2013-07-07 - Rapha Women's 100 - Herne Bay

Rep for the Dr. I wonder what they'll come back with..

i hope you don't mind me stealing a few photos mec, i am gunna do a little write up for thenorthrace.co.uk about the ride, and photos are always good! if anyone else has any nice ones please share! :)

Ace photo mec!

I like the creepy "SOON" dude in the background of that pic.

got a few on instagram.com/manda_brot/ but will post a few on here once i get around to it.

Nice one Dr., I find it very difficult to believe that they couldn't have found a single woman to lead their ride - and I feel like it totally defeats the purpose of the whole thing.

"women, c'mon, you can do it! ride 100km (but only if a man is leading you...)"

All of the rep to the good Doctor! I was tweeting one of the women who took part in official Rapha ride (who tweetd "the Rapha Boys did us proud") and when I was all eh? whut? Doesn't that kind of defeat the point? She replied that she couldn't understand what point I was trying to make and "none of the women on the ride complained"

Apparently all of the Rapha approved female ride leaders were off at the L'Etape, but like others have said, I'm sure they could have found a willing female or two to lead. Seems all a bit of a swizz to be honest!

All of the rep to the good Doctor! I was tweeting one of the women who took part in official Rapha ride (who tweetd "the Rapha Boys did us proud") and when I was all eh? whut? Doesn't that kind of defeat the point? She replied that **she couldn't understand what point I was trying to make and "none of the women on the ride complained" **

Apparently all of the Rapha approved female ride leaders were off at the L'Etape, but like others have said, I'm sure they could have found a willing female or two to lead. Seems all a bit of a swizz to be honest!

Oh dear.

Nice pic mec.

Yeah, they had months of notice running up to the ride. I'm sure they could have trained a couple of their female staff to lead a ride if needed.

As for the women who didn't see the issue facepalm

I feel we need this cartoon by the fantastic Kate Beaton
http://www.harkavagrant.com/index.php

http://www.harkavagrant.com/nonsense/velocipedesm.png

Yeah, big loss of respect here for Rapha - you can't try and promote an event for women and then have a bunch of men lead it. Ditto the above facepalm too - I guess women are all for cycling, as long as they have a man to lead them, bring tools for them and help them fix their bike if something goes wrong. I remember doing a bike maintenance course once, which consisted of me and 5 ladies, none of whom had ever changed their own tube/tyre before. One of them actually said "I usually just get a guy to help me"

Le sigh.

Amazing work ladies - sounds like much fun was had. And good work for challenging Rapha - the idea that navigating a ride requires a y chromosome is beyond irritating.

Well, there's always a first time for everything--I'm sure it's not a mistake they'll repeat. Probably just a lack of forward planning in not noticing that there was a clash with the Etape rather than any kind of deliberation in imposing a man.

Obviously, mixed rides are fine but if you're going to do a women-only ride you might as well have it women-only, too. :)

The Etape was the reason they decided to organise this 100km women's thing. So you can't really say it was an oversight I'm afraid.

I suspect the reason is they simply didn't think it through

Oh, ha. Indeed not. Just shows what I know. :)

I suspect the reason is they simply didn't think it mattered actually. Or that women couldn't be trusted to lead a ride? I doubt they would have had a lack of interest had they asked for ladies to volunteer to lead it.

that's an awful lot of assumptions!

From organising cycling events and rides in the past then there is a public liability issue. Normally if you advertise an organised ride under a commercial name then you have to have an employee designated to lead as this covers insurances and liabilites. As has been stated, a lot of the female rapha employees were at the etape

And they couldn't have kept one behind to do the official London ride? No, because obviously they need to promote how amazing and equal opportunities they are by sending them all to the Etape for publicity

rolls eyes

Actually, from what I heard there was a women designated to lead it and she didn't show up so another guy stepped in.

There were something like 3 or 4 groups, so maybe all 3 or 4 women didn't turn up?

I got told from someone on the ride that Rapha HQ said that all the women leaders had gone to the Etape.

shrug whateves really, just seems like a really good opportunity missed for all concerned.

.

Lovely to meet you all, I shall train a bit more and try again =)

Women letting the side down! For shame! If that's the case it's a terrible pity.

Well, here is the reply. As poots says, it's rather was a rather good opportunity missed.

Hello Lan-Lan, my name's James. I'm Rapha's head of brand marketing. We set out to create an event for women but never suggested it would be completely exclusive, sorry if that's the impression you got. We only have a finite number of female staff and ambassadors and many of them were in France for the Etape so had to fill the gaps with men.

^Pft. Rapha=Rubbish.