OPINION PHOTO BY TOM GIBBS
Bristol Rally Riders
And it does work. We have built a community with a roughly 50:50 gender split across social media, the newsletter and, broadly, event attendance. In cycling, that does not just happen by chance. It happens because you create the conditions for it. If you want more women in your events, your communities, your customer base or your workforce, you cannot just say the door is open. You have to look at whether women feel invited through it. As a marketer, I think about that a lot. Long
before someone buys a ticket, walks into a shop or signs up for a ride, they are already reading the signals. Who do they see in your imagery? What tone are you using? Does the language assume confidence and prior knowledge? Does the whole thing feel like it was made with them in mind, or like something they are being allowed to join if they can keep up? Those early signals matter more
examples is the Bristol Rally, the bikepacking rally I created through All Terre Adventures. The Bristol Rally ringfences 50% of its tickets for women and marginalised genders. I did that because I did not want it to become yet another event where the fastest fingers and the people already embedded in the scene took most of the places, and everyone else was left trying
to fit around that. A first-come, first-served ticket model often looks neutral on the surface, but neutral systems do not always
‘THE CULTURE
than you might imagine. You can say you want more women, but if your brand still mainly speaks to men, women will notice that. You can say a ride is for everyone, but if the culture around it feels ‘blokey’, intimidating or cliquey, women will notice that too. That has shaped how I approach events as well as community building. One of the clearest
16 | April 2026 CAN FEEL TECHNICAL, FAST- MOVING AND MALE-DOMINATED. IF
YOU ARE A WOMAN COMING INTO THAT ENVIRONMENT, ESPECIALLY WITHOUT A FRIENDSHIP GROUP ALREADY IN THE SPORT, THE GAP BETWEEN BEING CURIOUS AND ACTUALLY SHOWING UP CAN FEEL HUGE.’
create fair outcomes. In practice, they tend to favour the people who are already confident, already connected, and already used to taking up space. In cycling, that often means men. So for me, ring-fencing tickets is not about being divisive. It is about being realistic. If you know a standard model will likely reproduce the same imbalance, then changing the structure is a practical solution. And that matters, because when
women turn up to an event and see a genuinely mixed start line, it changes the experience for everyone. It changes how comfortable people feel. It changes the conversations they have, the friendships they make, and the likelihood that they will come back or tell other women to come next time. Representation is not just a nice-to-have. It
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