The Week in Review

Written by Sarah Lamb

If I’ve learned one thing from my own experiences, it’s that statistics don’t lie, but stereotypes only exist if we let them. Physics is less than 5% women. Electrical Engineering is less than 3%. The cycling industry is, as of present, uncounted.

It’s not because the cycling industry doesn’t have a problem with gender diversity. It’s because our industry’s response to that problem is, by necessity, focused on the most public face of the issue, the women who ride and race their bicycles.

Thanks to Title IX, grass-roots clinics, and an increasing number of team directors and race promoters offering equal payouts, we're seeing more women on bikes and more women racing at the elite level than ever before. Now (finally!) the PBMA is poised to do something real about diversity “on the other side of the handlebars.” I’m talking about the women working behind-the-scenes in industry, the #womenwhowrench.

Today marks the conclusion of our first “Focus on Women” week, but I can promise you that it won’t be our last.

On behalf of the Board and the entire PBMA community, I want to extend a special “thank you” to all of the extraordinary women who generously volunteered their time and wisdom for our features this week, especially Denise Belzil, Nhatt Nichols, Sara Jarrell, Jude Gerace, Cheyenne Puskas, Ali Pearks, Jaimee Johnsen, Elva Nava, and JR Browy.

The reach of our features this week has been great. Statistics don’t lie: Our features this week have gotten over 28,000 impressions on social media, and we’ve had nearly 10,000 visitors click directly onto our blog.

My challenge to each of you is this: We can, and we should, do better. For ourselves, for our women, and for our industry, we must each make a conscious effort to become more inclusive and more encouraging of diversity among cycling mechanics. After all, stereotypes only exist if we let them.