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MAKE IT GAL FRIENDLY.
I was in my local bike shop a few weeks ago and found my favorite sales manager doing a bike fit for a gal who was a tri competitor. She was medium height with narrow shoulders. They were working to try and get her comfortable in her aero bars in that nice tucked aero position.

As usual, the handle bar width was too wide. She looked like she was holding onto a wheelbarrow. There was no solution as there are apparently no integrated aero bars on the market that are made for women. At least that is what they both said.

It just seems to me, that with all the women entering cycling, the manufacturers would be more diligent in making women specific equipment.

This whole “make what you get work” approach has been going on since the 1920’s. We gals never seem to have the right tools to get the job done to the best of our ability. I recently watched some of the early footage from past Olympics and it was unbelievable how un-equipped these women really were. And that is if they were allowed to compete at all.

Decades later, it seems not that much has changed other than donating our entry fees. We are still the orphans of competitive sports.

(Yeah, I love racing until my eye sockets bleed for a pair of socks!)

I understand that there are more men than women competing, but women have come on strong and continue to push themselves into as many areas as possible. Manufacturers are always looking to expand their market, so why such a lack of appropriate fitting equipment?

When I am out racing in a crit, I see the same deal:
Organizers will put women’s categories all racing together, or better yet, squeezed on the course with much faster men.

My first year of crit racing, I was in a race with the women’s 3s, 4s, and the men’s cat3s. Here’s an idea some Mensa mind hatched. It was a total crash fest. The men came around turn 2 and rather than taking the outside, they rocketed through the middle of the MUCH slower pack of women who were for the most part terrified and huddled to the curb to let the men pass, as we had been neutralized in this position. Se habla “sitting ducks”? In the mean time about 6 women took a Peter Pan off the front in a well-timed break. So much for withering flowers, more like hunt with the pack and leave no survivors.
Bodies, bikes and helmets went flying across the deck.

The organizers decided after multiple protests to give anyone who could limp over to collect it, a refund on their race fees.

But hey, I rode safe and even finished the race… in my men’s size small jersey.