough for black!

Generalisation I know, but generalisations have to have some basis in order to become a generalisation!

ROK ON

@Seamus. I wasn't at all aware of the spatial versus motor skills difference amongst genders.

Could if true explain a lot. My daughter is terrified of being hit by the ball when we play ball outside. However if we go swimming or hillwalking she has no fears and pretty good balance.

I accept media representation of sports as influencing. Yet if the motor v spatial skill hold up then it could explain lower versus higher predisposition to certain sports?

seamus

joker77 wrote: »

I've another question to add - why is cycling such a white people's sport?

Same reason that golf is. Money.

I wasn't at all aware of the spatial versus motor skills difference amongst genders.

They're trends obviously more than actual limits. Plenty of women will display high spatial skills and plenty of men will have great fine motor control (you need this to play many instruments), but by and large each gender is stronger in their respective areas.

Lumen

spottyelephant wrote: »

To put it bluntly:

Asian - amazing technically, not great physically i.e. ping pong.
Black - amazing physically i.e. running
Caucasian - somewhere in the middle. i.e. cyclists are amazing athletes, but at the same time, they're still sitting down! Cycling's too physical for asian, but not physical enough for black!

Generalisation I know, but generalisations have to have some basis in order to become a generalisation!

Interesting theory. I think you should write a book about the struggle white people have to overcome physical domination by black people. You could call it "My Struggle".

la calera

Most women who participate in sport/exercise either walk, jog/run, swim, tennis, pilates, etc all non team sports that involve little investment and really just involve you persuading one friend to walk/jog etc with you. So, added to that the cost of cycling is an issue – it’s difficult to justify E800+ on a road bike, if you’re thinking of taking up cycling….so unless you are already involved/accustomed to team sports (most guys play 5AS or something) its quite a leap of faith!

Ok – here’s another issue – the gear. Women are much more body conscious than men, so the thoughts of pulling on lycra (which doesn’t to much to hide anything) is an issue!

Also, on what Caroline_ie says…I’m also not a girly girl in many ways. Later, I’m cycling home with an angle grinder and hack saw in my rucksack that I've borrowed off a guy in work….this isn’t a normal occurrence, but none of my friends would be that surprised (about it) if I told them….

joker77

spottyelephant wrote: »

To put it bluntly:

Asian - amazing technically, not great physically i.e. ping pong.
Black - amazing physically i.e. running
Caucasian - somewhere in the middle. i.e. cyclists are amazing athletes, but at the same time, they're still sitting down! Cycling's too physical for asian, but not physical enough for black!

Generalisation I know, but generalisations have to have some basis in order to become a generalisation!

I take it this is a poor attempt at humour yea?

If not, wow. Issues.

joker77

seamus wrote: »

Same reason that golf is. Money.

Yea I know I was thinking that - but there isn't the same barrier to entry as golf.

And the amount of cycling in particularly Asia, it's hard to see why it isn't more popular as a sport there

RobFowl

joker77 wrote: »

Yea I know I was thinking that - but there isn't the same barrier to entry as golf.

And the amount of cycling in particularly Asia, it's hard to see why it isn't more popular as a sport there

Look at the Asia Calendar it's huge there.
Stage races pretty much every week sometimes overlapping.
Expect a big breakthrough over the next few years.

RobFowl

spottyelephant wrote: »

To put it bluntly:

Asian - amazing technically, not great physically i.e. ping pong.
Black - amazing physically i.e. running
Caucasian - somewhere in the middle. i.e. cyclists are amazing athletes, but at the same time, they're still sitting down! Cycling's too physical for asian, but not physical enough for black!

Generalisation I know, but generalisations have to have some basis in order to become a generalisation!

:eek:

manwithaplan

A lot of women when they have children also don't have the time to get out on a 8 hour bike ride, but their husbands will... ( why is that )

I think this is a significant factor. Myself and my wife try to give and take as much as we can. She goes out for a run while I get the kids ready each weekday morning and I get up at the crack of dawn on Sunday mornings for a few hours on the bike.

However, cycling is very time consuming and the situation described above persists. Any of my friends that play golf managed to maintain their habit after the kids arrived but their wives' activities were much more severely curtailed. It seems to me that most female golfers take it up later in life.

I suppose it should be acknowledged that most mothers and fathers don't want to burn their weekends away from their children and, of course, there's not much that can be done about the later stages of pregnancy and the first few months of childrens lives.

It's a pity that there isn't greater female early involvement in team sports because my female friends who have remained active in sport throughout the childrearing phase have tended to be involved in those sports. I suppose it's hard to let the team down, there are fixed times for matches and training so less discretion, it's where they meet their friends etc.

I don't know enough about cycling but I think it might be hard to maintain it at a somewhat serious level in those years in the typical (but changing) Irish family.

godihatedehills

Maybe the women are just too busy off learning how to spell the word 'cycling'.....

joker77

RobFowl wrote: »

Look at the Asia Calendar it's huge there.
Stage races pretty much every week sometimes overlapping.
Expect a big breakthrough over the next few years.

Cheers - did not know that. Yea admittedly I was thinking about the big races on the European calendar

rottenhat

On the basis of my extremely limited experience of watching one triathlon, it seems like there are far more women doing that than road cycling exclusively - it still wasn't a 50-50 gender balance but I'd estimate that at least a quarter if not a third of the competitors were women. I've heard speculation more than once that this may be because it's a fairly new sport and doesn't have an established (and somewhat sexist) culture in the way that cycling does.

Chips Lovell

rottenhat wrote: »

I've heard speculation more than once that this may be because it's a fairly new sport and doesn't have an established (and somewhat sexist) culture in the way that cycling does.

I think there's an element of truth to that as well. Some men in the sport don't help, whether its the "go baby" type of comments, the overly patronising advice or just sheer muppetry, like those two lads who caused a crash in the first round of the Women's National League.

nak

Women's cycling doesn't get much coverage in the media unless it's during the Olympics, so unless you know someone who races, it's hard to find out what is out there.

I am not particularly into traditional girly pastimes either, and not white or Irish for that matter. Cycling is sadly still seen as a white, European male sport. It is also expensive. I didn't know anyone who was in a cycling club when I was a kid, everyone played rugby, tennis or hockey. Didn't start cycling until I was in my late 20s when I met my husband who encouraged me to get a bike.

From my experiences the racing side of women's cycling isn't very sociable, but the leisure/sportive side of things is. Hopefully with more numbers racing now things will improve.

L'Enfer du Nord

Triathlon definitely has more women, I also think (without evidence to back it up) that those women are more likely to come from a running or swimming background, also seem to be less keen on cycling of the three disciplines. I’d say swimming could be close to 50/50 too. If you go to a pool during lane swimming the gender balance could easily be 50/50.
I’ve heard the chunky legs argument too, also my sister on seeing the womens road race at the olympics asked me if professional women cyclists wore nappies!

manwithaplan

Actually, my parents met in a cycling club (St. Brendan's on Morehampton Road - think they were affiliated to Shay Elliott's club for racing) in the 1950s and they say that there was a fair amount of female participation at the time. All my mother's sisters cycled too.

My father built a fixed gear bike for my mother and gave it to her as a birthday present - that must have sealed the deal!

DirkVoodoo

I think any racial differences are down to culture and not physical attributes. Go to Africa and see how obsessed they are with football now. Why? Well, look at the increasing numbers of African players dominating world football (Drogba, Essien = legends, btw!) who are also living amazing lives of celebrity while earning mega bucks! For all those little Ghanaian kids kicking a ball around on a sandy pitch, it's a dream, a ticket out of a life of farming earning minimum wage. I don't think it's because someone bought them a Colnago for their birthday and they decided "nope, not physical enough for me".

Or are you going to tell me that Brazilians have a footballing gene too, or Russians have a chess playing gene? All these countries that excel at a sport can have their roots traced to some kind of natural cultural evolution (well, Russia's might have been more forced).

I mean look at Ireland, I'm pretty sure there is a reason we are a good rugby nation and not a great cricket one?? Genetics??

Pete Bondurant

spottyelephant wrote: »

Asian - amazing technically, not great physically i.e. ping pong.
QUOTE]


Where's Shimano from again? And apparently there's over 9 million bicycles in Bejing.

BryanL

DePurpereWolf wrote: »

Those legs don't look that chunky.
(look at the legs)

I've stared at that picture and i can't even see her legs.

But if she was on irish roads, a lot of lads would be killed in RTA's

StudentC

rottenhat wrote: »

On the basis of my extremely limited experience of watching one triathlon, it seems like there are far more women doing that than road cycling exclusively - it still wasn't a 50-50 gender balance but I'd estimate that at least a quarter if not a third of the competitors were women. I've heard speculation more than once that this may be because it's a fairly new sport and doesn't have an established (and somewhat sexist) culture in the way that cycling does.

I think you're right. It seems to me that the range of people taking up triahtlon here as complete beginners is really wide - men and women of alot of ages. also, it's different to cycling in that there isn't the same degree of tactics and group work. Maybe this makes it a bit more attractive than cycling because you can go in as a complete beginner and race immediately without the pressure of having to ride in a group, and the inevitability of being dropped off a group like in a cycling race.

I (accidently) ended up riding the route of the duathlon in the Phoenix Park the other night and was struck by the variety of competitors - men/women old/young fat/skinny race bikes/hybrids - a much less intimidating enviornement than a road race i'd imagine.

ROK ON

I was at a training weekend last week. 30 cyclists. I would imagine that about 8-10 ladies cycling. All seemed pretty accomplished cyclists.

jimm

StudentC wrote: »

I (accidently) ended up riding the route of the duathlon in the Phoenix Park the other night and was struck by the variety of competitors - men/women old/young fat/skinny race bikes/hybrids - a much less intimidating enviornement than a road race i'd imagine.

You may well have been spotted too

See post 3969 in The Broomwagon. You???

Caroline_ie

jimm wrote: »

You may well have been spotted too

See post 3969 in The Broomwagon. You???

yes, that's her. Spotted!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I will not post the photo for the sake of Euroness

StudentC

jimm wrote: »

You may well have been spotted too

See post 3969 in The Broomwagon. You???

Indeed!

Caroline_ie wrote: »

yes, that's her. Spotted!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I will not post the photo for the sake of Euroness

I never have and never will claim Euroness

jimm

StudentC wrote: »

Indeed!



I never have and never will claim Euroness

Be careful out there............Big Brother is Watching You*



*(and not the C4 Prog):D

IM0

ROK ON wrote: »

You can try and use a lot of excuses to skirt around the issue, but the facts remain that for the majority of sports female participation is significantly lower than male participation.
There are exceptions, but in general this statement holds.

thats the harsh truth and seems to have been the way since at least the gladiators time. Its not just sport either, look at the army, male doninated it goes back to the beginning of time, men chased food/killed each other and women cooked it
I really dont mean to cause ANY offence with that seriously ladies Im all for women in sport and even kicking some guys asses more power to ye's, but the fact is there is a gender imbalance in practically everything in life, and thats just the way it is.

Also out training I see a significant amount of them and even a few seperate ones on their own, and in group rides there are lots.

As for the why [almost coming at it from the descrimination point of view OP] they simply dont want to and has NOTHING to do with whether there are not enough resources to support more women in racing/sport.

Its just the way it [shrug]

CheGuedara

I was at coaching and sports ethics/child protection courses recently and both courses touched on without getting into huge depth the fact the most sports at foundation level up to something around under 14-16 level have a relatively good gender balance. At this point drop out becomes a more and more significant factor due to other influences (social & peer mostly) which sees a lot of young athletes leave their sport.

It was noted that the drop out rate is higher in girls than guys and despite a return to sport (usually not at high performance levels (national), but frequently at club levels) from mid/late-20s onwards for both men and women the proportion of women doing so is less - and that was given as a general rule for sport not just for cycling.

jwshooter

my better half trains and is a selector for a local club and county camogie teams , the under 14s are playing in cork in the morning ,the work and effort she puts in is unbelievable ,to make sure these youngsters enjoy the sport.

listing to her talking about the club /county senior team ,a lot of the girls are working away or married with young families there spare time is limited.

camogie is big in this area ,due to the interest of the primary school teachers in it .

lady are a lot more social and like having there piers with them .all joking aside we would love to see more of the fairer sex enjoying cycling .

im toying with the idea my buying my girl a bike

harringtonp

rottenhat wrote: »

On the basis of my extremely limited experience of watching one triathlon, it seems like there are far more women doing that than road cycling exclusively - it still wasn't a 50-50 gender balance but I'd estimate that at least a quarter if not a third of the competitors were women. I've heard speculation more than once that this may be because it's a fairly new sport and doesn't have an established (and somewhat sexist) culture in the way that cycling does.

There have been a lot of reasons why there are so few women cyclists and I reckon most have been off the mark. The post above is getting towards the point.

Basically competitive cycling is fairly elitist with a high entry level compared to other sports.

Running use to be like that, then the BHAA races were introduced, then the fun runs and things like the IMRA wednesday evening hill runs. So a bumblie like myself can enter a road race, run a few miles at 8 minute mile pace and still finish in the middle of the field. Basically these road races and hill runs (most of them) are all comer friendly. With less elitism you tend to get more sociability and that becomes a self feeding loop where you get a much better gender balance. Modern adventure racing is in the same category, loads of female participants.

With cycling, how many of you know of or have heard of women who have turned up for club Saturday/Sunday spins only to be dropped in the first few K and never come back again ? I know of a case of two. Not all clubs are like this but many are. And its sort of understandable as guys look forward all week to their weekend club spin and want to roll at a decent pace.

I've tried one cycle race, entered the A4 in whitechurch a few weeks ago. This is meant to be the "easiest" entry level category. I kept with the group for 3 of the 5 laps, then got dropped and finished the last 2 on my own. Didn't notice many others getting dropped, which meant on the day I was right near the bottom of the field. By comparison, did the TRI3 triathlon in Galway last week and my bike leg time was 10% of the way down the field. There were a lot of women participants and probably very few if any had a faster bike leg.

The conclusion has to be that the entry level in competitive cycling is high. Things are changing with sportives, this is popularising the sport, but if racing/clubcycling is to get a better gender balance the whole thing needs a lot of looking at.

The reason there is such a massive uptake in Triathlons is that like run races they are all comer friendly and no matter how weak you think you are, there are usually a few finishing behind you. Those right at the back of the field will usually breast stroke the swim, do the cycle on their old nellies and walk the run. And they will still be delighted at the end to be able to say they have completed a triathlon.

If you want to get competitive on a bike and you're not up to racing standard, then do Triathlons or Adventure races.

DePurpereWolf

el tonto wrote: »

...

Finally, it's a serious discussion of women in sport. Do we really need to start posting pictures of tits?

Image in sport is very important for women. Lots of women think that they get chunky legs, and that their butt's to big for cycling.

My point of the picture was that women do look good on the bike. Good example of that I believe is Leontien van Moorsel who always seems to wear make-up, even if she's winning a gold medal at the Olympics.

Women have boobs, get used to it.

IM0

harringtonp wrote: »

what you said

well sorry but the bar is actually very low tbh, the a4 group has only been introduced in the last couple of years. up untill then the lowest cat was a3, and was quite a bit harder racing. you/similar people need to understand that racing is racing its supposed to be competitive/hard if it was easy there would be no point to it!

this is the way it should be..you do some group rides, thats another thing, hold back on the generalisations when your basing it on probably your own county, and limited to at most a dozen? people who have similar views to yourself.

in the ideal world this is how it should be, you join a club at 10+ get introduced to bike riding, join a group of similar ages, go onto to underage racing cats -> juniour cats -> senior cats, but never mind the ladies for a minute, how many lads do you know started racing in the youngest underage cats? I would guess not many in general, I would say most come to racing in the late stages of junior cats, and a significant amout after they are seniors too.

so the reality is to a newb, do some club rides, do some club races, do 1st open race and more often than not get blown out the back, realise thats how fast racing is, and that thats why its called racing, HTFU, go home train harder, do next races till find your feet and BAM! your hooked...or not
instead 1st race get dropped, decide it isnt for you and quit and go back to riding your bike at whatever pace you want [there are leisure categories in alot of clubs;)]

doctor evil

It would help if women weren't refered to as girls (I know a couple were talking about kids)