A recent study commissioned by Darlington Media Group has discovered the shocking fact that teenage girls are more into make-up and boys than they are into riding bikes around and jumping off stuff like their male counterparts. My own extensive research into girls has borne this out as well. Strangely many girls don’t ride bikes, and are interested in clothes that generally don’t match the simple choices of grey or luminous yellow that we hardened cyclists are faced with.
On a serious note it is strange that while girls continue to use bikes through their teenage years and beyond in many European countries, in Britain they generally do not. In a society where we are focussing so much more on the health of young people who have neglected outdoor games in favour of sedentary, indoor activities, it does seem useful to find out what is putting girls off cycling as a hobby, or simply as a way of getting around. The study is at www.bikebeauty.org, and is well worth a look.
One company doing it’s best to make cycling more attractive to ladies who don’t fancy a wardrobe of lycra and polyester is Cycle Chic which champions cycling in everyday clothes and the less race-inspired of cycling gear. The study could do worse than to look to somewhere like that for inspiration on how to make cycling fashionable for teenage girls.
One benefit could well be the legal right to wear trousers in Paris, rather than having to get any special dispensation from the local police station. A law in the French capital only allowing women to wear trousers whilst riding a horse or bicycle hit the headlines this week as it appears to have resisted being repealed since its conception in 1800. Maybe that explains why teenage girls in mainland Europe ride bikes more often. It’s a matter of being allowed a choice in fashion.
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