We’re continuing to see an upward trend in women participating in our Love to Ride programs. During the Bike Month Challenge 2021 we saw that an average 40% of registrants across the USA were women, a 5% increase on 2020.
Detroit and Madison achieved amazing results with 59% and 53% of women registered for the workplace challenges they ran.
Carmel, NW Arkansas and Tampa Bay all had 48% women register and San Diego had 47% - almost reaching gender parity.
These results aren’t limited to workplace challenges run during Bike Month. When looking at Central South West Florida we can see that a huge 63% of registrants were women for their workplace challenge in March. This workplace challenge had a huge impact on behavior change for all genders, but it's worth remembering the gender split this workplace challenge achieved whilst reviewing its results:
● 63% new-riders riding more regularly
● 50% occasional-riders riding more regularly
● 19% of all riders riding more often
● 79% noted an increase in their physical health
● 33% of participants who did not do any physical activity at baseline had increased to 3 or more days of activity 4 months after
Our altered living conditions helped to remove some barriers to riding commonly cited by women. Some people had more time, avoided public transportation, and many cities have implemented much-needed infrastructure improvements.
“Women are 3 times more likely to cite that they do not feel confident enough to cycle compared with men. They’re also more likely to cite route safety concerns as a barrier as well.” - Supporting More Women to Ride webinar
In 2020, the rhythm of everyday life was disrupted and allowed for old habits to be broken. Now as we start to return to something like normal, it’s the ideal time to nurture and reinforce new habits. Love to Ride programs are designed to help riders at all levels overcome their barriers - whether they’re new-riders who are just starting out or committed road racers who want to start biking for transportation. We provide highly targeted communications and behavior change tools to help people overcome their barriers, ride more often, and ride for transportation.
If you want to hear more about how we tailor the behavior change techniques we use to enable more women to take up riding – watch our 'Supporting More Women to Ride' webinar here.
