She should stop whining and go design the stuff she thinks is missing from the industry.

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Michael

yes, irritating and whiny

from conversations with casual riders, the biggest impediment to me seems to be that people are scared to ride on the roads (for good reason) and there aren't a lot of alternatives

it's a lot easier to buy a pair of running shoes (or hiking boots).

I find rear jersey pockets very useful... and arm warmers are great, but if she doesn't like them, there are plenty of long sleeve jerseys to choose from. As for bibs... no one is forcing her to buy those... there are plenty of bibless options. Also plenty of jerseys not covered in logos. Also, plenty of saddle variety and innovation these days. So all of those complaints are pretty much BS. Now if she feels that women are not getting enough attention, it's kind of a chicken/egg problem. Lots of marketing dollars are not spent directed at them because many more men buy bikes, but maybe (?) you could get more women to buy bikes if you marketed to them better? I think she just likes being outraged.

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Ed O'Malley
www.VeloVetta.com
Founder of VeloVetta Cycling Shoes
Instagram • Facebook

This is exactly the kind of uneducated bitchyness, that can make heterosexuals gay. This woman has no clue about anything but keeps on nagging. No flat pedals? No shoues you can walk (ever seen a MTB shoe???) No loose fitting clothes (freeride anyone)?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOSseI1hao8

This is why my wife rides a lot less than I do, and then only on the local canal path. She runs and walks though, feels much safer. I also think the story writer is whiny.

I wonder, how much growth has there been in sporting goods? Golf has grown*, but others? My money says the markets for skiing, tennis, racketball, team sports equipment have all gone down.

*I am guessing on this, but given its appeal to lots of otherwise-inactive heavy drinkers, it has characteristics not shared by other sports that generally require participants to sweat.

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De que depende?

I ride with a lot of women. They don't seem to be suffering the same burden as the OP. They just put the hurt on me routinely.

I think there's so much wrong with that article it's hard to know where to begin.

After reading this article, the only item of women's clothing there's an obvious need for is a pair of shorts impervious to sand infiltration.

I honestly wouldn't let my g/f ride on most of the roads here. We take the trails when we ride which is about all I ride on now. I prefer for neither of us to get killed and there aren't enough roads here that allow that.

that should be plural, if any of those things were actually elephants in the room and they aren't.

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Kat Hunter reports on the San Dimas Stage Race from inside the GC winning team
Aeroweenie.com -Compendium of Aero Data and Knowledge
Freelance sports & outdoors writer Kathryn Hunter

The author seems pretty determined to be unhappy. My wife rides a lot and has a full spectrum of clothing--the tight, serious stuff for racing, then more feminine togs when she's going for a social ride. In my experience, the LBSs around us have a pretty balanced mix of clothes for women depending on what they want. They also have full runs of women-specific bikes available for testing.

As far as saddles...again I'm really not sure what she's looking for. Specialized makes a great effort on female-specifc saddles in a full spectrum of price ranges.

Does the industry objectify women? Sure, some do--check out any Assos catalog. I think it's cheap, uncreative marketing, but it happens in almost every industry.

In the end I think her anger is misplaced and she's dead set on not seeing what strides the cycling industry is making to include women. The days of 'shrink it and pink it' are passing.

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Riding the Awesome Train With: Dark Horse Coaching

She seems angry!

twomarks

no innovation in 20 years? Plus all those other complaints, I bet she does her shopping at a department store and rides an old 10 speed.

*snerk*

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Some are born to move the world to live their fantasies...

https://triomultisport.com/
http://www.mjolnircycles.com/

My wife has been enjoying cycling and triathlons for a couple of years and, up until now, has been painfully unaware of this discrimination. I'm sending her this article so she can get pissed off too.

Well I'm new to this whole thing, and I'll never be a proper cyclist because I don't shave my legs, but I have to say, I'm not at all shocked that the first posts on this forum are all dismissive of anything she has to say. Way to prove her sexism point fellas, especially with the "nag" comment. Yeah, no gender bias undertones in that at all.

Was the "internet forum-type douchebags" slam a bit too close to home or something?

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I'll tell you all right now, my seat is too low, I'm not aero and I carry too much fluid on the bike.

1) You are 100% correct that for every issue she named, there are plenty of readily available solutions and products on the market.

2) The "women's issue" is not new...it has been "the" hot topic / opportunity / you name it for 20+ years. Guess what - despite multiple attempts to create women specific products that aren't pink / form fitting / resized men's products / whatever, the issue remains. Almost every manufacturer has multiple lines dedicated to women-specific bicycles. There are MANY women specific clothing companies....and all remain relatively niche product lines / companies.

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Chicago Cubs - 2016 WORLD SERIES Champions!!!!

"If ever the time should come, when vain and aspiring men shall possess the highest seats in government, our country will stand in need of its experienced patriots to prevent its ruin." - Samuel Adams

I take issue with the fact that many of her 'problems' have already been solved. She doesn't like arm warmers. Okay get a long sleeved jersey. She doesn't like tight clothes - she could buy mountain bike gear or wear street clothes. She doesn't like garish colors or a bunch of coporate logos - I know there are jerseys and shorts that have neither of those qualities. She doesn't like the saddles she has tried - try some other ones. I don't care that she's a woman. If a man complained like that I would say he was irritating and whiny too. She claims that she would like biking and then basically lists all the reasons she doesn't. So stop. No one is making her bike. If things are that bad it sounds like she has an opportunity to start a business to met this allegedly unnoticed and unfulfilled need. If she posted on here I would point her in the direction of the cry like a little biatch thread cause that's about what 70% of that article was.

It just looks like a hack web writing piece to me. Plenty of this kind of debris out there on the internets. I have no idea what it's like to be a woman riding a bike, but I see plenty out there who seem to enjoy it. And the industry hasn't advanced? She should show up at a tri and take a look at all this "20 year old technology".

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Dale Stephanos (Formerly PappaD)

There are some nuggets of the truth in what she is saying. Other things - possibly facts stretched a bit. Regarding the last point, she says that the industry has not grown - but how is she or whoever is doing this, describing "the industry"? There are many people that own bikes - I see bikes in the garages of many of the homes in my neighborhood, but they never get ridden. But the numbers of actually active bikes out on the roads & trails, be they road bikes, tri-bikes, MTB bikes or commuter bikes taken in total is WAY higher than it was 15 - 20 years ago Just do a count of entries in triathlons, century rides, granfondos and MTB events - it's has to be WAY higher than 15 - 20 years ago. So perhaps the total number of bike customers is the same, but the numbers of people that would describe themselves as "serious cyclists", is much higher.

As to the nuggets of truth - She's right about the woman's market, many Manufacturers/Wholesalers and retailers, have got it all wrong. Those growth numbers I talked about above, for the "serious" riders, it's probably a three-fold growth number for women, but many in the business don't seem to get this at all. Everyone in the business who does not get this does this at their peril, because it is the women, the better, half who are the real shoppers amongst men and women taken together. Why would you turn your back on all these potential keen customers?

As for the marketing - there has been some cool promotions and marketing over the years, but by and large at a high level the marketing and promotion has not gone beyond:

Buy my bike/stuff because:
A) so and so uses it
B) It's cool
C) It's fast

The reason that many more don't ride in North America, is a combination of culture and infrastructure. Cycling is not part of the culture - for adults in particular, It's something that kids do, but even that has been curtailed as kids really don't roam around freely like we did a generation ago. On the infrastructure front - almost the whole of North America has been built out over the last 50 years with the assumption that everyone, will drive a motor vehicle everywhere. There is almost ZERO planning for bikes or thought that anyone would ride a bike anywhere. This is starting to change, but it's like a drop of water in an Olympic sized swimming pool! Now if gas prices in North America doubled or tripled . . . . .??

I live less than a kilometer from a great shopping plaza - that has everything I could want there. On a bike I can be there in a few minutes. There has to be several thousand houses or more all within 1 - 2 kilometers of this plaza. When it first opened I recall riding my city bike over to do some shopping, but there was no suitable place to lock the bike up, anywhere. No bike racks . . nothing. I inquired with the store manager, about this. " Great store. Glad you are in the neighborhood, but there is no proper place to lock a bike up out side. No bike racks" She said to me, " Bike racks? We never even thought of that" . . and that's my point, planning for bikes never even is thought about at any level!

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

OK, I can see what you're saying, but the thrust of the article was about cycling reaching into new markets. I'm not a marketing person, or an analyst, so I read it as a total layman. It sounds to me like her perspective is one of a marketing consultant. You want to grow the market? Consider branching out from these rigid expectations.

So let me ask then, what about the less clothing-centric point about putting ads for bikes in non-bike magazines? Reaching into new territory to market to people who weren't already looking for bike ads in a bike magazine. Is this an approach that makes sense?

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I'll tell you all right now, my seat is too low, I'm not aero and I carry too much fluid on the bike.

The primary issue she's trying to make is that for the past 20 years there has been zero growth in the total revenue of the cycling industry from a bikes, equipment and apparel being sold. $6billion then. $6billion now.

What's happening deeper down is that the number of bikes being sold in the USA is going down (dramatically) but the average unit price is going up. Less kids bikes, less BMX bikes, less department store specials - more road, tri, 29ers, and fancy city bikes. To over simplify the problem WAY fewer kids are riding to school or for recreation - city streets are getting more dangerous to ride on. But at the same time cycling is becoming more popular for recreation and for competition. So more people are riding more often... but less people are riding in total. make sense?

more cycling but / less bikes being sold.

I'm not sure the solution is better saddles and looser fitting clothing - the solution is more bike lanes and easier education for people on why they should walk or ride on trips less than 2 miles (about 40% of all trips in the US).

That I might question, but I wouldn't take umbrage at the idea that the industry could do more to try and get new customers. It's easier for them to get already established customers in to buy. Just think of the n+1 rule. Once people get started on cycling they can end up being cash cows. I'll probably be as many bikes as I can afford from now until I'm too old to ride just because there's always a niche I haven't got filled or a new bike better than what I have. As others have pointed out there are lots of barriers to newer people entering the market many of which bike companies have little control over - culture, infrastructure, and in this day and age physical ability (i.e. there are many people too fat to get on a bike). That doesn't mean that I think marketing outside of the current riders is never going to pay off, but I can see why a company would be reticent about advertising to non-riders.