What a glorious weekend of weather – have you been out on the bike?
Yesterday marked the start of Cycling UK’s 2020 Women’s Festival of Cycling, running from July 11-31, and as a lover of all things bikes (and particularly women’s cycling), I’m so here for it – in more ways than one!
If you go to Cycling UK’s 100 Women in Cycling list for 2020 you’ll see little old me listed in there as a Community Champion ?!
This makes me very happy and is a true honour and privilege to be featured alongside some really amazing women doing great things to inspire, encourage and enable female participation in cycling across the country.
I got nominated by my good friend Cathy, a superstar journalist, author and all-round bike babe, (who’s also my partner this year for delivering the girl’s bike clubs with Sustrans at schools around Brighton and Hove). I’ve been working with Sustrans since Autumn 2018 to deliver an after school bike club for year 9-10 girls at one school and just before lockdown we launched the club at another school too.
Obviously this global pandemic-shaped curveball paused all in-person bike clubs (as well as all British Cycling Breeze rides for women which I also lead) so whilst we’re figuring out how to lead Breeze rides safely again following British Cycling’s latest guidance, we’ve pivoted (word of 2020, perhaps?) our Sustrans girl’s bike club to take the club online via a Google classroom.
Each week Cathy and I have been sending blogs, videos (including the snippet below) and useful hints and tips to help the girls get interested and inspired about cycling and out on their bikes during lockdown and beyond.
We’ve got a lot of great things happening in Brighton to improve cycling infrastructure and make riding a bike safer and more accessible for all, like the closing of traffic to Madeira Drive, the widening of the seafront cycle lane, and the temporary cycle lane on Old Shoreham Road providing a much-needed link between Hove and West Hove, to name a few.
If you’re local, have your say here on the new Old Shoreham Road cycle lane).
I’m looking forward to when we can restart the clubs properly again, as we had some great sessions and rides planned, but until then I’ll keep showing the trials and tribulations of being a cyclist in videos like the one above.
ICYMI, catch up on my other blogs & videos celebrating women’s cycling:
Hear what the women of Brighton love about cycling, in a video I made for Bike Week with Active Sussex and This Girl Can:
Read about Lucy Dance, Sustrans Bike It Offer and all-round gamechanger who I work with to deliver the bike clubs:
Inspiring riders: Lucy Dance, changing the world one bike at a time
Meet Alison Lewis, my fellow Brighton Mitre CC member and good friend who inspired me to take up all sorts of cycling escapades – including racing and becoming a Breeze Leader:
Find out what happened when me and three other badass females took on our first 25 hour endurance race at the Red Bull Timelaps last year:
See why I felt like a 12 year old again and had the BEST TIME EVER at BMXercise at London’s Velo Park:
Watch the video from the first time I rode an e-bike in London at an event with Shimano and other female bloggers:
Get involved in the 2020 Women’s Cycling Festival
The 2020 Women’s Cycling Festival is on now until 31 July. You can get involved and join Cycling UK in celebrating all that’s great about riding a bike – and get out for a ride with a friend! Don’t forget to share pics and join the conversation on social media using #BeYouByBike and #WFOC2020.
And before I go, I’d like to give a special shout out to my friend Martine who kickstarted my motivation post-lockdown to get out of bed and on the bike for some pre-work road and mountain bike rides.
It feels great to get back out there together after a few months of stress and solitude, and as much as I love riding with Chris but it’s great to have female friends to ride with too, don’t you think?
Hit the Cycling UK 100 Women in Cycling web page to see the other amazing women I’m listed alongside, and check out my profile too.