The Scottish Cycling Women’s Development Group met for the second time on Wednesday 19th February at Emirates Arena in Glasgow. The group includes women from across Scotland, joined by a member of the Scottish Cycling Young People’s Panel; those who couldn’t make the journey attended remotely via the wonders of modern technology.
The group were provided with an overview of Scottish Cycling and the work of the group thus far. Scottish Cycling supports cycling across multiple disciplines, from participation to performance. For example delivering Breeze in Scotland to get more women cycling, supporting the development of clubs and events, training and supporting volunteers to provide a volunteer workforce of coaches, event organisers and commisairres across the country, supporting athletes on the talent pathway and overseeing the safe delivery of competitive events in road, time trial, mountain biking – cross country and downhill, track, cyclocross, BMX and speedway. Phew!
Growing the number of women and girls involved in cycling has been the ambition of the Women’s Development Group since its inception.
Back in 2013 Scottish Cycling partnered with Scott Sports UK to organise the Scott Contessa Road Race academy, raising the profile of female coaches and supporting female riders to improve their fitness, skills and confidence to race. Since then, support to increase women’s involvement in cycling has grown across the cycling community; for example, women’s coaching initiatives, taster races, Come and Try events, the growth of Breeze, social media and marketing campaigns, and much more. Female fields in competitive events have grown, but numbers remain significantly smaller than male entrants
Whilst women make up 50% of the population, female membership of British Cycling is 18%, starkly reflecting the gender disparity found across the sport. The Women’s Development Group is building on great work, but there is still plenty to be done.
The meeting also provided an overview of Breeze in Scotland, which has grown significantly since the first Breeze Champion training course in Glasgow in 2014. Established in England in 2011, in its first year in Scotland there were 32 rides with a total attendance of 111. Last year there were 995 Breeze rides in Scotland, and 3,444 total attendance
Since 2014 221 women have volunteered to become a Breeze Champion, to lead rides in their local communities and helping more and more women to (re)discover a love of cycling.
Finally, the group presented their ideas on how to further develop women and girls cycling in Scotland. Three regional sub-groups met outwith the main meeting and presented their proposals. These ranged from organising an event to tie in with World Mental Health Day, to considering the barriers specific to women and girls, and building on the fantastic work that is already happening. These ideas will be progressed as the work of the group develops. Already one of the members, Sally Devlin, has since published this post shining a spotlight on an inspirational female cyclist and we’re looking forward to seeing more of these articles from her.
Meeting Documents
Introduction to Women's Development Group
Date of next meeting: Wednesday 13th May
Join in the conversation on the Scotland’s Women Cyclists Facebook group
For more information contact Melanie Toner, Scottish Cycling Women’s Development Group Chair on melanie.toner@scottishcycling.org.uk
