All of these biking threads are getting me excited for the snow to melt so I can start again…but it makes me a little sad to realize that never in my life have I ever seen a woman commuting to work on her bike. I am the only one I’ve ever seen. I live in a somewhat bike-friendly city, too. I rarely even see women bikers, to be honest, and when I do, they are only on trails.
When I go to the bike shop to get equipment I have trouble finding stuff for females sometimes. I mean, don’t get me wrong, it’s not that I want PINK gloves or something icky, but something other than black or green might be nice. I would like my bike to be a little more personalized anyway, than what they have there - all the same color and style. They don’t have much female stuff anyway - there are way less womens’ bikes for sale, or womens’ gloves, or womens’ equipment…
So - anybody out there? Bueller? I don’t want to feel alone anymore!
Yup. Nearly daily, for my entire working life, with the exception of 1 year living in London (I was scared of the traffic going the wrong way - but I managed it in Bristol the following year) and occasional snowy winter days that I just can’t cope with. Most winters I don’t miss more than a week. This one and the last one have been particularly horrible but I think I’m going to start again next week, daily public transit is making me crazy.
There are lots of us in Toronto. You should come up here!
I did a couple of years ago. There was a great bike path that led straight from my apartment to one of the sites of the hospital I worked at, so I’d bike in and take the shuttle from there. The first time I did it it took me about 50 minutes, but by the end of the summer I was sleeping in later and later and then rushing to make the trip in 20 minutes!
I miss that. I might still bike into campus once the weather gets nice here, but it’s less fun when it’s entirely uphill on the way there and entirely downhill on the way back - I seriously do not need to pedal on the way home.
But I had one female friend (lost touch with her, sadly) who was fanatical about riding her bike to work here in the Boston area, for years. She never seemed to have trouble finding either bikes, equipment, or apparel she liked. This was in the late 1980s, pre Internet.
This is one local chain of stores I am familiar with, their site features quite a bit of information about both women-specific bikes and apparel. I know from going there that their stores seem to be split pretty much 50/50 between men’s and women’s stuff.
Unfortunately they don’t seem to do online sales. But is there no place like that near you? You are in the Albany area, right?
My girlfriend rides to work every day, all year round, despite the Canadian winter. I’d say the male to female ratio of bike commuters is about equal here.
It’s not like they have nothing here for women, it’s just drastically reduced. Like, there’ll be ten different types of men’s gloves, and only two for women.
I went to the website for your store. I don’t like online shopping anyway. Mass is not remotely far from me, and I’d be willing to make a road trip - there are lots of other things in Mass to do.
They have two types of bike shops here in Albany. One is like WalMart/Kmart/Dick’s, and the others are professional bike shops. The one that is closest to me has been downright unfriendly to me. I don’t say it’s because I’m a woman…I don’t know why, really. I rode up there, and parked my bike around back, and walked in with my helmet in hand and they were still rude to me…and three days later my (male) SO walked in, and the same people were all smiles. Maybe I just struck them wrong.
There used to be a Family Bike Shop, which I really liked. They didn’t talk down to you, and they really helped me learn about my bike, and the care and the maintenance. Unfortunately they have since closed.
cowgirl, I am actually thinking about visiting Toronto this year. I used to be practically your neighbor - I lived near Detroit, so we would just take the tunnel across.
When I was an on-call substitute teacher I’d ride my bike to schools in good weather. This is on Chicago’s South Side. Some parts are bike friendly, some… aren’t.
I’m sorry to hear about your experience with the jerks at the bike place near you.
I would definitely recommend a visit to the Belmont Wheelworks store if you happen to be in the area. I’ve never detected a whiff of attitude, although it can sometimes be difficult to corral a salesperson when the store is very busy as it often is.
I noticed they are having a women’s night Friday, Feb. 27th.
Lotsa bike shops can exude attitude if you look like a newbie. Actually I find this of most sort-specific gear shops, with the exception of running shops where they are freakishly friendly and realy, really, really want you to get serious about running.
When I encounter the elitist asshole type of gear shop, I just go about my business, all friendly, ask the questions I need to ask, while silently thinking: “You ass… You ass… You great big ass…”
When I took summer classes I’d bike the 26 miles (round-trip) to school. I never got into the special women’s biker clothes except bike shorts, really. That stuff costs so much! My bike is blue, so I bought a blue helmet, but that’s about it. I have a regular bright green raincoat I bought at Campmor and panniers I bought at a local bike shop. I’d use the locker room and showers after my morning ride in so my classmates didn’t have to smell my sweat.
My SO has a great rapport with the guys at the bike shop, so he goes with me when I shop there.
Not a woman, but I am an occasional bicycle commuter, and here in Chicago, almost half of the bike commuters one sees are women. My wife and I deal mainly with two bike shops (one of which is woman-owned), and my wife has never indicated that she has ever any serious sexist attitude from either.
I’m not sure how much this helps, but that’s our story.
I was biking to work about 3 times per week a couple of years ago. 12 miles one way, on a Bianchi hybrid. One of the main roads on the way in began construction and was just too much of a pain in the ass to navigate, so I stopped. I need to pick it up again this year though, the construction is now complete, and though the bike lanes are now a little less wide, they are still perfectly fine.
I live in a very bike-friendly city. I see bike commuters every day. About half of which are women.
Always. But my job is really close, only 8 minutes on bike one-way. And Dutch weather is very bike friendly all year round.
I’m still kind of proud how I biked to highschool every day for 4 years. That was an hour of biking, every day. Although we could go by public transport if the weather was too bad.
Mountain Equipment Co-op has lots of women’s bike clothing and accessories (and, ooh, look, a sale!), and they do mail-order. (Look around - there are great bike things in other sections, like warm hats that can fit under your helmet, or all-purpose clothing, etc.) It would be great for your trip to Toronto, I think your bike gets confiscated if you try to ride it without at least one item of MEC gear on …
There are other cute bike clothing boutiques around but they probably don’t do mail-order. Let me know if you do come to town - if not for the clothing, come for Wenches with Wrenches!
With my last job, I did a few times. I was more likely to bike home from work (take the bus in the morning, ride back) - because I’m not a morning exercise type person.
I keep planning to with this job, but I haven’t gotten around to it yet. (This summer. I swear.) The bike path to work is much, much, much shorter, but also very much hillier and more heavily trafficked.
I like black gloves. But I do have a biking skirt (which came with built in shorts with padding, as opposed to the ones that you wrap around a pair of shorts (that you already own) and seem like an utter waste of money), which I like. And SheBeest tops are cut very well.
Most bike shops are worse than used car dealers when it comes to how they deal with women. I’m lucky that I live near REI (which tends to have a good selection of women’s stuff) and at least two local stores that are not staffed by complete and utter jerks.
I started to try last summer when my office move to ~3/4 mile from home. I didn’t do very well though because I’d never biked on the road before (I mean ever), I hadn’t biked at all in probably 15 years, and that 3/4 mile involves 4 stop lights and two entrances/exits to a highway and no shoulder at all on the bridge over the highway. And I had to make 2 lefts, crossing 2 lanes of traffic. So it was very very challenging for a newbie.
I did much better “commuting” to church on my bike on Sundays because the roads are much less congested at 8-9 a.m. on Sunday mornings and the last 3-4 miles is on a trail, not road. So I got pretty good at that ~9 miles and got a pretty big confidence boost from that. I’m looking forward to doing that again as soon as the weather gets better.
I’ll probably try to get better about biking to work this summer, but we’ll have to see. Safety first and I didn’t always feel safe on the way to work. The only other people I see biking on the way to work (or when I’m driving to work) are men. But at least 3 other women would bike to church at least some of the time.
I do have to say that I take back everything I’ve said in other biking threads if they are women bikers with skimpy tops and bottoms riding slow in front of me…I could get into that!
I used to be practically your neighbor - I lived near Detroit, so we would just take the tunnel across.