Bikes reviewed with women in mind

I have two pet peeves when it comes to bike reviews. The first is magazines or websites that don’t acknowledge their female audience when reviewing bikes. This doesn’t just mean a failure to review bikes designed exclusively for women. It also means reviewing unisex bikes without considering how it might fit, perform or otherwise meet the needs of girl riders. The second is bikes reviewed by women, for women, but in relation to the expectations of the reviewer alone, rather than the curiosities and concerns of a broader audience.

Links to reviews I’ve written to address this gap are below. I started writing about my racing and training bikes on this website before developing an international reputation for women’s bike and product reviews for other cycling websites. It makes me so happy to see better, more informed reviews by a growing amount of other female bike writers starting to punch through this gap too.

Another important part of this work, for me, is to work with photographers to produce quality images of women riding these bikes. Not because I want to be in the photo, but because cycling media needs more photos of women riding bikes skillfully and enjoyably, not just racing them or standing on the side of the road smiling at them. With the invention of Instagram, it’s so good to see riders at all levels tipping the scales in this way.