Nice video. Your microphone picked up lots of male voices on the Women's Day ride. What do you call that? Manriding? Manrando-ing? What did they think of your bike? There are no other 'bents on camera.
Thanks. You're right about the low female to male ratio at the event. Unfortunately, this reflects the demographics of cycling overall. I guess you would just call it reality. Once you start drilling down through demographic groups you'll find a lack of diversity with respect to gender, ethnicity, and other categories. Freeze frame the video on the photo of the participants at the start and tell me if you see anyone else who looks like me. At least there *are* women there. At the weekly road racer club ride at my local park, most weeks there are 30 or 40 riders and no women at all.
However, having said that, I've found that randonneuring has the most diverse participants of the "sporting" cycling events. I've found the most diversity in the "fun ride" type of events of Bike New York, such as the Twin Lights Ride and the Five Boro Bike Tour.
While I was the only recumbent rider at this event, there has been at least 1 other recumbent at other brevets I've done in New Jersey. There's an M5 rider who is way faster than me so I usually see him at the start then never again. One of the New Jersey brevet organizers rides a Lightning recumbent. Same with one of the Bike New York marshals.
Again, this is a reflection of the bike industry and its marketing. Recumbents sell less than tandems and I think tandems are around 3% of the market.
The tiny slice of bicycle market share that is recumbents is further split among 2 and 3 wheeled offerings and trikes are winning that battle. 2 wheeled recumbents are now a minority within a minority.
Another great thing about randonneuring is that all bikes are welcome. While there were no other recumbents in my video, you can see that there were all kinds of bikes represented in the group I was riding with, including one fixed gear. It wasn't all carbon race ready machines.
My bike was well received. I answered a lot of questions. I only got one concerning recumbents and climbing and the answer was self-evident since I had no problem staying with a group of standard bikes on a rolling to hilly course. In part of the video before arriving at the store you can see me passing riders on a short climb. Climbing wasn't an issue.
If you want to see more recumbents on the road and online I say be that recumbent. Part of the reason I'm recording my rides is to keep recumbents in the public eye and show that they are capable of being more than curiosities.
Likewise, if you want to see more women in cycling ask a woman to go with you on your next ride. Then ask her to ask another for the next one. You'll soon flip that ratio.
This was a nice short event so it suited that purpose. A bonus was that they included every type of controle you'll ever come across. Nobody ever does the postcard controle anymore. That was cool. I hope the video will serve a primer for anyone thinking about randonneuring.
