As gyms closed and social life came to a halt, people took to two wheels; in the first lockdown cycling levels soared by as much as 100 per cent on weekdays and 200 per cent at weekends. Some groups have, however, been keener to dust off their bikes.
According to research shared exclusively with The Sunday Times, women have been twice as likely to get into cycling during the pandemic as men. Yet the typical cyclist is a 52-year-old white man earning £42,000 — and this shows in the barriers that female riders, whether they’re novices or professional racers, have to navigate.
Experts say that saddle injuries are a lot more common in women than men because women have more vulnerable skin structures in their genital area. The issue has forced some professional riders to undergo surgery on their labia to fix physical pain.
At the same time, many bike retailers and product makers are unwilling to invest in women’s gear for what is predominantly seen as a man’s sport, where prize money remains unequal at both amateur and professional levels. For example, the title prize fund for the Tour de France is 100 times more than that for La Course, the alternative race for women.
So what can be done to redesign the sport – and who are the people trying to effect change?
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Creating new kit
Most bikes are sold as unisex. But women are on average shorter, have narrower shoulders, wider hips and smaller hands.
That means women are more likely to need a smaller bike, as well as narrower handlebars and longer axles on our pedals. The brakes also need to be set up so that female hands can reach them easily.
“Far too many women buying unisex bikes roll out of the shop with their arms splayed out wide on the wrong-width handlebar, or on a saddle that will have them locking their bike in the garage after a week,” says Michelle Arthurs-Brennan, the technology editor at Cycling Weekly.
As the only female editor in a male-dominated industry, Arthurs-Brennan is routinely sent test bikes set up with male riders in mind. Or she’ll be sent a women’s version that is a “pink and shrink” take on the men’s model.
“Creating bikes for female cyclists shouldn’t be about creating a new model, painting it pink, and giving it a name that sounds like it belongs on a perfume bottle,” says Arthurs-Brennan.
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In an ideal world all people buying bikes would get a machine with contact points (handlebars, saddle, brakes, pedal axles and cranks) that suit them. That can be made possible either via gender-specific frames or selling bikes that are fully customisable.
The trouble is, this increases the costs to retailers, ultimately meaning higher costs for male customers, who benefit from having their choice of gear that fits them perfectly. Out of 398 saddles for sale on the online cycle retailer Wiggle, 44 are for women. None of the saddles sold online at Evans Cycles are women-specific, while clothing is also male-focused — out of 769 clothing products for sale at Evans online, 271 are for women.
This is a commercial decision but one that will change if more women demand better kit. Retailers already say 2020 has been a year of change. Sigma Sports, an online retailer with stores in Hampton Wick, west London, and Oakham, Rutland, said its female customer base had increased by 54 per cent since the first coronavirus lockdown, after which it included women’s jerseys and shorts in a new range of cycling clothing.
Rapha, a UK clothing brand, said it had noticed a huge increase in demand from female cyclists in 2020 and that growth in its women’s category outstripped men’s — but admitted that its women’s range was still smaller in size, with some items selling out in 48 hours. “The demand for high-quality women’s cycling apparel is undeniably there, and we have committed to meaningfully invest in women’s cycling,” a spokeswoman for Rapha said.
Saddle injuries
“Pain ‘down there’ can be really hard and distressing to talk about,” says Phil Burt, a physiotherapist and professional bike fitter who co-founded Team Sky. Burt has invented a new type of cycling short and saddle specifically aimed at helping women to ride pain-free, having worked with professional female riders who were considering surgery to reduce the pressure on their vulvas while racing.
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“We know it’s an issue but what we don’t know is how many women give up cycling because of it and are consequently lost from the sport,” he says.
Genital injuries are a lot more common in women cyclists than men, says Burt, who runs a cycling pain clinic in Manchester. “Women have about nine different soft tissue presentations down there compared with men, who don’t suffer from that horrible labial swelling,” he says.
When men get a sore bum from cycling, it’s typically related to pressure on their perineum, the area between the anus and the genitals, where they might feel numbness. Normally a cut-out in the middle of a saddle is the best way to solve this problem.
Women’s anatomy is a lot more varied, and it’s not possible to tuck sensitive areas away underneath your clothing. Hannah Dines, a paralympic cyclist, battled through years of a saddle injury before opting for labia surgery to ease the pressure brought on by constant training with a saddle designed for men. Dines, who competed in the 2016 Games, developed a swelling on her vulva from constant chafing and rubbing.
Another issue is that it is biomechanically more challenging for a woman to sit on a bicycle, as a woman’s pelvis naturally wants to rotate more forward than a man’s, meaning female riders are more likely to dump more weight onto the front of a saddle.
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In 2016 Burt forced cycling’s international governing body, the UCI, to change a rule restricting how much riders can tilt their saddle — on the basis that it was harmful for women’s health. He claims that allowing a more downward tilt resulted in a 100 per cent reduction in female saddle injuries in the Team GB cycling squad in the run-up to the Rio Olympics.
“Saddle sores are a bit of an umbrella term,” says Burt. “A sore can be an infected hair follicle that turns into a hard and painful boil, or the sore can be bruising resulting from taking too much weight on your soft tissue.”
Burt has spent years arguing that women need better saddles and cycling shorts to suit their more complicated anatomy — but says that companies aren’t yet willing to invest if they don’t think there’s a market for them. He’s invented a saddle that uses medical-grade materials and will specifically help women to feel more comfortable on the bike.
“Many companies say they’ve already got a women’s saddle,” he says. “My response to that is, if you’ve got a women’s saddle that’s so good, why are women still saying they’re in discomfort?”
Unequal prizes
Ultimately, it’s up to women to pedal towards equality. Helen Bridgman is one of 23 amateur female cyclists who in 2019 rode the same 3,460km, 21-stage route of the Tour de France, in the hope more people would begin to ask: “Why is there no women’s Tour de France?”
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“We couldn’t use the term ‘Tour de France’ as we could’ve been sued apparently, so there were a few restrictions,” says Bridgman, a former marketing manager who has retrained as a cycling coach. They completed the tour without mechanical support, masseurs or hotel rooms, arguably taking on a greater challenge than the men.
“We really captured people’s imagination and showed how women can ride, have amazing bodies that are capable — so there should be equality,” Bridgman says. At present professional women cyclists compete in La Course, a 130km ride, on the same day as the men’s second stage. Last year’s prize money was €20,000 (£17,000) for women as opposed to a total prize fund for the Tour de France of €2.293 million (£1.95 million). The UCI has said that the first women’s Tour de France will be introduced in 2022.
At a grassroots level there are fewer races for women, and there’s no requirement to provide equal prize money in mixed races. The last time Bridgman won a race, in 2019, was the 64th year the course had been ridden — but the first year that men and women were offered equal prize money.
Proportionality has long been the argument used by local clubs to offer unequal prize money — they say not enough women enter. Last year the organiser of a time trial in West Yorkshire refused to back down when a group of female riders argued it was unfair that the cash sum for the top three riders was higher than for the fastest woman rider. Time trials are quintessentially British sporting events, where riders set off one minute apart and are not allowed to draft each other.
Chris Boardman, an Olympic cycling champion and former time trialist, is among 4,000 people who signed a petition urging Cycling Time Trials, the discipline’s governing body, to require equal prize money in time trials. It has now said it is looking into the issue.
Bridgman offers a final piece of advice to anyone frustrated with the status quo: “Even if it’s literally taking another person on a ride with you, take that girl, take that woman out to show her how amazing cycling is.”
