Hi everyone,
I’m Therese from the CTC press office and I’ve been working on launching the team together with team manager Steve Bailey, who also doubles up as CTC Cycling Development Manager. I’ll try to answer some of your questions about Team CTC.
CTC is supporting the women’s team and the costs to CTC are absolutely minimal - the overwhelming portion of the support is staff time. The team couldn’t be launched and run without some funding and kit (bikes, helmets, clothing etc) and this is, of course, what the team’s co-sponsors are adding to the mix.
I can see that some forum members are questioning whether CTC should be involved in any racing or sport aspects. The thinking here is that CTC is a national cycling charity and as such we promote cycling – and we steer away from dividing cycling into different tribes. CTC celebrates cycling and there are no aspects of cycling that we’re not interested in. Some of you might have noticed that British Cycling is becoming much more involved and active in cycle campaigning, something which BC hasn’t traditionally been doing. CTC is happy to work with BC on campaigning as two influential organisations working hand in hand must surely be better than one by itself.
Supporting women’s cycling is written into the CTC strategy that’s been approved by the CTC Councilors, who are elected to represent the CTC members. Supporting women’s cycling and getting under-represented groups on bikes isn’t a tag-on or afterthought, but a really important part of the strategy. And there are lots of stats around to show that women cycle much, much less than men. 70% of bike trips per year are undertaken by men; 30% by women. Source: Department for Transport
http://www.dft.gov.uk/statistics/tables/NTS0601 And a recent Transport for London survey says that ‘women who cycle also do so less frequently: 64% of cyclists are men but they make 72 % of cycle journeys.
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/assets/downloads/ ... port-4.pdfOf course, supporting a women’s cycling team is only one of many things that needs to be done to get more women on bikes. CTC is already doing lots on the ground and having the team is a great way of drawing attention to this work.
A note on publicity: We’ve already had some great publicity in the cycling media and beyond when launching the team, but bear in mind that we’ll have many more chances throughout the year to talk about women’s cycling when the team is out and about competing in various events. It’s also about being able to reach new audiences – like getting a mention on the Sportsister website
http://www.sportsister.com/2013/01/25/m ... cing-team/ . And we’ve got a number of other magazines interested in covering the team in their features section. Fingers crossed we’ll get some really nice pieces of coverage in women’s mags.
I also want to make a couple of points about the riders on the team. They are all utility cyclists, who commute on their bikes to work. Perhaps except Helen, who works from home and so only has to pop into the living room to reach her work desk! And they all ride for the love and thrill of it. The riders are great role models and ambassadors to get women cycling, as they are not ‘just’ racers but women cyclists, who are also juggling busy, demanding day jobs. I’d say they are all cyclists that other women can relate to and therefore may be more effective ‘role model’s.
They’ll be coming along to support CTC events in their own time when they are not at work or racing. If you want to know a little more about the riders on the team take a look here:
http://www.ctc.org.uk/team-ctc/the-team And lastly we’ve had some great feedback about the team – both from members and new members, who decided to join CTC because of launching the team.
Hope this was helpful in clarifying CTC’s thinking and reasons behind launching the team.
Cheers
Therese