How to encourage more women to cycle?

From my experience my female friends won't consider cycling in London because of the heavy traffic and the perception that it is dangerous. Vanity might also play a part, along with cost of the bike and related clothing.

I started cycling after years spent watching the numbers of cyclists increase on my commute, coupled with the increase in my monthly travelcard costs and a deep loathing for using the underground during the rush hour. I learnt to ride at the age of 42 but didn't actually start riding consistently until I was 45. Now 4 years later I'm still scared but not enough to put me off cycling and I'm confident enough to hold the lane if I feel it makes me safer.

Cycle training helped me a lot and I'm not above having the occasional session just to remind me of best practice and reduce my propensity for 'dick' moves.

I try to encourage women I chat with to get on a bike but the 'dangerous traffic' view is difficult to overcome. Despite the low numbers I am encouraged by the increase I've seen since I first got on a bike. I'd like to see older women take up cycling too not just the younger ones.

I started cycling once I realised you could get panniers with flowers on them. Before that, no fucking way.

Same reason as Ed then.

hahaha!

http://www.redonline.co.uk/news/in-the-news/helmet-hair-fear-stops-cyclists

Arriving with ‘helmet hair’ stopped 27 per cent of women from cycling, while 19 per cent said they wouldn’t want their work colleagues to see them without make-up.

Blokes need to encourage their female friends to try it, and help them out. I'm aware that could imply "girls need help". I don't mean that at all. I mean that people new to cycling sometimes need help.

I built a fixed gear road bike for a friend last summer. She had always loved riding her mtb (flat out) around town but nothing more. Now she's a regular at the track and is booked for an accreditation course at Newport velodrome.

Another friend is really sporty (but has never cycled much) has just bought herself a road bike. I've helped her to get it to fit, and shown her how to setup the brakes and gears. I've also introduced her to my mountain biking friends, now she's riding trails every weekend and commuting by bike.

I'm not sure how this relates to LCC policies. But I know it works!

^^oh yes of course women are enslaved by make-up and hair products.

^^^ wtf?
I don't have much to contribute to this thread I don't think.
I would like to agree with BQ that in order to get more women to cycle, we simply need to encourage more people to cycle.

Perhaps the 'problem' is that current cyclists are weighted towards young, fit, intrepid, risk/rush-appreciating people. My brother-in-law was telling me that his workmate (who commutes by bike) told him he likes to cycle because he loves the thrill. As if it's a mini bungee jump every morning. So what I'm trying to say is that it's not just women who are put off cycling, it's anyone who's a bit nervous of traffic, doesn't feel 'sporty' or fast, doesn't want to look like a twit, thinks there will be too much sweating involved. So targetting women is a red herring (flowery hire bikes etc). Anyway, this is all speculation.

I, for one, would welcome a free waterproof mascara with every helmet sale.

Also Wiggle should start doing toolkits in pastel pink. That'll get the ladies in.

Not sure if you're being sarcastic about the pastel pink? For me (and this goes for running gear too), it's the hideous stereotypical girly colours which are so off putting!
No offense to anyone who likes these colours, men or women.

Things are better than they used to be but there is still far less choice for us.

Sweat and helmet hair. End of. Any mention of danger is secondary. Plenty of girls spend a long time in looking good for work, why ruin straightened hair and carefully applied makeup?

My gf commutes daily by bike, so this is slightly in jest, but I know plenty who'd never consider riding due to nothing more than arriving smart and ready to work.

I have to say that I've heard that argument (make up,hair) quite a few times. I guess for me it was never an issue because I don't really wear make up and almost always have my hair up.
Or maybe I should say I'm just a scruffy not girly enough girl? Any way, I don't like pink (apart from pink on Miss Lovely Jana Avellana D'Ribble ride)
Black ftw!

I think overwhelmingly it's a safety/fear of death thing but also the vanity side.

I think VeeVee makes a valid point with
6) how to manage a change of clothes at work
Personally I don't really bother with slap at work most days and don't really care about looking like a bit of a homeless but a few top tips about how to deal with the above could be useful to persuade people to getting rolling.

I would love to get my gf interested in cycling, I am watching this thread with baited breath....

Ask her what's holding her back and counter it!

Also, are you in Londons? Get her to come to a ladies drink and introduce her to us!

Also, are you in Londons? Get her to come to a ladies drink and introduce her to us!

The best selling point you can find!

Ha ha, I have asked, if I was in London I'd come down to ladies drinks with her and see if you couldnt work some magic.

If any of you are up in Edinburgh for the ECMC 2012 I'll bring her along to all the pub based events.

Not sure if you're being sarcastic about the pastel pink? For me (and this goes for running gear too), it's the hideous stereotypical girly colours which are so off putting!

That I agree, the general feedback I got from the women who's looking to buy a bicycle tend to be put off by the general colour scheme of the women bicycle;

Luckily when it come to hybrid, a lots of them fit on the men version rather well (if not a change of stem).

There are a complex set of reasons why anyone chooses to cycle and it is reductive to generalise about the gender statistics.

I do think that one aspect that encourages people to cycle is positive role models. There is no doubt I am inspired to cycle more both by people I know and by famous cyclists past and present (mainly past) that I admire.

If more women saw their female friends or women they respect cycling I believe it would continue to grow. For example, I think that if my gf had come to Rollapaluza at LMNH last week, she would have thought the women participants were awesome and would have been more inclined to get on a bike herself. It would have more of an effect than me encouraging her to cycle for sure.

What made me hesitate to cycle for many years were:

1) A deep dislike of motorised traffic: noise, pollution, aggression. Do I really want to be close to those beasts?
2) Knowing that it would take me a while to build the confidence and therefore scared of doing something stupid that could potentially hurt me or kill me
3) not knowing anything about bike mechanics - what to do when you have a puncture, can I be bothered to learn about bike maintenance, I can't do it, I don't like doing it etc.
4) what kind of bike to get?
5) parking and theft
6) how to manage a change of clothes at work

Véro, you've summed up the sentiments I've heard from my wife on the subject. After her bike was stolen just after she finished at university, there was an enforced haitus from riding, and then getting back into it never happened; and the fear-from-a-distance gradually increased. Number 6 doesn't really figure for her, but a hybrid of 5 & 6 i.e. parking at work, would be an impediment at the moment, were it not for the fact that she walks to work.

In recent years, since I've sorted out a new bike for her, she prefers to ride with me (leisure / utility), partly due to it being convenient to rely on my established mechanical savoir faire, partly because I tend to know a route, and partly because she feels less vulnerable to 101 Wankers type events happening. I don't want to dwell on the negative, but there is this reality of anti-cyclist invective also being tinged with misogyny/sexual harassment when it comes to the treatment of women cyclists; but, as with previous comments, this is an issue which is more to do with women in society rather than just women in cycling, and the lack of change in attitude amongst governing bodies, law enforcers, and some of the public at large.

MrsFix certainly spends a lot of time on the turbo trainer, though I'm not sure where this figures in the debate.

From speaking to all my non-cycling female friends, they don't cycle in London because they are convinced it is incredibly dangerous. Certainly news stories about women cyclists being more likely to be killed by lorries don't help, and I think non-cyclists see there being only one type of cycling - unsafe cycling, with nothing you can do make yourself safer.

A colleague who does cycle (of sorts) asked me the other day how I manage to go out after work when I cycle as how do I not get hot or get my hair messed up... so maybe the vanity/sweat thing has some part to play too.

A recurring point in this thread is that women perceive cycling in London to be dangerous. Given the dangers are blind to gender why is this a particular concern for women? Are they more likely to be aware of the risks?

It seems to me that women and men are equally likely to have a perception of the risks involved in cycling, but for more men the rewards outweigh the risks. I.e. framing the debate with respect to the risks is an incomplete picture and to encourage more women to cycle it would be better to focus on the reward side.

Lack of knowledge of London streets and the best (highly subjective) routes from A to B might also factor.

Felicity pointed out the last time we drove to Ikea that one of her Japanese students who she went on a ride with last summer had "discovered" a faster route... on the A40.

She did this, because she'd got hold of a load of cycling maps from the TFL (they're free or something), and was religiously following them (the Japanese way is to do what the government says), and found she'd be constantly lost down the back ways of Acton and Ealing. So she started trying to follow the biggest lines on the maps, which just turned out to be the major roads.

Anyhow, London's geography doesn't lend itself to being easily navigable if your only knowledge of what is where is based on the tube map, and only a little exposure to one area.

Street signs for cyclists do exist in some places, but if you try following them you find they're not entirely complete along a given route. So this Japanese girl felt that she would cycle more if she could just figure out how to get from A to B without existing only at the extremes of being lost, or being on a very scary road.

(this post is gender neutral and based on anecdotal record only - therefore, it should be considered hard fact and girls only for the purpose of all future posts)

I find this obsession with linking it back to male/female a bit baffling. The men I know who don't cycle don't cycle because they think it's dangerous too. Do the other non-cycling men people know have other reasons?

A friend of mine moved down to London a few months back, he wanted to get a bike, his girlfriend doesn't want him to because of the danger.

First of all, what a weak little man. Secondly though you can see how people perceive cycling as a dangerous option.

I find this obsession with linking it back to male/female a bit baffling. The men I know who don't cycle don't cycle because they think it's dangerous too.

I agree with this, as many men are put off by the risk just as many women are. But there is a statistically meaningful difference between the number of men and women cycling, so seeking to understand the issue in these terms is legitimate.