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news
Commuters (CC licensed image by kube414:Flickr)White heterosexual men lead the cycling industry, report says amid calls for more inclusive approach
The Bicycle Association has published the insights of its research into diversity in the cycling industry, releasing a report which says the senior leaders are "overwhelmingly white, heterosexual men", as well as noting "widespread experience of unfair treatment, including harassment".
The industry body's work follows its Diversity Report, published in March, and has been released in collaboration with Cycle Industries Europe's Women in Cycling programme and is supported by WORK180.
Commenting on the report, the Bicycle Association says it sheds light for the first time on critical insights and perspectives surrounding diversity and inclusivity within the cycling industry. It has been put together by surveying 1,123 people from a variety of backgrounds who work across the industry in companies and sectors of varying sizes.
Of the key findings, the report suggests that the industry is overwhelmingly led by straight white men, and that there is "widespread experience" of unfair treatment, including harassment.
Nearly half of those with disabilities hide them from their employer, while "women and those from minority groups are more likely to leave the industry". The report also highlights how women want "concrete action" on leadership and pay.
On motivations to pursue working within the cycling industry, 63 per cent of men said they were inspired by a passion for cycling, while 45 per cent of women said the same.
In March, the Bicycle Association said the "male, white, cycling enthusiast niche has reached its natural limit" and urged the bike industry to change if it wants to grow and reach new customers.
The body notes that respondents overwhelmingly expressed a desire for greater inclusivity and representation, and called on employers to sign the BA's 'Diversity Pledge' to prioritise seven "key actions to begin to address the findings".
Lead an inclusive, anti-discriminatory culture
Implement bullying and harassment policy and communicate to all employees
Diversify leadership teams
Make pay equitable
Introduce flexible working and paid leave entitlements
Offer mentoring and career development to all
Give more visibility to women and marginalised groups
Sally Middlemiss of the Bicycle Association said the report "marks a significant step towards understanding the complex dynamics of inclusivity within all levels of the cycling industry".
"We are dedicated to driving positive change by promoting dialogue, actionable recommendations, and an environment where every individual feels welcome and empowered to achieve their career goals," she said.
Ian Beasant, managing director of Giant UK, added: "The core purpose of this BA perception survey was to understand the barriers and challenges people face in their company. The acknowledgement and commitment to supporting all equally is our industry's duty. We must create the most welcoming, inclusive and prosperous environment for all, fostering innovation, representation, and growth."
Dan is the road.cc news editor and joined in 2020 having previously written about nearly every other sport under the sun for the Express, and the weird and wonderful world of non-league football for The Non-League Paper. Dan has been at road.cc for four years and mainly writes news and tech articles as well as the occasional feature. He has hopefully kept you entertained on the live blog too.
Never fast enough to take things on the bike too seriously, when he's not working you'll find him exploring the south of England by two wheels at a leisurely weekend pace, or enjoying his favourite Scottish roads when visiting family. Sometimes he'll even load up the bags and ride up the whole way, he's a bit strange like that.
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98 comments
Everyone is infinitely nuanced, dividing people into a handful of arbitrary categories creates divisiveness and breeds tribalism and division.
Does this tell is anything we don't now already?
I would suggest that direction of travel is more important.
No context into what the overall demographics of cyclists are. I strongly suspect that it is largely white heterosexual men who are cyclists - especially in a danger rich environment like British roads. The challenge is not to whine about it, it's to engage the right people to balance both the demographics and the leadership. Because if you elevate even ecxcellent leaders from outside the dominant demographic, it will alwyas be an uphill struggle. In an ideal world we'd have a balanced demographic of both cyclists and leadership, but hey this world isn;t really ideal is it. Lot of work required. We need vision, strategy, planning and most of all execution.
Yawn. Again?
Is there nothing better to fill the web site.
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Hey, I love Road.cc threads, me!!
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Were you dropped on your head as a baby ?
As it happens, I was. Well - catapulted from one o' them big prams they had when I was a bairn, 481 years ago. The pram was being raced by a 5 year-old who thought me and my carriage was better than the dolly in a home-made boogey they give 'er, the gender-totalitarians!
The local grocer rushed from his shop to rub butter on me bonce, as a small egg arose there. This was the moment that made me who I yam, of course - a sort of opposite to little boys from Flintshire.
Can't picture you lovin' anything, somehow. Are you sure?
Do people really have nothing more important to worry about ? Attempting to give toss. Toss not given.
White, male, British, heterosexual, not pretending to be a woman, and proud of it.
I'll tell you an amazing thing about human beings, they're actually capable of caring about more than one thing at once. Well some are, anyway, probably evolution's way of maintaining a balance with those who don't care about anything but themselves. Perhaps you'd give a toss if you were, or one of your loved ones was, a woman who wanted to make a career in the bicycle industry?
I too am white, male, British and heterosexual by the way. I'm neither proud nor ashamed of being any of those things, why would I be proud or ashamed of things that are purely an accident of birth over which I had no influence?
Pride, as can be seen everywhere, comes before a fall. Yes. Pink no-toss uber-lads waving union jacks go falling down black holes full of daft-think all the time and everywhere, these days.
If they're lucky, a Toryspiv spotter will recruit them in some scheme or other to vandalise things useful to others but about which the Toryspiv doesn't give a toss. They will have a new identity they can attach their pride to: Toryspiv not-awake vandal with a pocket full of freedumb. Huzzah!
If they're unlucky, a bigger no-tosser uses them as a plaything, despite their calls for someone who gives a toss to rescue them.
'Twas ever thus.
...
I'm thinking about making a black hole in a bottle full of daft-think a bit later. Probably end up a Pink no-toss uber-lad (at least in my bobble-heater) as a result.
(Apologies for playing the same game as with the "contrarians" but the language was fruitier than ripe durian...)
I don't see EDI as uniformity. Different genders, races, cultural groups etc will have variable (and overlapping) distributions of attributes. This should be celebrated and is the foundation of evolutionary resilience (we might need this as 'environments' change). The problem is the way different attributes are valued and rewarded within a dangerously flawed human enterprise not based in the real biophysical world.
I'm always slightly disturbed by the implicit assumption, that whatever the women are doing whilst the blokes are out cycling, they ought to sacrifice that to make more time for cycling, all in the name of diversity (which paradoxically sets homogeneity as its yardstick). It says that the cycling is more valuable than whatever they were up to, moreover that it is more valuable precisely because it finds favour with men.
Case in point, I went cycling today, she went visiting girl friends. She can't spend the same hours twice, cycling took the hit. You could argue that I was discriminated against in that I was only ever going to feel like a spare part if I chose to go along with the girls-together outing, so I just had to seek solace cycling, a poor second to her socially enriching experience.
Bloody hell, what a load of gibberish. I pity your partner...
That's prime man-logic you're dismissing there! It may be difficult to parse and may turn out to be a logic that has meaning only in the private universe of ubermen but shouldn't be condemned just for being mad, daft and besides any point in the matter under discussion!
Everyone should have the freedum to regurgiatate as many daft notions as they can swallow, digest and reorder into a forum post. I do it all the time.
Perhaps the partner you pity enjoys the entertaining comedy of such stuff? A lot of modern women (assuming the partner is one-such) enjoy a titter, or even an outright guffaw, at such manly mutterings. Sometimes they get together at the WI and have a reet good laugh as they swap tales of the latest male misogyny mash-ups emitted by their "masters".
With apologies for repeating myself from earlier posts, I think your implicit assumption that cycling is a discretionary pastime is the more disturbing.
For most people, cycling shouldn't be about sacrificing other interests - it's just a sensible way of getting from A to B. That it's often seen as an exclusive sport (not just financially but in the knowledge and culture around it) is part of the problem.
You are right, I was only looking at leisure cycling. Not organised sport, not utility cycling. I suspect the main arena for discrimination would be in organised cycling, which I assume means mainly sport.
Cycling "like most other sports" shock.
Wasn't sure where to post this story - nothing to do with cycling, but it did make me laugh out loud (scornfully).
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2023/aug/17/trans-women-banned-from-wo...
I found it weird, but didn't read the story. I assume it's the advantage of all that testosterone before transition...
Storm in a cultural teacup. It's all those AIs identifying as a human you really need to worry about, or so I've heard...
On the contrary - it's all those humans identifying as AIs. (Mind, many of them are artificial, constucted by the bro factories of certain universities). Significant numbers of them technocrats believe themselves to be infallible processors of the logicals, employing incontrovertible "facts" derived from a reading of Ayn Rand novels and the findings of business-sponsored laborarories as feedstock in their production of "the right" rational outcomes, which will generally be proliferated about the planet and down the throats of you and me, whether we like it or not.
Strangely, these plans often turn out to be mad totalitarian adventures of a somewhat destructive kind. The bro-cum-AIs explain this away as "evolution" and "just business", something they're in favour of, especially if various technological red teeth and claws can do away with any opposition. The teeth and claws seem big enough, though, to do away with everybody and everything.
*******
Some of the techno-bro current doings about the planet are likely rather more pressing in their potential for an apocolyptic future than are other current concerns, making issues such as gender hierarchies seem lesser matters. One's gender and its associated rights or lack of them will suddenly become irrelevant when we're all dead of Muskrat or some other tech billionaire adventure that pollutes or weathers or "evolves" us all to death.
Are men and women unequally matched in open competition? I'm assuming that is why they are classified separately.
Yes, obviously the debate on the social and cultural reasons for it is huge and complex but the current best rated woman player in the world, Yifan Hou, is 127th in the open rankings. Judit Polgar did get as high as eighth in the open rankings though and won games against many of the best men of all time including Carlsen, Kasparov, Karpov and Spassky.
Absolutely, mens bigger stronger muscles are able to move the pieces and trip the game clock quicker giving them milliseconds more actual thinking time!
I was looking for an empirical answer rather than any underlying reasons. You managed neither.
Isn't that part of the problem? Cycling surely should be an attractive, accessible transport option more than it's a sport but is often seen as being for sporty, competitive, relatively well-off men who are into the performance and tech side of cycling - whether they work in the industry or are just its customers.
Wouldn't it be better for everyone if the cycle industry workforce looked a bit more like the breadth of society we'd like it to serve?
This is a severely disappointing thread - "that's the way it is, mate" seems to be the main theme. so yes, yes it would.
Cabbies "Lycra's are all middle aged white men and never seen in winter"* would love all this. Let's be better, the example often set by Cycling UK, than those other train-wreck major sports managements, from everyday ultilty riding to taking gold at the Olympics.
"Treat everyone equally and never discriminate" is 1970s stuff - a proper equality delivery system looks at where inequality occurs and takes action to address it. If your response is "oh, but look at the RAF" then you're no better than a driver with their "cyclists want to send us back to the Stone Age" Schtick.
We need more Carla Francombes who have found a way to navigate the often appalling insults and threats on social media and that all too often translate into the real world with it feeling like "who will win at fisticuffs" when it comes to who had right of way past that parked car.
* actually - your point, guys?
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