On Amazon. For women returning to cycling after a break. A guide to just about everything you need to know, maintenance, organisations..... http://amzn.to/TKKt18
CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Leisure
Heels on Wheels by Katie Dailey
(21 posts)-
Posted 12 years ago #
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I confess my Sexism Alert siren is getting twitchy, even more so from seeing the bike on the front is the archetypal Dutch that is apparently the only thing that a person with a fallopian tube or two could ever conceivably manage to ride.
Although I will concede that step-through frames are the business if you're wearing a kilt. It's highly likely female riders wear more underwear than I do in said garment, but working out how to mount the iron horse without extravagant display of beauttock took more forethought than I'm used to.
Posted 12 years ago # -
not just your sexism alert siren - having spent years telling people I'm not a lady I find it a bit odd the way 'lady' has come back in to use to mean a woman. That said, perhaps this book is aimed only at those females who are also the daughters of earls or the wives of knights or who go around being 'ladylike' (something I've never mastered) In which case a step-through bike has lots of advantages, even in trousers, the main one being that on a diamond framed bike, especially if you've laden the back with stuff, getting your leg over cannot be done in a ladylike manner (as Uberuce has found). But then again, a lady would never laden her bike in such a fashion as she'd be sure to find a gent to carry all those heavy things for her...
Posted 12 years ago # -
If you regularly swap from step through to diamond it's quite important to remember which kind you are using at that time. I've got it wrong before.
Posted 12 years ago # -
It's a Pashley Princess you have, if I recall? My ex had a Poppy, and in the course of being her free bike shop I rode it a few times. Beautiful ride on those devices.
Posted 12 years ago # -
@Sally - you may not be a lady, but it would be ungentlemanly to treat you as anything else...
Robert
*with a flourish*Posted 12 years ago # -
heh, tell that to my other half, who refuses to sully his bike with anything so practical as a rack. When asked how he intended to carry anything he suggested that I would just cycle along behind him with the stuff in my pannier bag. Which I do, as it happens
Posted 12 years ago # -
No, I've got a Roadster 26 Sovereign. Bromptons are step through.
Posted 12 years ago # -
I think I'm confusing you with CCE's other descriptively titled Pashley runner, maninaskirt, then. I had a test ride of the Sovereign out of EBC last year which was basically ruined by the chain being so slack it rattled like crazy over the nearby cobbles. Fate intervened and brought me my 1976 Raleigh Esquire in a car boot sale, but otherwise I'd have been sorely tempted by the Pashley.
Do you by any chance commute around Cameron Toll? I saw a Roadster a few times during the holidays in that area. Commanding presence on the road, I would assay.
Posted 12 years ago # -
I stay in sunny Airdrie. The Pashley goes as far as the centre of Glasgow.
Posted 12 years ago # -
Whilst perhaps the terminology is not to everyone's taste if this kind of book is of interest to women, and gets them out on a bike well and good. You can, if you type the title, etc., into Amazon get a preview and it did not, on first looking, appear that twee. It is not really my sort of thing either but then I ride a "normal" framed man's bike and have to throw my leg over it. I also do not tend to wear skirts and high heels on a bike either, but some women would like to commute to work on their bikes and this is the market this book is aimed at.
Patients are referred to by doctors as ladies and gentleman and when typing up correspondence I always change to it woman or man, as unless you are knighted or such then you are not, strictly speaking, a lady or gentleman. Yes it irritates me but I am so used to it I don't really notice it any longer and it is an automatic response just to change it and I have never had any complaints.
Posted 12 years ago # -
I know (to my cost!) that authors get very little say on what their books look like, so I really should stop judging them by their covers...
Posted 12 years ago # -
Only shallow people don't judge by appearance.
Claggy Cog, it's that 'whatever you ride, as long as you do' Faustian thingmy, which applies to men and our urge to buy full-sus MTBs because they're more rugged to the untrained eye than roadie bikes which will do [something I can't quite remember] to your eyeballs. It's good that you're riding, but I worry that you'll quit because your 20kg Dutch/energy-sapping-bouncer-MTB puts you off when a generic hybrid could whisk you to work without a peep.
Posted 12 years ago # -
The book is not out yet...preview it before judging it I say and perhaps there is a whole section about the "right" kind of bike to buy.
I love the whole macho thing about MTBs, with full suspension, heavy as hell, mentality and think that if that is what it takes to prove them "manly" then go for it. They may never see a dirt track on it, ever but hey...you can turn the suspension off!!
I am not sure that road bikes do anything to your eyeballs other than rattle them about in your head going on some roads in Embra, that a MTB won't because it has, yes, suspension!! Also you cannot go that fast on a MTB. Perhaps roadies feel fewer bumps because they go so fast, don't know because I cannot keep up anymore!!
I have no intention of quitting...I have a lovely pair of bikes and not a drop of suspension or brake fluid is required!
Posted 12 years ago # -
sallyhinch - "getting your leg over cannot be done in a ladylike manner"
Double entendre alert! (sorry)
Posted 12 years ago # -
Ach, I went from generic second person without stating so, again. Intended to read as 'It's good that someone's riding, but I worry that they'll quit because their 20kg Dutch/energy-sapping-bouncer-MTB puts them off when a generic hybrid could whisk him or her to work without a peep.'
Back to the main: indeed, it's entirely possible my Alert is unwarranted, and I do confess my love for fixed-gear riding is 67.3% due to the machismo that pushing a tall gear uphill garners. Chased Kappers and PS up Kaimes Road on 77" and I declare that I gave a good account of myself.
If I recall correctly, the peleton you were leading out my Musselburgh when you Spotted me was going at a fair lick, so I dunno about your claim of unkeepupability.
Posted 12 years ago # -
@morningsider - entirely meant, I assure you. I *said* I couldn't do ladylike :-p
Posted 12 years ago # -
i *do* prefer a stepthrough frame, but think t hasmore to do with height than gender.
havng like sally spent years avoiding being called a 'lady' , i'vve found motherhood makes it hard to avoid. the 'ladies' in nursery must be called 'ladies'. likewise 'watch out for the lady on the pavement' is sometimes better than 'mind the peds'.
lady's also probably preferable to 'girl' which I seem to be hearing a lot lately, not in reference to under 16s.
Posted 12 years ago # -
Surely 'Lady' is bestowed with a regal honour, whereas 'lady' is simply a descriptive term for a member of the female sex? (in much the same way that when I receive a letter headed 'Dear sir' I don't wonder why I'd forgotten about being knighted).
And 'gentleman' doesn't have anything to do with aristocracy does it? I could of course just head to dictionary.com.
'Girls' is indeed something which seems to have gained in popularity. Jake Thingumy at the Olympics cycling constantly referred to the female portion to Team GB as the 'girls' - I know some people on Twitter took huge offence at that, but then the Olympics still had dolly-birds with the country names on the parade and thought it was great that places like Saudi had sent their first female athletes, without pondering how aewful it was that it had taken till 2012 to get to that point.
Where were we?
Ah yes, books for
ladiesgirlsfemalesquines* women to get back into cycling. Hey, if it works, and it encourages, then fine.*a term from NE Scotland that I grew up with. Quines and loons (boys). Quine generally regarded as a 'young lassie', though dig further back and it was used quite often as a 'harlot'. And then a town called Newburgh wanted to call a street Quines Passage and the Evening Express descended into mortified laughter.
Posted 12 years ago # -
Yes, don't blame the author for that dreadful cover. Or the illustrator. Blame the art director of the publisher! (Who often know precious little about art or design or the subject matter, but a precious lot about what sort of clientel the marketing director wants to push a book to)
Posted 12 years ago # -
If you're writing a critique of the book then you may need one of these to make notes in the margins as you go along
(read the reviews...)
Posted 12 years ago #
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