INTERVIEW


PHOTO BY MARTIN HURCOMBE


The Business Case for Diversity: Why the Cycling Industry Needs to ‘Gear Up’


Leading researcher Dr Fiona Spotswood explains the ‘Gearing Up’ framework, a practical  


I


nternational Women’s Day has come and gone, and for many brands (not just in the cycling industry), that means the one day a year marked in their calendars to ‘celebrate’ women and diversity has been ticked off.


For women working in the industry, that sort of token


gesture is something many are familiar with and almost expect. Only 20% of recreational mountain bikers in the UK are female, and in the cycling industry, that number is even lower. As the April edition of BikeBiz is themed around diversity, it seemed only natural we’d reach out to one of the leading researchers in this field, Dr Fiona Spotswood of Bristol University. She, along with her colleagues have been instrumental


in developing informed conversations around the lack of diversity within cycling, largely through the FIAS framework. This is designed to tackle gender inequality within mountain 


12 | April 2026


the cycling industry is a newer format, called Gearing Up. This takes the essence of the FIAS framework in helping to


create a roadmap to influence change from within. So, as well as trying to attract more diverse voices to leadership roles, it’s also applicable for brand marketing, too. Spotswood explains it further. “For the industry side, we developed Gearing Up. It’s a


different type of tool, specifically about marketing and media representation, content creation, and supposedly helping brands speak to women. “The language around that is not feminist social justice,


it’s money, profit and increasing your market size. It’s making sensible business decisions and enabling people to have difficult conversations.” Naturally, like many trailblazers, Spotswood does encounter some pushback from time to time, but understands it’s a challenging time for the industry.


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