Organisers of RideLondon have come under criticism after it emerged that a photograph on their website had been photoshopped to include a black woman participating in the event, with a leading blogger and cycling author saying "they should be embarrassed” about it.
The image, which had apparently been manipulated to try and make the event appear more diverse, has since been deleted from the RideLondon website, reports The Sunday Times.
The photograph above, published by the newspaper shows part of the image. The full picture showed a group of male riders, with female riders from ethnic minorities on either side.
But while two men shown in the image took part in the event in 2018, one of the women only did so the previous year.
Event director Hugh Brasher confirmed that the image had been created from three separate photographs and was aimed at highlighting the diversity of people who take part in events including the Prudential RideLondon-Surrey 100 sportive.
He said: “Three images have been combined to create this composite image: the female cyclists on the bottom left and bottom right were added to the central image of the two male riders bumping fists as they come down The Mall.
“All images are from riders who have participated in sportives at Prudential RideLondon and there was absolutely no intention to mislead.'
“It is not our usual practice to use composite images and this image has been removed from our website.”
He continued: “We know that cycling needs to do more to encourage people from all backgrounds to get involved and that is one of the key aims of Prudential RideLondon.
“We believe that we have led the way for mass participation cycling events.
“More than 100,000 cyclists take part over the weekend in a range of different events that cater for everyone.”
He added: “Prudential RideLondon FreeCycle had 43 per cent women participants in 2018, the 46-mile sportive had 38 per cent women, the 19-mile sportive had 39 per cent women and the 100 mile sportive had 22 per cent women.
“We believe the average percentage of women in mass participation sportives in the UK is approximately 15 per cent.
“We continue to work to inspire people from all backgrounds to get on two wheels.”
Cycling writer Jools Walker, who blogs under the name Lady Velo and is black, said that organisers “should be embarrassed” of the picture:
“All I can imagine is a group of white marketing executives looking at this image and thinking: there’s a problem,” she said.
“But instead of trying to address why people from these groups don’t see cycling as inclusive, they decide to photoshop in ethnic minority women — badly. They should be embarrassed.”
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92 comments
I just went looking for a nice squirrel or cycling related liberals meme.. The word 'liberal' really is quite on trend it seems.
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As any fule kno, all liberals drink birds' coffee. Even if they're male.
So old Sparticus hit the ground running this morning I see. It's always nice to have another diverse viewpoint on the boards.
Today I are learning that liberals are da worsest of evils, expresso is a term used outside of coffee and squirrels can use flame throwers.
I don't think they'd like you saying that. I rather got the impression that they don't like anything diverse...
I think that picture of the squirrel may have been photoshopped. Which I seem to recall was the initial subject of this thread.
I've been busying myself Photoshopping red squirrels into photos of grey squirrels taken in my local area, in the hope that it encourages more red squirrels to participate in dawn raids of my bird table.
Unfortunately, it seems harder to tempt a red squirrel to my bird table than it is to get a BAME person to do RideLondon.
Maybe you're not being inclusive enough
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Almost - I sip a cappuccino. Nobody sips an espresso. Oh and I'm not a liberal (well, I am, just not in the way you mean), having had many a forthright discussion on here about Brexit and taxation, for example. You do realise that you're doing exactly what you claim to hate? Pigeonholing people according to how they look.
Absolutely not!
It depends on what you mean by 'sip', but it's generally considered good form (by me, anyways) to consume a double espresso in three sips. You should aim to get some crema with each 'sip' and indeed a lot of people prefer to down an espresso in a single gulp - also acceptable.
There's some more info here: https://www.home-barista.com/coffees/proper-way-to-drink-espresso-t3303.html
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Not sure about 'expresso', but I'm not sure I even know what a 'liberal' is - the word means very different things to different people, and it definitely has a different meaning in different countries.
But I only drink instant coffee. I don't like the taste of all that overpriced weird stuff. Just putting that on record. I do draw the line at the weird corner-shop own-brand coffee though - that stuff tastes really strange. Second-cheapest instant brand is the way to go. For me, that's the sweet-spot between 'bizarre chemical taste' and 'overpriced pretentious crap'.
(And what the hell is a 'multi-cultural friend'? Can you even define that term? Do you even think about what you write as you string together your second-hand cliches, all ultimately derived from mad Americans on Youtube, whether you realise it or not. Sheep.)
All those bacteria in your chamois.
Frankly, I'm shocked and dismayed.
I ask you, what is the point of riding a hideously over-priced carbon-fibre race-replica road bike and not also sipping, I repeat - sipping, some overpriced single estate, shade-grown, high altitude espresso?
I almost dropped my latest copy of the liberal agenda!
We can never be friends.
of course all you whingers here would have been replaced by some equally sad so and so's who would moan that there wasn't such a person in the pic.
Whole thing is pathetic.
The only fair thing to do would be nothing.
All this encouragement of diversity is morally wrong. It is blatant discrimination towards a minority group rather than treating all the same.
Try being male, middle, aged, married, hetrosexual, white, employed, home owning, not living in the dump of a capital city, able bodied, not espcially "green", able to drive , tax paying, no criminal record, with all my marbles, childless, not having any public transport or cycle routes.
Now thats a discriminated against group. Absolutely no form of help or encouragement what so ever in anything.
Fairness is treating alll the same not aiding one group at anothers expence.
You poor thing, it must be so awful. Ask mummy to kiss it better.
Aiding one group at another's expense is part of the problem.
All those people who are not you but who are excluded for various reasons from cycling, or whatever, pay just as much tax as you do. Therefore all the public money that goes into cycling infrastructure, training, cycle to work schemes and so on is their money and they are not receiving the benefit - you are, and I am. The government and the councils have an absolute duty to ensure that taxpayers' money is spent for the benefit of all, yet large sections of the taxpaying population are excluded. This is one reason why government and councils spend time and money being inclusive; not the only reason or the most important one, but perhaps it's one that you in your self-pitying, delusional prejudice might be able to grasp.
I think your response shows you up more than him.
Such a typical response from a media brain washed liberal. " Your thoughts don't agree with mine so I am going to put you down"
And yet the irony is you act like you care about everyone.
You need to wake uo son. You've had your day, Trump is President...Brexit is happening...
#getoveritfeckwit
You really can't cope with people disagreeing with you, can you?
well, at least I can spell Spartacus...
No - I can spell Spartacus!
I can spell Spartacus!
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Can you tell me who, or what, exactly - in a strictly legal sense - is excluding these "large sections of the taxpaying population" from cycling, or whatever?
The answer is "nothing".
The point here that cycling is NOT exclusive - ANYONE can buy a bike, use it and make use of the cycling facilities provided.
There are a great many people from white backgrounds that don't cycle and yet are contributing a hefty chunk of tax towards facilities they don't use, so what's your point?
Whether people cycle, or whatever, or not, is entirely personal choice, although that choice may be skewed by MANY factors, including various perceptions of the sort of people that DO go cycling, partly driven by the media and other sources.
I've seen similar research in other outdoor activities, for example, the BMC and use of national parks by minority groups and, a good few years ago, some research that showed that not many black people go skiing.
Any attempt to actively try and increase participation in specific groups is historically doomed to failure - you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink, etc.
The only thing you can do is promote the activities as all-inclusive and that's what they were trying to do, even if they did make something of a cock-up of the attempt.
I posted a number of links earlier. If you won’t read them then I can't help you.
The links you posted describe a number of reasons people don't cycle, some of which have no bearing at all on the participants ethnicity or, for that matter, sex.
Not one of them states anything about specifically "excluding" people from cycling - that's your word.
of course all you whingers here would have been replaced by some equally sad so and so's who would moan that there wasn't such a person in the pic.
Whole thing is pathetic.
The only fair thing to do would be nothing.
All this encouragement of diversity is morally wrong. It is blatant discrimination towards a minority group rather than treating all the same.
Try being male, middle, aged, married, hetrosexual, white, employed, home owning, not living in the dump of a capital city, able bodied, not espcially "green", able to drive , tax paying, no criminal record, with all my marbles, childless, not having any public transport or cycle routes.
Now thats a discriminated against group. Absolutely no form of help or encouragement what so ever in anything.
Fairness is treating alll the same not aiding one group at anothers expence.
What's funny is when white people want to do what are seen as ethnic activities it's now cultural appropriation. You can't win. Inspired by far eastern music? Don't you dare write any! Love jerk style food. Don't you cook it!
Well this seems like yet another storm in a tea cup.. black woman cycling blogger takes offense that there's a black woman cyclist in a picture promoting an event which 100,000 people take part in. What's her point? Maybe she'd like to see photoshop banned.
There are some good points and issues raised in the comments here, none of which really are in context to the original story above, most of us seem to agree that we'd love to see more people cycling generally.
Can we all just take a minute to chuckle at 'the comic's' gaff from 2017.. in their weekly 'club focus' article they went to press with a photo which is far worse than the gaff from ride london....
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/sep/01/cycling-weekly-apologises-...
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Recent studies in the UK and The Netherlands found that BAME people gave pretty much the same reasons as anyone else for not cycling - perceived lack of safety being the most common. However, BAME people were far more likely to answer that a perceived lack of status put them off cycling; they particularly associated utility cycling with poverty - an association that put them off swinging a leg over a bike, whether the respondent was poor or not.
I think people often use safety as a excuse not to cycle when the real reason is that they arn’t able to demonstrate their status by showing off their car to everyone.
Spot on.
Last time I had to do the diversity/discrimination/managerial training courses at work, they made the point about how sensitive you had to be when dealing with some groups, due to the cultural implications of status, success and so on.
A quick glance through the office car park reveals that nearly everyone I work with that has a BAME background is driving a Mercedes or BMW - most of the white people are in the Fords and VWs. And that's pretty much true of every office I've worked in.
Personally, I don't understand why they didn't just make it an obvious collage of participants.
Thats actually really interesting.
Although I'm not sure how applicable it is to RideLondon, which is a recreational thing rather than utility.
(Your last point is particularly interesting and, lets be honest, could also apply to cycling more generally - people who could ride to work on their ratty old hybrid but are embarrassed to be doing so because they think it makes them look poorer than the other commuters on their Brompton, or their shiny fixie, or gleaming road bike...).
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