FEATURE A LONG WAY TO GO
Women in the bike industry still face challenges not experienced by male counterparts, but is the industry changing? Rebecca Bland explores the topic of equality in the trade
I
f you head to a trade show or a bike launch, you might notice there are not that many women in the room with you. Thanks to the handily timed
Bicycle Association study on diversity in cycling, statistics show that women only make up 8% of the cycling industry’s workshop-based roles, 40% of administrative jobs and 19% of customer-facing roles. Nine in 10 women that work in sports also report barriers to entering the industry, and 50% believe they are paid less than their male counterparts. One could argue it is hard to attract women to an industry when only 11% of women cycle regularly, but that would assume every male in the industry is a regular cyclist, or at least has an interest in it. So to understand the current state of affairs, I spoke to five women who work in different roles in the cycling industry.
Progress has been made? Amy Marks is head of marketing and PR at British wheel brand Parcours Velo. She graduated from University College London with a master’s degree in Digital Media, Culture and Education in 2019, and went into a role with Canyon – where she says she was the only woman in the office. Things got better during her tenure and more women joined the team, before her switch to the agency side of things with M&S Saatchi, where she covered a variety of sports and brands, including the Olympics. However, she felt her work-life balance didn’t allow for as much cycling as she wanted to do, so she applied to Parcours Velo when a job came up, and as it turned out, they were a majority female company. “We are, I guess, probably in the minority within the
cycling industry, that we are a majority female company,” explained Marks. “We’re not a huge team; there’s three of us in the UK, and then we have our manager in China who’s also a woman. So we are a majority [female] company across China and in the UK, which is a pretty cool place to be. And despite being a small company, I think that it’s still a cool asset to have – something that I think in the office we’re all very proud of.” Asked whether she thinks the industry has changed since she joined, Marks feels that progress has been made, particularly
PHOTO BY COEN-VAN-DE-BROEK ON UNSPLASH
www.bikebiz.com
April 2023 | 11
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