Welcome ladies!

Ha...well, I can't stop em. Oh well!!

Hi everyone,

I've just joined on the recommendation of Alex Crawford of Southwark Cyclists. I'm looking to speak to people about Critical Mass for an article for the Guardian bike blog and Alex suggested this forum would be a good place to try. Because I just joined I'm not allowed to start a new thread, so I thought I'd mention it here. Hope that's not against the rules.

If you're a London CM veteran and fancy talking to me about the way the ride has evolved over the years, get in touch. My email's contact@jocaird.com. Feel free to pass on to anyone who you think might be up for helping.

Thanks,

Jo

PS. I don't have a single speed bike, but I've always wanted one.

Just wanted to say Hi

I'm new here, and I actually live in Sweden. We have a FG-site in Sweden as well but I'm almost the only girl there, so I wanna hang with U if that's OK?

I built my first fixed a little more than a year ago (a conversion of a Crescent). Since I bought a way to big frame, I built a new one on a smaller Bianchi.

I'm on a limited budget, but I want to build a new one, with an even smaller frame, and a friend has a small Merckx waiting for me. Something to do when winter comes :)

I don't know what more to write. :/

You're more than welcome here n00b!
Whereabouts in Sweden are you?

Hi Jo,

Is the article women specific in relation to CM?
If not you might be better posting this in one of the critical mass threads (http://www.lfgss.com/thread33726.html) rather than the ladies forum if you want better coverage.

if you wait 24 hours you should come out of the nursery and be able to start a new thread as well.

Hi everyone,

I've just joined on the recommendation of Alex Crawford of Southwark Cyclists. I'm looking to speak to people about Critical Mass for an article for the Guardian bike blog and Alex suggested this forum would be a good place to try. Because I just joined I'm not allowed to start a new thread, so I thought I'd mention it here. Hope that's not against the rules.

If you're a London CM veteran and fancy talking to me about the way the ride has evolved over the years, get in touch. My email's contact@jocaird.com. Feel free to pass on to anyone who you think might be up for helping.

Thanks,

Jo

PS. I don't have a single speed bike, but I've always wanted one.

You're more than welcome here n00b!
Whereabouts in Sweden are you?

Thank you!
I live in Malmö (in the south of Sweden) :)

Malmo is cool, I went there for the day once across the epic bridge from Copenhagen.
Eurovision is going to be awesome there next year!

Oh Eurovision ladies trip next yr?! :)

Oh Yay! Yes, please come!!!

Maybe I can fix so that the Un Giro Di Sporco Sud will be held around the same time as the Eurovision! Please come and join me in the UGDSS! This year I was the only girl. Which meant that I won the award for "Best Female", but considering it was on WO it didn't feel as such an accomplishment. (But I won a Chrome bag! Yay!!! Use it every day! Love it!)

Possibly the UGDSS isn't as famous as I would wish, so I post a link to the movie from 2010.
http://www.ungirodisporcosud.com/2011/se.html
Couldn't find the movie from the race in 2012, but it was an even better race! Beautiful weather, wonderful pistas, lovely company and loads of sweet fixies!

Cooooome! Joooooin meeee!

Hi thread, I'm new. I said hello in the main welcome thread, but on top of being a cyclist, I'm also a lady on a bike. So hello everyone

Hi! We have drinks coming up at the end of the month if you're in London and want to come say hi to some people in real life: [Ladies Drinks - Wedsnesday 24th October, Miller Pub http://www.themiller.co.uk/

](https://www.lfgss.com/thread60322.html)

Thread title is wrong.. see the last page!

Hello there. I'm Caz - I just signed up and thought I'd say hullo. I am based in Brighton and I was wondering whether anyone knows of any good communities for girl BMXers in Brighton or London?

I want to start riding but a bit scared to go out on my own. I've always wanted to BMX, but I never did because I'm a drummer and I was always aftraid of breaking something and not being able to play... but I'm having a break from drumming so I'd like to finally get BMXing!

Any advice and what not would be greatly appreciated :)

Welcome, Caz. I don't really know the BMX scene, but you could try nelaii or tika (both female) on here, as they're involved with Hackney BMX Club:

http://hackneybmx.com/

They might be able to give you further pointers.

Hi Oliver - thanks so much, that's awesome :)

Just saying hi, I am Dutch, and live in Belfast, Northern Ireland. The bit of the UK at the other end of the Irish Sea.

Cycling is like breathing for Dutch people, but generally we give little thought to our bikes. We get on them, and ride them.

Which is a bit harder in the UK with the potholed roads and not always getting right of way, but after 5 years of cycling here you get used to that too. See how I didn't mention the rain? Lots of rain in NL too ;)

In the UK there's a lively "cycling as a hobby" scene which lead from a roadster to a singledspeed (now a fixie, after I learned to use SPDs) and a touring bike.

Bike #3 has a childseat for the wee man but he's getting too heavy now at 20KG so time for a trailer.

Didn't notice much difference in treatment here luckily, doesn't matter if you're a male or female in the local bike scene. I get rather irate when I see female road bikes with flower prints (Trek I am looking at you!)

There's an outdoor track here, and a small bike enthusiast scene, along with critical mass/bike safety groups, several road clubs, mountainbike trails and cycling is on the up.

No bike polo (yet?) due to lack of numbers, Belfast isn't very big. Few girls on fixies, there aren't a lot of female road cyclists either, cycling is quite male orientated atm There are more woman commuting these days as numbers have gone up. No doubt that will change in time and the female cycling scene will grow.

Welcome, both. Nice little report, JWestland.

Ah the Guv'Nor looks so handsome :)

My oldest steed is a 2003-2004 Thorn XTC, 725 or 853 so should last for a long time. Did need some touch-ups. It's too bad a repaint with decals is so expensive, and the enamel cobalt blue paint is just too nice IMHO to strip for a cheap powdercoat.

Luckily Humbrol does some enamels in cobalt so I was out with the paintbrush and rustkiller a few weeks ago ;)

Hello ladies!
I'm Gloria and 've just said introduced myself in the General forum http://www.lfgss.com/post3359049-5564.html, very excited to meet more female cyclists to experience different dynamics as I'd been riding my bike with mostly men the past two years! Looking forward to joining some of your events! Cheers!!

^If you find cycling in London "terrifying" the best thing you can do is get some cycle training.
http://www.lfgss.com/forum49.html

You can almost certainly get it for free or for no more than £10 and it will help you enjoy cycling in London a lot more.

Thanks wiganwill! Will definitely look into joining one of those cycle trainings! :)

^If you find cycling in London "terrifying" the best thing you can do is get some cycle training.
http://www.lfgss.com/forum49.html

You can almost certainly get it for free or for no more than £10 and it will help you enjoy cycling in London a lot more.

Totally recommend this. I'd not cycled since childhood and the thought of cycling in London was so scary. So I signed up through Lambeth's scheme and they put me in touch with CTUK. My trainer was awesome (Vicky) and took me on the route I would take to work so we could look at possible trouble spots. Did wonders for my confidence as well as my cycling skills.

+1 to the cycle training. I had some with SkyDancer on here and it gave me a lot more confidence as well as kick me out of a couple of bad habits.

I signed up for a cycle training session via TFL last night and should be going for one soon! Also, I flipped off someone last night while riding... Bad habits from Beijing. They honked at me and I didn't think I was in the wrong so in shock and frustration showed them the finger. He didn't take it too kindly, drove up and told me to pull over. Then I realised they were park rangers or some sort. I need to get acquainted with the culture here before I get into trouble...

Oops! :-)