In the Audax and Sportives thread I remarked on the fact that very few women took part in the Snow Roads Audax (3 or possibly 4 out of 75). This thread is to keep the parent thread on topic!
CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Debate!
Women doing Audax
(27 posts)-
Posted 11 years ago #
-
"This thread is to keep the parent thread on topic!"
Too late...
Posted 11 years ago # -
From other thread -
"
Author: DaveC
On the 100's there are a lot of families and younger riders, like fimm, just out of your teens I think aren't you? :o)The longer events appear to be ridden by the more hardcore and you see riders travelling much longer distances for events, like Joe from Chester, who I already knew and another rider from Swindon! It does seem that the majority of riders are male but I think it may be a bit of a middle aged crisis thing? We men seem to get either a motorcycle or a bicycle (or other fast car etc..)
"
Posted 11 years ago # -
:o)
IIRC, the London Marathon this year was about 1/3 female, 2/3 male.
A club mate did the Etape Caledonia, I think she said that there were 500 women and 4000 men (ish). (12.5% female)
When I did Ironman Austria, I think 17% of the start list were women.
On the Snow Roads, there were either 3 or 4 women out of 75 starters. That's 4% - 5%.I'm going to have to go away and check those Ironman stats - is it really true that a higher proportion of people doing Ironman (albeit one of the easier ones) is female than those doing a mass-participation cycling event? (It is possible - I think triathlon prides itself on being welcoming to and encouraging of all.)
Right now I need to do some work!
Posted 11 years ago # -
"Right now I need to do some work!"
Will be interesting to see the stats - when you get more time.
Posted 11 years ago # -
A more meaningful comparison might be with Sportives. They are much more widely known about, and it's a fair bet there's a higher proportion of women taking part.
Audax is a much more obscure branch of cycling, more akin to time trialling than popular ideas of cycle 'racing' (notwithstanding that CCE seems to be making it a bit more popular, and the Adventure Show covering the Snow Roads last year).
I mean, for example, go to the British Cycling web site and try and find the Audax page. There is one, I've seen it, but good luck navigating to it unless you know to search for the word 'audax'.....this a partly political issue to do with sports governance but that's a different discussion.
In my view more 'underground' subcultures (which, in cycling terms, audax fits well) are often largely the preserve of (slightly obsessive perhaps) males. I'm not saying that's right or wrong, and if a subculture gains in popularity, the mix of folk participating often changes. I suspect that's where audax mostly sits just now, at least in Scotland.
As it was infamously coined by someone: "Audax is the most badass thing you could ever do, but nobody would ever know."
Posted 11 years ago # -
I'm afraid I'm going to be posting random stats as I get the chance to find them... how about the Cateran Trail 55 mile Ultramarathon... 62 finishers, 23 of them female, that's 37%.
Ultras are quite a good comparison with Audax IMHO as they are both small "scenes" where the events are run on small budgets by and for enthusiasts.
According to my clubmate who did the Etape, 555 of the 4177 finishers were female, 13%.
Posted 11 years ago # -
Oh, please don't see this as a criticism of Audax... more a public working up of a blog post, or something ;-) to be honest, the short answer is, not many women cycle...
Posted 11 years ago # -
"please don't see this as a criticism of Audax"
I hope no-one thinks that's what you're doing.
A list of random stats will be useful. Constructing a 'narrative' could be very interesting.
Posted 11 years ago # -
Well I never new what an Audax was before I joined this forum. In my life so far, cycling has always been about touring and living off the bike or just avoiding the suffocating nausea inducing bus. Never distances more than about 40miles a day, going slowly and just enjoying the sights.
I will say however that since reading about this interesting n+1 theory of cyclists I have been going out if my way to cycle past cycle shops or finding myself on wiggle instead of bbc news on my lunch break. The idea of a nippy wee road bike is definitely encroaching on my mind. And I'm taking part in the Edinburgh to St Andrews charity ride in a couple of weeks, will be the first time I've left Edinburgh by bike without my trusty panniers full at my side! Who knows what that will lead too, maybe there will be 5 girls in next year's Snow Roads!
I'm off to google Audax point system...
Posted 11 years ago # -
where's that 'like' button when i need it???
Posted 11 years ago # -
Posted 11 years ago # -
And I'm taking part in the Edinburgh to St Andrews charity ride in a couple of weeks, will be the first time I've left Edinburgh by bike without my trusty panniers full at my side! Who knows what that will lead too, maybe there will be 5 girls in next year's Snow Roads!
I did the Edinburgh-St Andrews ride three years ago. 68 miles/100 kilometres seemed a long way at the time. I had no idea this ride would eventually lead to an audax 'habit'... ;-)
Posted 11 years ago # -
'Women Doing Audax' sounds like a metal band...
Posted 11 years ago # -
Posted 11 years ago #
-
"
"I think women are by nature competitive – secretly, privately within their own selves, on lots of different levels, on the way they look, perform," says Pendleton. "But entering a sporting competition when you've not been brought up in a sporty or competitive environment can be daunting.""
http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2013/may/28/victoria-pendleton-enjoy-riding-bike
Posted 11 years ago # -
Like ++
More stats:
IM Austria 2012
317 women out of 2656 competitors total 12%IM Lanzarote 2012 134 women out of 1553 started 8.6%
122 women out of 1436 finished 8.5%
Lanzarote is a harder course than Austria, it is a sea swim, the bike is hilly (and usually windy) and the run is hot.D33 33mile ultramarathon (an easy one, a good first ultra): 62 women out of 252 finished: 25%
West Highland Way ultra - 95 miles, a much more serious undertaking - they don't make it easy to count the women, however I did find an "all time" spreadsheet which had 88 women out of 728 which is 12% - and I'd expect the proportion in recent races to be higher than that.
I think I should read that Victoria Pendelton article before I say much else - crowriver makes very good points, though.
Posted 11 years ago # -
Running is way more mainstream as a sport than cycling (in this country). 29,000 runners on the Edinburgh Marathon on Sunday!
Ultra marathons may be the extreme edge of endurance running, but it's the edge of something much bigger than, say the sportive scene, which is I suppose to audax what marathons are to ultras.
Posted 11 years ago # -
I'm picking on ultras partly because I know something about them (they're my boyfriend's current sport of choice) and so I know what to google to get results lists, and partly precisely because as I said I think there are enough similarities between the two activities for the comparison to be interesting. Likewise I know a bit about Ironman and triathlon in general.
There's a different question, for which I need yet more stats - does the proportion of women taking part in events reduce as the event gets longer? If so (and I think it does) why? Training time? Lack of confidence/belief that one can do such a thing? Lack of desire to try? (Is there something that means men are more likely to want to find out how far they can push themselves - whatever "push themselves" means for them?)
Posted 11 years ago # -
Speaking of stats, the membership breakdown by age of AUK members is quite interesting:
http://www.aukweb.net/results/statistics/detail/ageprofile/
There are really very few AUK members under 40. By far the biggest demographic is 50-59, followed by 40-49 (that's me), 60-69, then 70-79! More members aged 70+ than aged under 40...
I can't find any stats profiled by gender, but I'm hazarding a guess that the vast majority are male.
How does that tally with the Brevets Populaires (ie, sub-200k runs) having a wider spread of ages than the membership graphs suggest? Probably many folk taking part in shorter audaxes are non-members. Their primary focus may not be audax, but local club runs, sportives, triathlon or even marathon running.
If you look at the Tour of East Lothian results for example, the majority of riders are not members (and thus the 'average age' figure cited for this event may be misleading as I presume it only refers to members).
http://www.aukweb.net/results/archive/2013/listevent/?Ride=13-58
I'm by no means an expert or experienced randonneur, so my observations here are purely personal and possibly misinformed. However my impression of audax, as it is just now, is that most of the 'hard core' of enthusiasts are slightly older cyclists who when they were younger specialised in another cycling discipline: road racing, time trialling, cyclosportives (pre-commercialisation), local cycling club events, even cycle touring, long distance running, etc. So they have a good level of fitness, but cannot go as fast as they used to. They're no longer bothered about 'winning' but are up for the personal challenge. Of course there are exceptions to this, eg. on this forum where most of the audaxers are relatively young: I suspect I'm one of the oldest folk on here who rides audaxes fairly regularly.
The icon of Scottish audax is George Berwick, an incredible person who still rides long distance in his 70s: you may have seen him stoking a tandem on the Snow Roads... The distances he has cycled over the years are just unfathomable to most of us.
I don't believe audax wants to be primarily older men (with beards, steel bikes and Carradices) but it pretty much is. Most of the younger folk (including I presume many of the women) are away doing something else (dare I say it more glamorous and certainly more competitive): sportives, road racing, triathlon, etc.
Posted 11 years ago # -
I wonder if there is an element of time. I'm guessing 30-40 year old's tend to have family commitments which preclude the kind of training required to do a real Audax. I know of a couple of marathon runners who describe themselves as selfish because they need to commit so much time to getting marathon fit, I can only imagine this gets exponentially worse as you move to Ultras or 400k+ audaxes. This may or not be worse for women in this age range, I'm guessing though it is worse.
The stereotype audaxer may be the ones who have time to put in to their hobby.
Personally I can just about find an afternoon to blat out 80km intermittently.
Posted 11 years ago # -
Hey I'm old so I appear to be quite suited to Audaxing!! I don't need to spend lots of time away from the family training though, as I just commute to work by bike. It takes roughly the same time by bicycle as it does bus. I upped my commuting from 3 days to 4/5 days / week in prep for my SR this year, and coped with the 400km audax quite well. The Snow Roads was slightly harder!
I recall speaking to a man at circuits, a similar age to my age today, when I was 19, who ran marathons. I was circuit training 3 times a week, with added hour of airobics before CCTs on Sunday morning. I also cycled to work everyday, 10 miles each way. I struggled through a 10mile race and this older man told me it was my age. He said that the older you get the more staminer you develop. I don't know if there is any truth in this though, but I appear to be coping with the longer distances. I put this down to hours in the saddle though, over my greater years! I did a few 10km races in my youth and one 10 miler but not regularly and I never really trained for them, I just entered and ran on the day. Sorry this is nothing to do with women, perhaps I should skip back to 'that other thread?
Dave C
Posted 11 years ago # -
Hey I'm old so I appear to be quite suited to Audaxing!!
Generally I said :D
I generally try to get my "training" in by extending my commute but since I don't do it every day it tends to clash with home schedules in the evening and I like my bed in the morning.
Posted 11 years ago # -
Children may well be a factor for participation in endurance sport by women. So the audaxers are childless, their kids have already flown the nest, or they're just selfish beggars like me. ;-)
Hey I'm old so I appear to be quite suited to Audaxing!!
DaveC, you young whippersnapper.Posted 11 years ago # -
I'm interested in general motivation as well, so please don't go away, gentlemen!
(I was told a bit about George Berwick in the hall on Friday night. When I caught up with the tandem on Cairn o'Mount, they were zigzaging a bit, not unreasonable on the steep part, so I called out "Passing on your right, gentlemen" just to let them know I was there, and got the inevitable comments for the "gentlemen"... I cycled with them for a little bit just after Banchory, too.)
Oh, I'm also in the 40 - 49 age group, just... I was complaining that going up an age group was a Bad Thing as far a triathlon is concrened as I reckon that age group is more competitive than the younger one! (I was once First Senior Female (i.e. under 40 (then)) in a duathlon - and 4th women overall, the three faster women were all Veterans (i.e. over 40) - I'd guess there were only a few years between the 4 of us, though.)
(Great, going off at a tanget on my own thread...)
Posted 11 years ago # -
Without wishing to stereotype: I also wonder whether the self-sufficiency ethos does not appeal to women generally. While some are perfectly happy fettling I suspect that the prospect of being stranded miles from anywhere, on your own with a bike to fix is also likely to put off more women then it would men.
Posted 11 years ago # -
That's a good point, stiltskin, and one I hadn't thought of.
Posted 11 years ago #
Reply
You must log in to post.
posts
