On May 10, Mother's Day, women cyclists – and their supporters – will gather in the Portland metropolitan region and around the world to celebrate the diversity of women’s biking. And of course, to take a bike ride or two.
Sponsored in part by Metro's Regional Travel Options program, CycloFemme PDX will gather at 11 a.m. at North Portland's Bike Farm, with rides beginning at noon. Part of National Bicycling Month, the CycloFemme event is a unique way for all kinds of bicyclists to participate in a guided ride of their choice and come together to celebrate the varied and burgeoning women's biking movement.
Created in 2012, the annual CycloFemme ride showcases the multifaceted women's bike movement. Around the globe, women celebrate the movement by leading or participating in group bicycle rides – fast rides, slow rides, racing rides, transportation rides, recumbent bike rides and e-bike rides, even cyclocross and mountain bike rides.
In Portland, different women-supporting bicycle groups will gather at the Bike Farm, a volunteer-run bicycle education collective, to share cupcakes, stories, learn more about resources that make it easier to bike and enter to win prizes from Nutcase Helmets and Two Wheel Cool, before heading off to several different rides.
“Bicycling has gotten more diverse here, and the opportunities for women to find a tribe - a group of cyclists that share their specific interests, is getting better all the time,” said April Streeter, ride leader at the local Women on Wheels meetup group, which boasts 850 area members.
At the Bike Farm event, Portland Bureau of Transportation active transportation division manager Margi Bradway will talk to the group about her experiences in Portland as a daily commuter, a mother with her children and a racer, as well as her vision for all Portlanders who ride bikes.
Organized rides are being led by representatives from Women on Wheels, Ladies Let’s Ride, Mujeres en Movimiento, Ride Like A Girl, Let’s Race Bikes, and The Sweetpea Ladies’ Auxiliary.
Metro’s partnership is part of a regional effort to increase the number of women using travel options, and is a collaboration between Drive Less Save More and regional partners. While encouraging all residents to increase their use of travel options, this effort aims to provide tools and information that are especially relevant to women’s concerns and barriers to walking, biking, taking transit or sharing a ride.
Increasing the number of women using travel options is an important step and measurement for creating a region where walking, biking and transit are safe, comfortable and convenient. At the heart of the effort is the recognition that women have different and more complex travel habits and barriers to regularly using travel options.
Learn more about the event and see a listing of rides