Eileen Young, whom many of you will know as one of our summer salespeople, spends her winters in Wisconsin. She recently attended a bicycling forum, and kindly took the time to share her observations with us.

Part of my Spring Break involved a couple days in Pittsburgh, PA with my uncle. I happened to be there while the Women and Biking Forum was on, and couldn’t resist going.

There was a lot of focus on being “bike ambassadors” and self-advocacy, including building community. We all want to feel safer on bikes, and more welcome on the roads, and there was a lot of discussion, both in the presentations and in the individual discussions, on how to do that. A campaign that was pretty successful in Pittsburgh was, when a car came closer than was comfortable, just shouting “Careful!” We’ve probably all been tempted sometimes to yell other things, but the idea is that it promotes safety by reminding drivers that we’re human and squishable.

The community-building aspect took a bunch of different shapes: one of the people there was Monica G., the founder of Black Girls Do Bike, and another, Jess Matthews, founded a programme for middle school girls in Columbus, OH.

The first workshop I went to was the Fundamentals of Biking, to see what kind of questions people had when just starting out. A good portion of the initial discussion was on finding a bike, and the fact that sizing is inconsistent across brands, so it’s important to try them out. And then, even though you only really need yourself and a set of wheels to go out and have fun, we looked at apparel. Staying warm and dry are always important, and layers and items like booties and cycling-specific rain-jackets with tails are a great help there, but keeping the ears and throat covered can make a huge difference when it’s wet and cold. This was good impetus for me: we’ve already got shorts and jerseys up on the clothing page of our FAQ section, but I’m going to focus on getting more information up on there in the next while, starting with shoes.

After lunch and more great speakers, I went to the “Experiences Riding As Women” discussion, which was fantastic: a lot of different people contributed, including someone from Hollaback! Pittsburgh, which aims to end all street harassment, not just for cyclists. The focus was overall very positive, despite some of the negative experiences some have had: we talked about cycling education, and how it helps everyone when cyclists follow the rules of the road and how a buddy system can make commuting less stressful, especially starting out (at least one of you will know where you’re going!).

Bike Pittsburgh did their own recap here, with lots of additional links and resources.