As we mentioned in our last blog, a couple of weeks ago we held our first steering group workshop with an incredible group of women with expertise in community building in action sports. We spent time discussing what actions sports are, what makes them different, and what the unique barriers are for women to get involved.
We also spent a lot of time thinking about what works in bringing women and girls into action sports, what helps them feel they belong and can develop a lifelong love of outdoor action sports. One of our amazing steering group members created this short video about our first workshop. Josie West was invited to join due to her passion for supporting women into different wave sports, and for transforming the cultures of these sports through collective action.
Like kite surfing, mountain biking is not unusual in its poor participation levels of women. Undoubtedly, the conversation is evolving positively amongst industry marketers and media, events organisers and policymakers. Change is happening, but we still have a long way to go before women and girls connect and engage with mountain biking in their own terms, in their own way, without caveats. The culture of action sports remain persistently male-dominated and masculine.
A New, National Framework
The steering group workshop up in Macclesfield also saw the launch of the next stage of our project – to co-create a national framework for transforming women’s mountain biking through supported, sustainable communities. These communities exist already in some places and we can learn a lot from them. Our research has put us in touch with so many fantastic women-led and women-oriented mountain bike groups. Thank you for the warm welcome our team has received!
Our work will use the existing collective wisdom from the organisers and drivers of these groups to develop a framework and resources that can strengthen existing communities of women mountain bikers, help launch new ones connected to local places, and support public organisations to embed transformative practice in the way they offer opportunities for women and girls in mountain biking.
With huge thanks to the wisdom and support of Aneela McKenna, Josie West, Sue Barrett, Kathy Goodey, Jo Lee Morris, Beth Perrou, Zoe Woodman and Claire Bennett.
And thanks to the Project FIAS research team Martin Hurcombe, Barnaby Marsh and Maria Moxey.