CTC Launch Women's Race Team

Now we have something / quite-a-lot to discuss and celebrate.
Brucey
Posts: 44522
Joined: 4 Jan 2012, 6:25pm

Re: CTC Launch Women's Race Team

Post by Brucey »

ricadus wrote:I believe the team is to help promote women's cycling at grassroots level, hence the inclusion of sportives as well as national races and a few events outside the UK.

AFAIK they won't be going off to UCI world cup events to do battle with Marianne Vos et al. :)


it says here;
http://www.ctc.org.uk/national-cycling-charity-launches-women%E2%80%99s-elite-cycling-team
that they will be doing half a dozen 'high profile' overseas UCI events, but not which ones.

cheers
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Brucey~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
User avatar
RickH
Posts: 5834
Joined: 5 Mar 2012, 6:39pm
Location: Horwich, Lancs.

Re: CTC Launch Women's Race Team

Post by RickH »

Brucey wrote:it says here;
http://www.ctc.org.uk/national-cycling-charity-launches-women%E2%80%99s-elite-cycling-team
that they will be doing half a dozen 'high profile' overseas UCI events, but not which ones.

cheers

Their race calendar can be found here (& more team info in the links on the right if this page).

Rick.
Former member of the Cult of the Polystyrene Head Carbuncle.
Therese_pressoffice
Posts: 2
Joined: 28 Jan 2013, 10:21am

Re: CTC Launch Women's Race Team

Post by Therese_pressoffice »

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.pdf

Of 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
eileithyia
Posts: 8399
Joined: 31 Jan 2007, 6:46pm
Location: Horwich Which is Lancs :-)

Re: CTC Launch Women's Race Team

Post by eileithyia »

informative post from therese.
ctc have always supported women cycling right back to the days of campaigning for appropriate women's cycling attire / bloomers...

we met some of the team in mallorca a few days ago and can confirm that no one is being paid to be a full time cyclist, they all have day jobs, and took holiday to go on training camp.

good luck to all and hope they successfully climbed sa calobra, twice in one day... hats off to them if they did.
I stand and rejoice everytime I see a woman ride by on a wheel the picture of free, untrammeled womanhood. HG Wells
JWestland
Posts: 5
Joined: 11 Mar 2013, 2:44pm

Re: CTC Launch Women's Race Team

Post by JWestland »

Consider that UK cycle mags are sold in bundle prescriptions with "men's magazines" and I saw a whopping 1 female in the Cycling Plus magazine from last December, none of the bikes were tested by mixed groups (all this female bike nonsense doesn't apply to most bikes they tested, just take a smaller model) clearly female exposure was minimal.

To me it says cycling here is very male orientated and UK Cycle Mags may pick up the CTC team publicity which will redress the gender balances in the magazines somewhat.
If the costs are indeed low for CTC this may help address the gender balance.

What I like is that the CTC mag has both male/females in the photos and articles. Most sports magazines for cycling are fully split into "men" (the existing ones) and "women" (the new ones that have now been started) It would be nice to see some more women write in with reviews etc. but at least the photos etc. are not just men.

We don't have this split down the sexes in The Netherlands, and why would you, anybody can ride a bike. And in some parts of cycling like downhill women race with the men!
User avatar
Si
Moderator
Posts: 15191
Joined: 5 Jan 2007, 7:37pm

Re: CTC Launch Women's Race Team

Post by Si »

Yep, JWestland, the difference between the CTC's Cycle mag and, say, C+ is that C+ is there to make money for the group that owns it and thus it writes stuff that is applicable for its biggest target market: male cyclists....and this can turn into a circular thing: it writes for men because most cyclists are men, thus women reading the mag think that cycling is for men only, thus we are left with an audience that is mostly male. 'Cycle' on the other hand is written to promote cycling for all (this being one of the CTC's charitable aims), rather than to make a profit (although it's nice if it can pay for itself too), and thus has a larger number of articles with women, children and special needs riders. Unfortunately some (dyed in the wool male traditionalists? :lol: ) think that this spreads coverage too thin so there have been a few complaints, but you can't please all the people all the time, etc.
User avatar
meic
Posts: 19355
Joined: 1 Feb 2007, 9:37pm
Location: Caerfyrddin (Carmarthen)

Re: CTC Launch Women's Race Team

Post by meic »

Unfortunately some (dyed in the wool male traditionalists? :lol: ) think that this spreads coverage too thin so there have been a few complaints, but you can't please all the people all the time, etc.


Here is a trap with no escape. :lol:

If I was to point out that there would be absolutely no contest in my mind if having to choose between a magazine of tourers ridden by women or one with racing bikes ridden by men. Then I would be called a sexist.

If I complain about racing bikes then I am a dyed in the wool male traditionalist.

If I expressed a desire to be a dyed in the wool male traditionalist surrounded by dyed in the wool female traditionalists, I would be a dyed in the wool male traditionalist sexist.

However if I had a desire to encourage women into racing (which I dont I would much prefer them to do touring or Audax as I do), I would be called a good person trying to promote equality. I havent quite worked out why if touring is unattractive to female cyclists that is touring's fault for being boring but if racing is unattractive to female cyclists that is due to sexism.

Or I could just get used to the fact that even the CTC finds touring cyclists embarrassing.
Yma o Hyd
User avatar
Si
Moderator
Posts: 15191
Joined: 5 Jan 2007, 7:37pm

Re: CTC Launch Women's Race Team

Post by Si »

There is a difference between being sexist and just wanting more of the things that interest you.
Richard Fairhurst
Posts: 2030
Joined: 2 Mar 2008, 4:57pm
Location: Charlbury, Oxfordshire

Re: CTC Launch Women's Race Team

Post by Richard Fairhurst »

JWestland wrote:Consider that UK cycle mags are sold in bundle prescriptions with "men's magazines" and I saw a whopping 1 female in the Cycling Plus magazine from last December, none of the bikes were tested by mixed groups (all this female bike nonsense doesn't apply to most bikes they tested, just take a smaller model) clearly female exposure was minimal.


You might be interested to learn there's a new news-stand magazine called 'Women's Cycling' - first issue on sale this week, I believe.
cycle.travel - maps, journey-planner, route guides and city guides
JWestland
Posts: 5
Joined: 11 Mar 2013, 2:44pm

Re: CTC Launch Women's Race Team

Post by JWestland »

Tx I saw Women's Cycling ads all over ... but to me it's another unnecessary gender split.

If it helps people getting into cycling, fair enough, but I personally do not want to buy magazines that split activities that can be done by both genders/sexes by gender/sex. <hardliner>

Er, CTC finds tourers ridiculous? Then why have the last issues been full of...touring stuff?

(is confused)
(doesn't have months holidays to go touring but does ride a tourer...what does that make me...)
:mrgreen:
beardy
Posts: 3382
Joined: 23 Feb 2010, 4:10pm

Re: CTC Launch Women's Race Team

Post by beardy »

CTC's Team CTC "launched with great fanfare and then fades away discreetly".
TonyR
Posts: 5390
Joined: 31 Aug 2008, 12:51pm

Re: CTC Launch Women's Race Team

Post by TonyR »

beardy wrote:CTC's Team CTC "launched with great fanfare and then fades away discreetly".


They seem to have had a pretty active competition season with not bad results up until the end of 2013 but disappeared after that. Not unusual for small teams though.
User avatar
gaz
Posts: 14649
Joined: 9 Mar 2007, 12:09pm
Location: Kent

Re: CTC Launch Women's Race Team

Post by gaz »

Council Meeting Minutes October 2013:
7.3 Team CTC
Gordon Seabright presented his paper and hoped that Council would support his recommendation. He advised that lessons had been learnt in the first year – one thing being that the Team didn’t do enough Charity events the other was not enough Press or Media coverage. Even when we were in the lead the TV coverage didn’t mention Team CTC and a complaint was sent to ITV. We now have a Press Volunteer who now covers all the races. Gordon confirmed that there was a good indication that sponsors will sign up again for 2014 at the same level of sponsorship as 2013. If we do not secure funding then Team CTC would not run in 2014.

Most Councillors fully supported this paper and therefore agreed if funding is secured.


Council Minutes January 2014:
13 Chief Executives Report
Gordon Seabright referred to his paper circulated and highlighted points that have been raised since the circulation of the paper.

•To date no financial support has been identified for Team CTC so it will not be going forward in 2014.
High on a cocktail of flossy teacakes and marmalade
Post Reply