How to take the macho out of your group ride

This story is part of our series celebrating International Women’s Day on 8 March, and exploring how the theme of ‘Inspire Inclusion’ can fit into women’s cycling, racing, tech and more.

The sport of cycling is a broad church. If your favourite group ride is a hammer-and-tongs smash-fest, that’s great. However, if you want to make your cycling club or group ride more welcoming and open, taking a second to ask whether you can make your group ride a bit less macho might help.

Going less macho doesn’t exclude men. It’s just about stripping away the worst parts of masculinity, like intimidation, boastfulness and chauvinism, and replacing them with kindness and empathy.

To find out how, we reached out to Nic Carass, one of the founders of the New Forest Off Road Club (NFORC). The NFORC is an off-road cycling community based in Hampshire, UK. They have ten guiding principles, but given that one of them is to “demonstrate the glory of the matriarchy”, they seemed just the people to tell us how to replace macho with matriarchy, and build cycling groups that are welcoming to all.

Most cycling clubs or shop rides could learn an awful lot from what NFORC have built. In fact, even for those of us who are simply turning up for club runs and group rides, there are simple things we can change in our language and behaviour to make cycling a bit less macho, a bit more matriarchal, and a lot more welcoming for everyone, of any gender.

Read more: Chloe Paton: How cycling has opened new doors

First of all, do you actually want to change?

“There's such a fashion right now to be like, ‘who can be the most inclusive?’” Nic tells GCN. “And actually, if you just want to go and be bro, that's fine!”

“That's alright if you just want to whiz around the New Forest as fast as you can with your mates,” Nic insists. “And if someone gets dropped, screw ‘em, you'll see them at the pub. There's a place for all of it.”

That said, there is also a place for opening the doors to other people. If you want to make your club or group more appealing to new people, replacing the macho with matriarchy is a great place to start — after all, it’s much easier to approach a friendly, compassionate group of cyclists than a competitive, chauvinistic one.

How to remove the macho: watch your language

Before we get into the step-by-step of planning an open and accessible ride, a really important part of removing the macho from our riding, and indeed from cycling more generally, is by considering the language we use.

For a sport that is all skin-tight spandex and shaved legs, the way we talk about road cycling is surprisingly butch. When we talk about ‘smashing’ climbs, ‘attacking’ the group and ‘bombing’ the descent, it can sound like we’re going to war, not going on a bike ride.

Nic encourages everyone to ask themselves the following question: “What language do you use that talks more about dominating something as opposed to just enjoying it?”

Did you ‘smash’ that climb, or did you ascend it? Did you ‘attack’ the group, or ride off the front? Did you ‘bomb’ the descent, or follow it down the mountain? Did you ‘survive’ that gravel epic, or find it exhausting?

Cycling can be hard, but elevating our struggle on a tough ride into a war of ‘man against mountain’ is a bit over the top. We’re riding for fun, not going into battle.

Aside from specific word choices, the NFORC wants to shift the way we talk about cycling away from stats and boasts and towards pleasure and appreciation. Caress says she wants people “to have better conversations than how far you've ridden, such as, how does riding your bike make you feel?"

“All of those better conversations are part of creating a different space than just, ‘Let's ride as fast as we can.’”

How to be matriarchal: be selfless, empathic and kind

Really, the NFORC are not interested in removing bits and pieces from cycling until it’s no longer sexist. They’re interested in building an entirely new cycling culture that begins with the glory of the matriarchy. That means building a culture with the compassion and empathy that, let's be honest, comes easier to women.

That said, creating a matriarchal cycling community is about how you act, not about what you’ve got between your legs, as Nic explains:

“For us, anybody is able to participate in a matriarchy. It's where you put community, vulnerability and empathy at the core,” she explains.

“We have a guy who comes on a ride, Tommy, who doesn't come on a ride without enough snacks, truly, for about 30 people. He's thinking of other people, and he thinks about other people all the time, and that, for us, that’s the glory of the matriarchy.

“It's about de-centering ourselves and putting other people and the community ahead of ourselves.”

Read more: Pragnya Mohan: Every girl in India should have access to a cycle

© Jay Waldon

By celebrating 'the glory of the matriarchy', NFORC have built a thriving cycling community

How to plan a ride that’s matriarchal, not macho: a step-by-step guide

Now we’ve covered the general approach, here’s how to produce a group ride that feels open and welcoming, by embracing the empathy and compassion of the matriarchy.

Step 1: Make the invite inviting

When people are thinking of joining a new club or group ride, there are usually two main concerns. Firstly, that they’ll be too slow, and secondly, that they’ll be the newbie who isn’t part of the gang. Reassuring people on both those things starts with the way you promote your ride.

First of all, the fear of getting dropped. As well as clearly stating that no one will be left behind (if it’s that kind of ride), pay attention to the subtleties of your language and imagery — it doesn’t take much to put nervous riders off.

For example, the NFORC avoids sharing photos of people hunched over their bikes.

“If you look at any of our imagery, it's never pictures of people's bums. Because that in itself makes — and people don't even know this because it's subliminal — but even that in itself makes it look speedy.”

Then, you can try to reduce the social anxiety of new members by sharing what you do and who will be there.

“We let people know who's going to be leading it; we make sure that their faces are available.”

Then, by posting photos, introducing characters and sharing stories from their rides, the NFORC opens up the group to prospective members, making it less intimidating for new riders to come along the following week.

Practical information can help prospective riders feel confident to join too. What’s the route? Will you stop for food and drinks? Will there be toilets?

Step 2: At the start, apply some “social lubrication”

Most of us know the feeling of rocking up at the meeting place for a club ride for the first time, feeling like the odd one out.

To get past it, the NFORC start each ride with some icebreakers, or “social lubrication”, as Nic calls it. After a short brief from the ride leader, riders are asked to say their name and pronouns, where they usually ride, if they’ve ridden with the group before, and an album they’re enjoying at the moment. It makes the group less intimidating for newcomers, and gives riders a couple of easy openers for conversations with people they don’t know.

If that sounds over the top, do what you can to brush away the school disco awkwardness that can occur at the start of a group ride. Be the social facilitator by introducing yourself and others and starting conversations. More practically, take off your sunglasses so people can see your face, and get off your bike for a moment so you can walk and talk freely.

Step 3: Avoid the clique

On the ride itself, it’s really important to be aware of our natural tendency to form a clique.

“As humans, it is very natural for us to want to be cliquey,” Nic explains. “If you go on a group ride and you see someone that you rode with last time, you're obviously going to say, ‘Oh my god, so good to see you again, how's it been going?’

“So it means that the person who's come for the first time is thinking, ‘What? Everyone already knows each other.’”

Of course, the icebreakers at the beginning are there for people to find common ground, but Nic says they’re also about embracing differences.

“We facilitate those instructions, right? So people go around: where is it you normally ride? What album are you listening to? So even that in itself, if someone says, ‘Oh, Little Sims! I like Little Sims too,’ that's great, but if you're not into Little Sims, you're thinking, ‘Oh no, I'm not in the clique.’

“I remember someone saying to me that, as a manager, you should always look at your team and establish who you've got the least in common with, and plan in time to work and work with them and spend time with them, and I think that's literally what we put in our ride leader training, to let people know that on rides, they should do exactly the same.

“If you really are dedicated to creating an inclusive space, just think, ‘Oh my God, that person is so different to me. I'm at some point during the ride going to make a concerted effort to see how they're getting on.’”

Step 4: Embrace interruptions

When someone gets a mechanical, it’s a learning opportunity, not an inconvenience:

“Usually on group rides, it's a case of oh, this is interrupting the flow. People are thinking, ‘let's get that mechanical fixed so we can crack back on with the route,’” Nic explains.

“Whereas with us, it's like, ‘okay, so who hasn't seen this scenario before?’ If it's alright with the person who it's happened to, we're going to give them the opportunity for people to come and gather around and get a sense of what's up, and then how we fix it.”

NFORC even posts suggestions for things to do whilst someone in the group has a mechanical, including practising your track stand, sharing snacks, and swapping bikes.

Step 5: Be the slowest rider

Waiting for the slowest rider is one thing, but if you are a ride leader who wants to make people truly feel like they are not inconveniencing the group, you need to ride — or walk — with them.

“If you are on a route which is punchy and some people are walking, you're walking,” explains Nic.

“Get off your bike and walk with them. I don't know if that always happens in male-dominant spaces, but even if you don't need to be walking, you're getting off and you're walking.

“In a really inclusive community space, that kind of thing just is a given, and it's not as if you get off your bike saying, ‘Oh, I'll walk with you.’ You're just doing it.”

Step 6: End the ride properly, and thank people for their time

“At the end of the ride, people don't just peel off. We gather: ‘How’s everyone doing?’ If it feels right, we'll go around and we'll ask everyone to just share one word of how they're feeling. And sometimes people just say, ‘hungry’, ‘ready for the pub’, but whatever, there's that space. And then some people say, ‘really energised.’”

It’s really important to thank people for joining. People make sacrifices to come along to a group ride, and a hearty thanks might well be the thing that persuades them to make the same sacrifices the next week.

“We're always, at the end, saying, ‘Thank you so much for choosing to spend two hours of your Sunday riding with us. We can't get over that this is still something we get to do.’”

© Jay Waldon

The NFORC ride on gravel trails in the New Forest, Hampshire

From macho to matriarchal

To reiterate, there is no need to change the way you or your friends ride, or change the way you talk about cycling. However, given that our sport continues to be male-dominated, if there are small changes we can each make that will make the sport less exclusionary and more welcoming, that seems like an easy win to us.

If you want to learn more about how NFORC have built their club, or if you’d like to learn about how you can start your own matriarchal group in your area, consider joining a ride or getting a ticket to NFORC’s ‘How to Build Community’ workshop.