Rando Diversity: Women Riders

[mimi boothby]

I guess since you're talking about women and randonneuring I guess a woman ought to speak up.

I came into cycling late in life, too late to want to race, or to do cyclocross or MTB kinds of riding.  Since I am also a rando widow - much of my weekend days in the last few years have involved waiting for a text message from my husband telling me he is almost done with his 300 km ride and that the rain finally stopped -- or that it just LOOKED icy, the roads are fine..

While he's out there riding, I do everything else. If I really was as excited about riding as he is, we'd have to hire a maid, if we could actually afford to do such a thing. So I really think that the reason that rando riding is skewed towards men is just like so many other things, you guys depend on us to  keep the rest of life humming smoothly. 

 I do like to ride and I just completed my tenth 100 km ride of the year. It's a good ride length for me, it enables me to get up at a reasonable time and still have time to get home in time to make dinner!  
This lady rider says; MORE 100k rides! they're fun...unless you put Zoo hill in them, particularly at the end. THAT seems like cruel and unreasonable punishment to me.

--
mimi torchia boothby

Beautiful watercolors that I painted: http://mimitabby.com/blog

[Bradley Hawkins]

Wonderful thread. Despite the logistical difficulty, what if there were a populaire  option on each ride? Perhaps to make the end control line up, one might include a 200 option on the 300 and a 300/400, 400/600. The best version I saw of this was the 10th anniversary 100/200 back in 2009. Kudos to whoever set that one up because I kept running into people doing the other ride and so it felt a lot like the alley cats I also love to do. 

By the way, brevet card translates to manifest in urban speak. Young riders do brevets all the time, they just try to involve more traffic, open routing to the next drop (controle), and a healthy dose of skitching. 

I think that if .83 and gomeansgo know about the next populaire with enough lead time, you might find quite a few riders on your hands. Now how do you translate "spoke card" properly into French?

Brad Hawkins

206.417.5000

[Lyn Gill]

Another women riders perspective is in sink with Mimi's.  Dido...started cycling later in life but came from the other side of the tracks, aerobics junkie not a racer because I learned from experience exercise was my drug to relief stress not to gain it.

I have seeked other women to join in, most seem interested but aren't wanting to put in the time.  I keep on talking but recruiting to no avail.  It is a demanding sport that can make a person's life unbalanced very easy.  Not for the lot.  So it remains predominately a mans sport along with watching football, playing baseball or coaching little league.  No offense guys. Men seem to find more time then your average lady gaga rider.  But I'll keep jabbering to find those special off balanced women that I can push over the edge.

 

Lyn Gill 

[Brad Hawkins]

Agreed. My wife and I take the same amount of R&R from work and our rambunctious 2 and 4 year olds. When I get time off, I go rando, and when my wife gets time off, she's off to the sauna. We are both bike commuters, but I make it much more of a lifestyle choice due to the longer mileage requirements. But seriously, I have yet to meet a woman who bikes seriously and has young children who has any desire to do a 600k, and I know many. Their husbands on the other hand.......drool.

Brad

--
Brad Hawkins
cellist, composer, arranger, conductor
206.417.5000

[Lynne Fitz]

Another woman speaking up (dual citizenship, OrRando and SIR)

I am in the same age demographic as many of the men. I have never
done RAMROD or Torture 10k. I avoid rides with names like Death and
Torture in the title. I'd say mass quantities of vertical feet scare
the spit out of me, but I did just finish Kramer's Bikenfest (11000+
vertical feet) in the time limit, so I'll have to quit stressing about
that.

I did not come into randonneuring from triathlons or racing. Yes, I
do a sprint tri once or twice a year, but I am not a triathlete. I am
a cyclist. I just kept doing longer and longer rides.

SIR rides, in general, do scare me. Lots of vertical feet. Mountain
passes. Being out in the middle of nowhere by myself in the middle of
the night. That's a big one. Plus all the smack talk about how the
Tahuya Hills are going to kill you. Maybe the SIR rides need less
scary writeups. :-)

[Sue]

I agree with Mimi more 100k's!  I love riding and I definitely will ride the longer rides during the longer days of the year.  But I'm just a little bit afraid (okay a lot) of riding in the dark.  

And congratulations Mimi on earning your 1000Km Distance Award!  Yesterday's 100k put you there and it also gives you your tenth P10!  I have three down and only . . . . . . . .  NINE more to go!  oy vey!

[Geoff Swarts]

Maybe a monthly Populaire – something like the first Sunday of the Month (at least Apr-Oct) – would foot the bill. Help the P-12 folk and likely more of interest to the women and younger crowd. Then maybe we can get a few of them over to the dark side from there …

 

Geoff

[Susan Otcenas]

>>When we look for younger riders, we may consider appealing to people
who either are racing or are interested in racing. I feel that we have
something to offer that may be a better fit for them.

With all due respect, I think THIS is part of the problem with
attracting women to cycling in general, not just randonneuring.
There's too much emphasis on going fast, and not enough on enjoying the
ride.

If people want to race, there are no shortage of opportunities here in
the Pacific Northwest. There's already too much male macho-ness is
cycling. We need LESS of that in randonneuring, not more. How far did
you ride, how fast did you go, how many miles have you ridden this year,
how hardcore was the gravel, how few hours did you sleep, how many
vertical feet did you climb. K-hounds, Super Randonneurs, Cycles
Montagnard, etc.

Want to attract more beginners, more women, more rando-curious? Try
celebrating Adrian Hands instead of Charly Miller. (If only I'd been 10
minutes slower at PBP, I could have gotten me one of those swanky Adran
Hands jerseys! That would have been an honor. :-)

SIR already has a reputation for putting on really hard rides. Lots of
vertical feet. Tossing in stupid steep hills at kilometer 999 just for
the fun of it. Those things are not conducive to attracting more newbie
riders.

Want to attract more beginners, more women, more rando-curious?

1. Consider a monthly populaire series. Advertise them as NO DROP
rides. Get experienced randos to AGREE to buddy up at least one veteran
with each and every new rider and see them through to the end. Use the
ride to demystify the secret handshakes (what is a control? How do they
work? What's a secret control? How do I read a cue sheet? Etc.)

2. Consider offering 200Ks ALL YEAR. When I look at the ORRando
Calendar from 2011, what do I find? Our 200s were in January, February,
March, September and October. SIR - yours were March, April, July and
September. Hello, people, we live in the Pacific Northwest!! The prime
riding months are May, June, July & August. That's when the sun comes
out and the rain (hopefully) diminishes significantly. Yet, with few
exceptions, the clubs are offering rides of only 300K or longer! Taking
on nearly 200 miles in one go is a HUGE feat for a newer rider.
Especially a rider who may have significantly reduced mileage over the
winter. So, when the weather is actually NICE, we should consider
putting on rides (100K & 200K) that will appeal to fair weather riders.
(Oh, and be sure to make these rides with reasonable vertical feet, not
hill-climbing sufferfests.)

3. Get over the gear snobbery. When I came out for my first 200K, I was
riding the only decent go-fast-ish bike I had, which was a Felt with a
triple, DuraAce 9 speed and aerobars. Clip-on fenders. Lycra. OH, the
looks I got from the gear snobs. More than one person asked, with a
hint of disdain, "Oh, so you're a triathlete, aren't you." Riders doing
200K or less don't need generator hubs, massive wax canvas bags, honjo
fenders, etc. Nor do they need to be swathed head to toe in wool. A
little more acceptance of the gear people show up with would go a long
way towards making people feel welcome. If it's raining, gently suggest
that it's OK for them to draft at the back of the pack, as a courtesy to
the other riders.

4. Consider putting on some clinics. There is a HUGE wealth of
knowledge in SIR and ORRando. Yet, I don't see it being shared in any
sort of organized manner. Imagine a lighting clinic, where all the
various options out there are discussed and explained. What about a
night riding clinic, where vets take out beginners for a few hours in a
low traffic environment? What about a flat repair clinic (how to fix a
flat in the dark in the rain? :-) Nutrition on longer rides? What to
pack in your massive waxed canvas bag?

____________________________

On a separate but related topic, as a woman I want to respond to why
randonneuring appeals to me, especially as a female.

When people ask me why I like randonneuring, I tell them it's because
I've discovered that I have a small engine, but a big tank. In other
words, I don't go especially fast, but I can go for a really really long
time. In fact, I find that women in general are very talented endurance
athletes. Perhaps not a lot of top end power, but the ability to go the
distance. Randonneuring is a sport where someone like me can do well.
It's not uncommon for me to get dropped by "the fast boys" aka the lead
group on the first big hill of the day, yet find myself catching up with
some of those same riders 200K down the road. Perhaps it's a matter a
pacing, but I find that many women pace themselves well. They don't go
out super hot at the beginning, and still have energy in tank far far
down the road.

I personally have no problems riding at night, alone, in the middle of
nowhere. I'm not afraid. I have good lights (with backup), I wear lots
of reflective clothing, I know how to fix a flat tire and do other basic
repairs, I know some basic self-defense strategies/moves, I have a good
sense of direction, etc. However, I find that women in general have
more generalized fears of riding alone/in the dark than do men. Our
society has done a really good job of convincing women that neither they
nor their children are safe alone, that they are vulnerable to the
rapist in the shadows, or the weirdo in a strange car, or even just the
drunk from the local pub. Getting past those fears is something that
can only come with time and experience for newer riders. These riders
may need some mentorship and/or companionship on brevets where they are
likely to be doing some night riding.

The only time I've ever feared riding in the dark was somewhere around
1050 kilometers at PBP. I was exhausted, utterly exhausted, and I found
myself sitting on the curb somewhere in a small village, having a little
pity party for myself. I was afraid to drop out of this village, back
into the dark, because I was so tired that I feared I was a danger to
myself. I was VERY VERY VERY fortunate that Corey Thompson and Joe
Platzner happened to come along at that moment when I really needed some
companionship. They stopped, got some calories into my system, and
provided the company and conversation I needed to get me to Mortagne au
Perche, for which I am eternally grateful! My point here is that
riding at night is something far more easily accomplished with
companions, and that to attract newer riders, or help people bump up to
a longer distance, a buddy system may be necessary to help newer riders
gain confidence or overcome fears.

______________________

I could go one, but I really need to get some work done today...

Susan

[Jeff Loomis]

I think Jan could be onto something here. I am not part of the racing
scene but I bet there are plenty of fast riders (men and women) who
would really enjoy getting together with a few teammates and working
together to put up a fast time in one of our day rides. The ORR
Bikenfest put on by John Kramer a couple weeks ago is a perfect
example of a ride that included our randonneuring values of adventure,
challenge, scenery, and the need for self reliance in 200k format.
Last month Millison and friends organized a super nice 200k ride in
the Olympia area on some great roads I had never ridden. I think
getting the word out in the local racing clubs about these types of
rides could bring some of those people into the sport.

-Jeff

On Mon, Oct 10, 2011 at 8:29 AM, Jan Heine <hei...@earthlink.net> wrote:
> I think we may also re-think whether the goal has to be the longest brevets.
>
> In my opinion, you can be an awesome randonneur and never ride more than 200
> km. In racing, people specialize in certain events, why not in
> randonneuring?
> ...
> I raced for 10 years, but I always liked long races, challenging terrain,
> great scenery and teamwork. At the end of a long breakaway, I remember
> feeling a strong bond with the other two riders and thinking: "They deserve
> to win as much as I do, it's stupid that after working together so
> beautifully for hours, we now have to turn onto each other."
>
> Jan Heine
>

[pjinoa...@comcast.net]

Testing the theory

 

I really like this discussion thread, I think some really great ideas have been surfaced for expanding our diversity, both in our membership and our offering of activities.

 

A couple of us have considered a few actions that might get the wheels rolling so to speak.  One idea is a 100K populaire every month. 

RUSA events can be added to the club calendar with a minimum of 5 weeks’ notice.  The significant requirement is that someone has to volunteer to organize the event.  I am willing to be that volunteer for that first monthly populaire.  Fear not: I am not proposing that all SIR members would have to drive all the way to the south sound to ride a 100K event.  I know that for many a “long” drive for a “short” ride makes no sense; that, more than anything is why you don’t see me on the WTS rides.

 

So, I am willing to organize a November populiare, in the general Seattle area.  This could be one of the currently established perm routes, IF someone closer is willing to help me.  According to my calendar it appears that the event would have to be planned for some time after November 11^th. 

 

Would you be willing to come out for a ‘no drop’ populaire in the Seattle area on the weekend before Thanksgiving, November 19^th or 20^th?  More importantly would you be willing to try to bring a friend along?  Remember, there is no fee and membership is not required. For what it is worth I have ridden a few p-12 perms with this philosophy over the last few months and they have been pretty pleasant for me and I think those who came along.

Would you be willing to help me?  If so here is the help I would need:

 

First, I don’t know the Seattle area routes very well, so you could help by picking a route that is pretty newbie friendly: minimal navigation, climbing, etc. with a warm and friendly start/finish venue.

Second, depending on the start time would you commit to being at the start one hour early.  I’d be willing to make the same commitment but it would of course require an hour and a half drive for me and your assured presence would give me a greater comfort level. 

 

Feel free to contact me off line if you want to help me organize this: pjinoakvilleATcomcastDOTcom, please do not feel free to contact me off line to say you’d love to …but.  Excuses are appreciated but volunteers are needed

 

It would be useful however to hear your individual thoughts about this here on the list, including what is wrong with this, or why it should not be done.

 

I realize this would conflict with the WTS once a month so we would either have to try to resolve the conflicts or live with the conflicts, the two efforts don’t necessarily have competing objectives.  This would offer a collegial setting for the P-12 hunters as well as an enticement/introduction for new members to the arcanery of randonneuring:  a break-in for those not familiar with a brevet card, controles, reading a cue sheet etc.

 

This is an aggressive schedule (for planning purposes).  Though there would be plenty of time to sign up, there is not much time to get it on the schedule so the go/no go point is no later than Friday October 14^th or thereabouts.  If it is to be a monthly effort someone else will have to volunteer to put on another RUSA populair in December, January, February etc. and the sooner those events get on the calendar the better.  I am willing to put on the Oly populaire (starts at the Fish Bowl Brew Pub in Olympia) in March if others will volunteer for Dec-Feb.  

 

This may be just another goofy idea that doesn’t stick, (remeber the gruppetto?) but it was not long ago that the idea of the R-12 was just an idea and look what became of that.  We will really never know until we give it a try.

www.drcodfish.blogspot.com

[Susan Otcenas]

Awesome, Paul!

 

And/Or, if you live closer-ish to Oregon, please come join ORRando on the 6th Annual Verboort Sausage Populaire Ride on November 5th.   http://www.orrandonneurs.org/rba/2011/Verboort/Verboort_Info.html

 

For 2012, ORRando has 4 populaires penciled in to the tentative calendar.  One in March, two in May, one in November.   

http://orrandonneurs.org/brevets/2012_brevets.html

I'd still like to see some more in the summer, but I think our calendar is off to a good start nonetheless.  Definitely an improvement over 2011, thanks to several folks stepping up and volunteering to organize rides (a whole second series!) in the summer.  Depending on my time availability in the summer, I may try to organize a populaire in July.  Maybe a "picnic populaire" that would encourage folks to hang out at the end and get to know one another. 

 

Susan

 

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Susan Otcenas

Team Estrogen, Inc.

www.TeamEstrogen.com

877-310-4592

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Follow our TE fan page on Facebook!

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---

From: pjinoa...@comcast.net [mailto:pjinoa...@comcast.net]
Sent: Monday, October 10, 2011 12:40 PM
To: Susan Otcenas
Cc: seattl...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Testing the Theory

[Lesli Larson]

I agree with Susan that an annual clinic-- randonneuring 101--might  help introduce  folks to the sport.  So many of us find rando by word of mouth,  hunt and peck web searches or STP type gateway rides.  It might be nice to attend an info session before donning rain gear and launching out on an actual ride.  I can see such an info session taking place in January at the downtown Seattle REI ala the PBP info sharing session last winter.  The event could combine a history of the sport along with a q + a session about equipment, routes, riding at night,  the woman's experience,  etc.

I've had minimalist success recruiting local randonneurs--ladies or gents.   Eyes cross when I start talking about typical ride distances and the conditions in which we ride.  Many of my friends, however, enjoy training with me and participating in some of the shorter brevets.

When I started randonneuring, I was lucky enough to make the acquaintance of veteran rider Peg Winczewski who tolerated my pestering questions and rode with me on my first 300 and 400.  Riding with someone like that really helped boost my confidence and made the tougher rides seem more doable. Riding a fleche my first year introduced me to night riding and normalized the experience.  In general, the camaraderie of randonneuring is what keeps me around year after year.   I'm OK riding in the dark but I much prefer the company of others just so I can share the absurdity of our endeavor.

 
Lesli Larson 
(a confessed gear snob)

[Lynne Fitz]

Much of what I learned was from reading ride reports (yay blogs and
flickr!), and riding with Rickey, Lesli, and Peg. And bugging David
Rowe.

Clubs could do a a rando 101, yes. Have to figure out a way to
publicize it. I am trying to figure out how we (ORRando) attracted
our latest group of younger riders. They are lots of fun :-)

[dg...@comcast.net]

Great comments and ideas--lots of food for thought.  I'm a typical 52 year old male so my experience getting started doesn't apply to younger guys and certainly not to women, but I agree that we need to think about easing people into it.  Populaires--the free sample to get you hooked!

I liked the comments about easing people into the sport by putting more emphasis on the shorter distance brevets as an accomplishment in and of themselves (ironically from Jan). My own experience was that I never dreamed of going beyond 300K when I first started.  I figured since I'd done STP in one day, a 300K would be easy.  Of course, I hadn't done an SIR 300K.  Although there aren't many of our courses that scare me now, I've often thought that we should balance the Montagnards style brevets with something a little less daunting. I remember the first year I participated I only did a 200K and a 300K.  The spring 400 was the 3 Passes--I thought it was insane.    My first 600 was one of the relatively flat ones, but I graduated to the 4 Passes the next season.  If every brevet is a hurt fest it makes it hard for people to get their feet wet and gain confidence to consider moving to the next distance or a more challenging route.  Nonetheless, we need the tough brevets on the calendar to satisfy the needs of the strong riders for a challenge and to help the rest of us get stronger!

Susan's comments about the gear snobs resonated, but it seems to be an issue with any aspect of the bicycle culture.  Racing?  Don't show up on a steel bike with a triple, Mountian? You'd better not be wearing racing shorts.  Cross?  Better wear pink ;). Triathletes look down on regular racing bikes the way we look down on TT bikes.  When I started, I was riding a steel frame sport bike with fenders, but otherwise was just a regular lycra clad rider.  I didn't feel that I was looked down upon.  Despite the fact that I ended up riding most of my first two brevets alone, it was the lack of snobbish behavior that attracted me to SIR compared to other cycling groups I tried in the area.  I learned through my own experience to appreciate the value of a good wool jersey and a generator hub.  That doesn't mean we shouldn't be careful when interacting with newbies.  It is strange that we would be gear snobs since unlike other types of cycling like racing, almost any kind of 'bike' which is human powered; is road worthy and safe; and meets a few other requirements is legal to ride by rule. 

Randonneuring will probably always tend to skew a little old.  It is a significant time commitment for those with young children at home.  It is one of those pass times one can take up when the nest is empty, and there aren't soccer games and PTA meetings to attend any more. I started a couple of years after my son graduated high school. The idea of riding at night scared me a lot at first so I can imagine how intimidating it is for a woman.  Now that I've gained experience, I actually enjoy riding at night and I often feel safer than during the day because there is less traffic. Good lighting and reflective gear probably makes me more visible to drivers than I am during the day.

If the 100K per month idea takes hold, I'm willing to organize one.

Dan Jensen

[Peter Meilstrup]

On Sun, Oct 9, 2011 at 7:34 PM, Bradley Hawkins <hawk...@gmail.com> wrote:

Wonderful thread. Despite the logistical difficulty, what if there were a populaire  option on each ride? Perhaps to make the end control line up, one might include a 200 option on the 300 and a 300/400, 400/600. The best version I saw of this was the 10th anniversary 100/200 back in 2009. Kudos to whoever set that one up because I kept running into people doing the other ride and so it felt a lot like the alley cats I also love to do. 

By the way, brevet card translates to manifest in urban speak. Young riders do brevets all the time, they just try to involve more traffic, open routing to the next drop (controle), and a healthy dose of skitching. 

I think that if .83 and gomeansgo know about the next populaire with enough lead time, you might find quite a few riders on your hands. Now how do you translate "spoke card" properly into French?

I was wondering if I was going to pipe in as while I'm not presently an SIR member, I'm subscribed to the list and I suppose I might be one of the "younger" riders being alternately sought after and mythologized here. 

I know several people in/around .83 and gomeansgo and such who have expressed an interest in randonneuring. Many cycle as their only transport and are thereby quite good at covering distance and being self-sufficient on a bike, but what prevents more of them from showing up to SIR events goes hand-in-hand with that: simply, that most of the rides seem to begin 100k+ from Seattle and they do not have a convenient way to get to the start point, or an inclination to give up everything they have planned for Friday evening to allow for waking up at 0dark30 on Saturday morning.

I know that many of you are very nice people and will immediately offer to transport any new riders who ask, yet you can appreciate that begging complete strangers for rides is something many Seattleites will decline to do even if welcomed.

So I think the idea of holding more frequent 100/200k rides with convenient locations and start times would do a lot to attract younger riders.

Peter

[Susan Otcenas]

>>what prevents more of them from showing up to SIR events goes hand-in-hand with that: simply, that most of the rides seem to begin 100k+ from Seattle and they do not have a convenient way to get to the start point,

 

We heard a similar sentiment here at ORRando.  Alot of our rides start from Forest Grove, while many of the newer, younger riders live in town, car-free.   In fact, this was the impetus for the 2012 Summer Series we're planning.   The entire series will feature rides that start in downtown Portland so that carfree folks don't need to drive a car to ride a bike.   Volunteers have already stepped up and committed to planning the entire series.  Should be fun!

[Jason Hansen]

The Pacific Rose group ride that Don hosted last month was a nice introduction to the club I think.  If we were able to have rides like those without the membership requirement that would be a significant step to ease adding new people.

I just joined this past year and I in trying to get friends interested a barrier I have come up against is what I call the buy (get this membership and this other membership then sign up) before you try aspect of permanents.

[Ralph Nussbaum]

Randos-

 

As organizers of WTS (yes, we’ve missed you Paul!) we would be willing to make sure that at least one of those training rides in each of the months of January and February were at least 100K in length and therefore would constitute as a Populaire.  Since WTS is a joint SIR/CBC production we would need some help with distributing and collecting Control cards for those who wish to ride the given course as a Populaire.  If we have some folks willing to step up, count us in as Populaire creators for the months of January and February.

 

Ralph & Carol

     _~J __J
   _`\<,`\<,_
  (*)/  / (*)

 

From: seattl...@googlegroups.com [mailto:seattl...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of pjinoa...@comcast.net

Sent: Monday, October 10, 2011 12:40 PM

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[Amy and Robin Pieper]

I volunteer to do a December populaire on Saturday 12/3.  Most likely the Southern Exposure Route with a Renton start.  Could use a couple of other folks to help out - contact me off list.

Questions to Mark about using established perm routes: would we still use the usual info controls? what about slight changes I'd want to make to the current route - just submit the route to you as I'd like to run it?

---

From: Ralph Nussbaum <RNus...@earthlink.net>
To: pjinoa...@comcast.net; Mark Thomas <ma...@muthomas.net>
Cc: seattl...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Monday, October 10, 2011 4:09 PM
Subject: RE: [SIR] Testing the Theory

[albert meerscheidt]

I'd be glad to help out also; with organizing a couple, web page stuff, and co-listing (if desired) on the Cascade site.

Albert

--
Thanks,

Albert
albert.me...@gmail.com