It’s International Women’s Day and we thought it timely to mention some of the great women in the bicycle world whom we have met over the past few years.
Treadlie Magazine is pretty unique amongst bike mags, it is run primarily by women and you’ll find plenty of women who ride amongst its pages. Our stories feature both male and female riders and when we look at our readers we find they’re pretty evenly split between the two, with slightly more women reading the mag than men. We set out to create a mag that reflects the world around us and those who ride in it and funnily enough, fifty percent of the population turn out to be in the mag fifty percent of the time. Go figure! Obviously, over the years, we’ve come across far too many inspiring women on bikes to mention here, but here are just a handful.
Sasha Strickland of Pony Bikes
PonyBikes in North Melbourne is now well established amongst the ranks of Melbourne bike shops. Founded in 2008 by Sasha Strickland, Pony Bikes remains one of the few shops not only owned and run by a woman but with a woman on the tools. Sasha has grown the business from custom fixed gear builds to bespoke builds that cover the whole gamut of cycling, along with frame repairs. After moving to new premises with more space, the shop has become a hub for riders, serving great coffee and cakes as well as offering great service. The extra space has also meant Sasha has been able to offer regular free maintenance classes for women and inclusive shop rides to local beaches have also become semi-regular events.
Fiona Campbell at the City of Sydney
The City of Sydney‘s cycleways have been a huge success in getting more people onto their bikes. It is no secret that infrastructure is key to getting women on bikes and this has proven to be true with many new Sydney riders. While Clover Moore has been the public face of, and instrumental to, these changes, behind the scenes the City of Sydney’s talented and effective cycling strategy team is run by Fiona Campbell. Fiona and her team, in rolling out cycleways that increasingly link different areas of Sydney have been and continue to be, critical to getting women onto bikes.
Adelaide Bike Kitchen
Adelaide Bike Kitchen is just one of the great community bike workshops around Australia, keen to make bikes accessible as well as share skills and knowledge. They also work really hard to make sure that workshops and the general environment at the ABK are inclusive and welcoming to everyone. An awareness of how these environments can sometimes inadvertently work to exclude women and taking proactive steps to make sure this doesn’t happen is an important element at the ABK, and its effectiveness can be seen in the number of women helping run the space, taking part in workshops and just hanging out.
Deadly Nightshades
The Deadly Nightshades bike crew are a kick-ass all female group of riders based across Northern America. Over the years the Nightshades have taken their interest in fashion, style, design and art and married it with great effectiveness to their love of hanging out on bikes. Although now spread out geographically, this hasn’t stopped them from working on new projects together and continuing to inspire female riders around the globe.
Kate Lansell at Dirty Deeds CX
Sponsorship, prize money and media interest in any sort of cycling sport have unfortunately been dominated by male riders and races in the past. Thankfully this appears to be changing, slowly, but we thought the guys at Dirty Deeds CX deserved a shout out for their efforts to be inclusive from the very beginning. Kate Lansell has been one of the organisers of Dirty Deeds CX from the start, not to mention a determined rider. Dirty Deeds have worked hard to encourage female participants and have built strong fields for the women’s races. Kate has been instrumental in running special women-only skills sessions and even helping keen potential riders source suitable bikes. Not only this but after weeks of long hours spent organising in the run-up to each event she still finds the time and energy to jump on the bike and hurl herself around the course! (Photo Andrew Blake)
Iris Dixon
We first met Iris Dixon (nee Bent) in 2013. Iris is a legend of women’s cycling. She has more than 30+ Australian Championships and multiple Australian Master’s Titles. Last year Cycling Victoria named her one of the top three female cyclists of all time. Now in her mid eighties, Iris can still be found three days a week riding with the Golden Oldies at Preston velodrome.