Blue Ribbon Banter: Sugar, Spice, and Everything Nice

Zach Faulkner

I want to ride like a girl.  I do. That’s a serious statement.  When women like Rachel Atherton and Tracey Hannah are flying down the hill, I think it is totally cool to want to ride like them.  Our sport of mountain biking needs women as much as it need chains to spin the wheels.  Sure, the demographic is not as large as the male market, but that’s not to say we shouldn’t foster the segment.

When I was a kid I idolized the Luna Chix squad as much as I did Cedric Gracia or Nathan Rennie.  Those women were amazing, both the DH’ers like Marla and the XC’ers like Katerina. I have autographed water bottles from them to prove that my fan-dom was top-tier, gender of the rider notwithstanding, because they were the best.

Years after my first NORBA National at Mount Snow (as an attendee, not a racer) where I met all of these amazing athletes, I read Marla Streb’s book and was floored by her story.  It pushed me to keep trying and not get discouraged.  My dad and I actually parked next to her at the U.S. Open in 2006 and chatted with her and Mark (a noble man of note in her life). I tried not to geek out the whole time. It was so cool to be around such formidable athletes as a young rider, even more so that a good number of them were strong and positive women.  Right now, we have an equally strong contingent of women sending it all over the world.  The Elite Women’s field on the World Cup circuit in 2013 was intense!

I for one, as both a fan and participant in the sport, am always pumped on the women’s coverage getting better with each passing year.  For a good period of time, the results and race summary were only a paragraph at the end of the [web] page.  Now, half the slideshow or article has content of just the women; that's progress! With more and more exposure for the women, I think it also spurs on the average female rider “back at home.” Being able to see other women lighting up the tracks and trails alike, right there with the guys, is certainly motivational.

For me, it isn’t about being “as fast as the guys.” It is about the personal progress and confidence that allows for a more enjoyable trail-experience.  The speed will come, I am just more keen on getting more women out and riding.  Biking, in a general sense, is one of the few sports where the playing field is relatively more-even between the genders on an average level with downhill being a slight skew in the average.

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re-write the "pink" paragraph? most of the big companies offer a lot of women's stuff that isn't pink and reflect what burton is doing. i think that'll get called out, but i like the idea behind what you're saying and it ties into to ender paragraph

I want to help sway the perception of who rides, and the fact that women can ride bikes without being hyper-masculine or losing that sense of femininity; Tough women can still have that “girly side.”  I think the trend of making the women’s products super girly needs to stop though.  Having the option of a pink bike, like Tracey's old Morewood or Holly Feniak’s old Cove - is always nice, but Casey Brown and Micayla Gatto are both rocking non-pink kits and bikes. The aspects of a women’s gear should be fit, not appearance. This is all a guy’s take on things, fair point, but look to other sports like snowboarding and skiing - I’ll use Burton as an example here: they have a whole “Burton Women” web site [http://burtongirls.burton.com/snowboarding/].  They have kit options, training tips, and a host of other cool information for the reader to check out.  Worth noting is the fact that there are six board/binding/boot setups pictured - only one is pink and white.  Having hyper-feminine options is good, having more less-masculine options is better.

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I think gender-neutral gear options are a good starting point. Focusing on the riding and actions of the athlete on track far outweigh the importance of appearance in terms of gender norms.  So many sports turn athletes into sex symbols (both men and women) and that can detract from the athlete’s accomplishments within the sport, versus the resulting appearance from the hard training that made them famous in the first place.  Don’t get me wrong, attractive athletes certainly don’t hurt the sport, but it is paramount that, as the sport grows, we address the way women are portrayed in ads and other forms of marketing (I’m looking at you Specialized, and that sexy nurse). We need to keep in mind that we are all out on the trail for the same reason and this isn’t like football, where the men put on the pads and helmets, and we hand the women pom poms and spanks.  Callused hands show hard work, as do painted nails, so instead of carrying on the age-old stereotype of “girly-girls” and “tom-boys”, can’t we just say that some women have more extreme taste in hobbies than others?

############ needs a tighter finish sentence. the idea is there, but it falls a little short. ##################