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What Women Are Not Told

 Some of the best times I have enjoyed on this planet have been extended rides including overnight camping trips that involve riders of most ages and both genders. 
Yet the fear of not being strong enough or fast enough stops too many riders, especially women, from enjoying the freedom, the feeling of achievement and the 
camaraderie that comes from being on the road or trail together with their partners, friends or family.

And yes, it is true, enjoying such a journey can be dependent on knowing that you are not holding others up and not enduring pain!

As a regular long distance rider in mixed groups, I find that most strong riders are happy to adjust their pace or wait for anyone who is capable of staying in sight. It is not so much a gender thing but whether you are properly prepared and have a realistic assessment of your capabilities relative to that particular group.

There are many ways around this including maintaining the group pace for a shorter distance then building up your endurance until you can stay with the group for the full ride. Yet I find fitness and strength are NOT the main issues that undermine women as cyclists.

There is something more insidious before they even turn a pedal. After helping dozens of female family members and friends return to riding, I discovered an overwhelming obstacle that can kill the process before it starts.

It is called the “ladies” bike.

The ladies or girls bike is making a big comeback - for good reason when more women want to ride in street clothes and treat cycling as everyday transport. However, the classic bike design for women was established during a time when it was considered unladylike to ride a bicycle. It was a compromise that allowed women to step onto a bike in full period regalia without throwing a leg over the saddle. It was NOT designed for riding fast or for any distance. If you started cycling on a girls bike and are considering a return to cycling, you will find women’s cycling is at an unprecedented fork in the road.

There is a strong new demand for the original ladies bike for local shopping and transport. There are some classy new retro bikes at reasonable prices to meet this demand. Yet at the same time, more women are wanting to ride pedal to pedal with male riders on road and mountain bikes. If you are serious about doing any or all of these, the three requirements are now mutually exclusive.

The original ladies bike is a highly flawed piece of machinery that has skewed many women’s view of cycling for life. Any woman who insists on staying with this style of bike or anything that resembles it beyond local transport, is immediately opting for a 50-75% disadvantage in efficiency. If you insist on this brand of self-flagellation over any distance on a mixed ride, even the most tolerant female riders who know better are not going to wait around to watch you kill yourself.

Throw in some martyrdom: “I am not a good enough rider to warrant a decent bike” and the self-imposed handicaps can keep on growing. Cycling is one activity where good equipment is the difference between pleasure and pain, or more importantly, chronic injury. And you don’t have to spend much extra to experience a world of difference.

So what’s wrong with the ladies or girls bike?

As soon as you eliminate the top bar from a bike frame, you weaken it dramatically. That means the rider then wastes far too much pedalling motion as the weakened frame bends and twists. Even if you can’t feel it, it’s still happening, quietly wearing you out long before anyone else riding on a more rigid frame.

To counteract this loss of strength, the seat has to be placed much closer to the handlebars. This props the rider into an upright, sail-like position for maximum wind resistance. It also places all the rider’s weight on the seat, for a serious pain in the butt. To counteract this, these bikes must have wide cushioned saddles to soak up the bumps which have no where else to go in this design except straight up the rider’s spine. These cushy saddles have an unfortunate side effect. They are equally effective at soaking-up pedaling energy.

Because even a cushy seat struggles to look after a rider locked in this position, these bikes have fatter tyres than desirable which increases rolling resistance. And if that’s not enough, they force you to pedal in a stamping motion which might be fine for killing bull ants but useless in getting any real force to the pedals. This pedaling position also places more strain on your knees than desirable. It is the wheeled version of a side saddle on a horse, geared for the dress but not the person wearing it. As each compromise attempts to correct an inherently “wrong” design, the weight keeps adding up, the last thing any rider needs for maintaining speed and distance.

The problem is if you have been introduced to cycling via one of these bikes, it can be very difficult to let go of the notion of a wide, cushy seat, fat, balloon-like tyres and an upright riding position where you can touch the ground while still sitting on the bike. The notion of spreading your weight between the handle bars, pedals and seat and leaning even slightly forwards can feel really scary if it bears no resemblance to riding as it once was. This is even before you confront the idea of throwing a leg over the saddle to get moving, having your feet locked into a set of pedals, using gears and balancing front and rear hand brakes.

This is a huge shift for women that male riders simply don’t understand when most have been spared from having to make such a huge transition. I admire those women who take the challenge to master it when it is not easy at first and for so many, it often means starting from scratch. Get it right and you will immediately spare yourself of the many injuries that the original ladies bike will inflict on you over any distance. I have known too many women who have endured painful knee injuries for years because the need to touch the ground without dismounting means their knees never get a chance to stretch out while pedaling. Likewise, exposing your spine to all that shock pounding up through the seat, no matter how soft the seat is, is not that clever.

If you buy a new bike because it looks or feels like one of these original ladies bikes, there is a good chance that it won’t do what you want for very long. As you progress, a short-framed upright bike can’t be upgraded to match your boost in confidence and need for more efficiency.

The good news is that bike manufacturers have become much more women-friendly. Also, quality bikes have come down so much in price that it is now realistic to purchase the right bike for each application instead of trying to combine a number of incompatible roles in the one bike. No matter what you buy, the cross-flow of technology between the different styles of bikes has made a dramatic difference.

After the top bar was angled downwards for mountain bike riders, it was soon discovered that this allowed women to also enjoy a stiffer, more efficient frame with much more clearance than a traditional male frame. By adding front shock absorbers to a hybrid bike or carbon-fibre front forks to a flat-bar road bike, bike engineers could filter out road shock from the handlebars which then allowed skinnier, more efficient tyres. The latest gel seats shaped for the female anatomy combined with a shock absorber seat post can replicate traditional comfort while providing a more efficient riding position. Even the replacement of the traditional drop bars on a road bike with flat or cross-style handlebars has opened up a whole new world of road bike riding for some women when a horizontal riding position doesn’t suit everyone.

By combining the ruggedness of a mountain bike with some road bike qualities, there is a new breed of long distance touring bike that will carry a serious payload with extra speed and stability.

A serious bike shop should be able to steer you in the direction of a reasonably efficient bike that can be adjusted to provide some of the feel of a traditional lady’s bike, if that’s what you need to start riding again. Then as you become more confident, it can be adjusted again for a more efficient riding position when you are ready.

Some bike manufacturers even offer female-specific frames which are shorter, with shorter pedal cranks, shorter-reach brake levers and road handlebars with a shallower drop. While these can be a bonus for some female riders, the variations in body proportions amongst female riders are just as radical as males. Expecting a female frame to fit better just because it is designated as such is no more realistic than a male rider expecting an off the shelf male frame to fit.

It is far better to choose a bike shop that is prepared to listen to not only what you need now but what you hope to achieve on a bike as you progress. Good bike shops then go the distance in measuring you up, then swap and adjust components so that it meets your individual needs regardless of whether you are male or female. Ivanhoe Cycles has built up an enviable reputation for helping riders, especially women, to progress through the different styles of riding and to exploit the latest advances in technology. As so many women riders soon discover, the right bike and the right fit can be the difference between giving-up and giving the guys a real hurry-up.

Joe Kenwright

What most women are not told about cycling and few men know....

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