S.P.L.A.I.N. 2019 Survey Results
As a woman cyclist whose favorite summer activity is cycle touring around the Puget Sound, I have noticed only one constant:
Dudes have to comment on what you’re doing.
No matter the kind of bike, route, destination or group size, men seemingly must comment on the what and why of being a femme on a bike. I know these are gendered interactions because it does not happen to my friends who are men when we are cycling together. To be clear, I am not maligning or attempting to censure every man who has ever thought to speak to a femme person on a bike. What I mean by men must comment, is a specific type of one-sided commentary that is seemingly inevitable as a femme person on a bike.
The people lobbing these remarks are not asking questions. They approach staring at my bike setup or my body, do not greet me, do not introduce themselves, but simply stare and say or yell something vaguely related to the nature of what I am doing as they walk away. It is something you can count on when you are a femme on a bike -- men seemingly have to comment on what you are doing. As a spectator and recipient of these types of verbal lances, it appears to be a compulsive urge to be a part of an adventurous thing of which they are not a part. Men on bikes get asked questions as peers -- femme cyclists are usually given commentary with no opportunity or opening for response or feedback. It is the conversational equivalent of masturbation, as there is never an intent to engage in any kind of reciprocity; the interaction exists to verbalize a premature string of ideas that never needed to be heard in the first place. If my existence in space was unremarkable, it would not be remarked upon. However, because I am a femme on a bicycle, it is somehow remarkable.
If my existence in space was unremarkable, it would not be remarked upon. However, because I am a femme on a bicycle , it is somehow remarkable.
What I am ruminating upon is not endemic to cycling, it is a cultural cancer that permeates all types of environments. It is the sociocultural grooming men receive to present themselves as superior and expert, even when they are not. I have done a lot of personal work, and stand on the shoulders of feminists and activists before me, to feel confident and secure on a bike. The idea that I would not be able to engage in some kind of exchange about cycling -- or at the very least be worthy of a good morning -- is insane.
Even at its most benign these types of interactions are exhausting. This is Seattle we are considering here, and while the culture is by no means perfect and exists within the culture of the United States, most of the time when I am cycling I am not worried about physical violence or being called a vulgar name. But one does not know what will happen -- Will it be a vitriolic insult? A bigoted epithet? Will they try to grab me or my bike? All that is in my power is to anticipate all outcomes, tensing my body and activating myself for a defense. Does your body feel tense right now? Are you having a physical reaction to that description? What I am describing is how many femme, trans, and gender nonconforming people feel in the world, for good reason, a lot of the time. What I am discussing in this article is the inevitability of these interactions as a femme on a bike. Consider feeling that physical tension and vulnerability every time you try to go for a Sunday ride, stop to fill your water bottle, or rest in the shade. That is what I carry as a femme on a bike when I see these people approach. Intellectually, I know I am not at much risk, but my body is conditioned through my own experience with violence, abuse, and weird misogynistic commentary to tense up and protect itself. This is the exhausting part. I know from both statistics and my own experience with other femme, trans, and gender nonconforming people, that many if not all of us have experienced verbal and physical violence and abuse -- this should not be new information to any person with a heartbeat that occasionally reads the news. What does this have to do with the bike shop survey? In short, everything.
The place where I find this type of interaction concentrated to its supreme essence is at bike shops. Bike shops are typically owned, operated, and occupied by men because cycling has a preponderance of men. I have experienced that bike shops are distinct and some are more welcoming than others, and my friends in the cycling community have recommended shops based not only on the quality of the work, but the shop’s ability to treat people equally. Bike shops are where many people begin their cycling journeys, and having a negative, patronizing, or even traumatic experience while searching for a bike could alienate someone from cycling altogether, or create an expectation of condescension and abuse within cycling. Consider this experience from a decorated Seattle racer:
I spend a lot of time in bike shops, and most everyone in Seattle has been nothing but stoked to nerd out about bikes with me except Metier. Last time I was there they were judging my cross bike because I had matched carbon FSA cranks I won in a race with ETap shifters. Basically they could not troubleshoot the setup because it didn't match what they saw in the 101 install in some SRAM components guide. They really are skilled at finding ways to judge folks... bike mechanics less so.
I do not understand most of the technical jargon. What I do understand is that a competent and decorated cyclist rolled into a shop expecting to get some help with their bike so they could go win more races, and was met with condescension bred from a doctrinaire need to feel superior in the face of an unfamiliar challenge. The mechanics (who are men) needed to give their input and judgment, whether or not they understood the issue or had the solution. I have heard countless stories to this effect about the pedanticism, refusal of service, and other creepy behavior perpetrated by men in bike shops. It goes without saying this is an extension of the dogmatically predatory nature of society in the United States towards femme, trans, and gender nonconforming people.
Why A Survey?
I came up with the idea to distribute a survey about Seattle bike shops as I was developing the syllabus for an introductory workshop on cycle touring for femme, trans, and gender nonconforming people at the Seattle Colleges. I did not know who would show up for the class, so I had to consider: What would I have wanted to know about cycling in Seattle when I started? After five years of cycling in the city I have opinions about which shops are worthwhile and which shops to avoid, I thought others in my community might as well. It turns out a number of people do.
Thank you Katie Smyth for your help with analysis!
Results
I call it Seattle Pedalers Looking for Action to Inform or SPLAIN. The average score was calculated by weighting responses and dividing by the number of responses. The survey was developed with Google Forms and distributed via email, Slack, Twitter, and the Seattle Bike Blog newsletter. The survey had one page for each bike shop and asked respondents to rate their experience in each shop they had visited from 1 (I don’t feel comfortable here) to 5 (I feel comfortable here), with a space at the end of the survey for feedback and anecdotes. Respondents were asked to give feedback only for those shops they have visited. There were 90 responses in total. To calculate scores, the responses were weighted and the total was divided by the number of responses for each shop.
The metric, while seemingly unidimensional, captures a lot about the bike shop experience. As mentioned earlier in the article, in Seattle in 2019, most of the time we are not trying to address egregious acts of physical and verbal abuse. I am speaking for myself, but I believe the survey captures a lot about the microagressions, body language, and expressions of exclusivity or belonging we read on one another as humans within a culture -- the expressions that trigger the exhausting physical responses in someone with a history of being abused or excluded. The survey does not capture any demographic or personal information, and is a simple means of capturing the experience of being in Seattle bike shops; and the focus on gender only captures so much about how people feel and are received. Despite its simplicity, the results and comments from respondents would indicate that the simple metric is effective in capturing the collective experience. What does feeling comfortable have to do with being in a bike shop? In short, everything. .
Cycling is my entrypoint into a more global conversation about how we treat people who are not, or do not present, as cisgender men in the world. I am terrified about the potential for violent feedback that publishing a piece like this might yield. I live in the world as a woman and have received all manner of gendered abuse; I am really tired of girding myself against commentary and physical threats from people who are encouraged to take up more space, deny access to resources, and feel superior to people who do not look, act, and live like them. I am trying to ride my bike in peace, and it is abusive to expect that if you treat someone poorly they should be polite and accommodating in response. Especially if they are tired. Asking for interactions to be exchanges rather than one-sided commentaries without boundaries is not asking for that much. Feeling comfortable in a professional service environment is not asking for that much. A service professional asking questions about your needs as a customer, rather than assuming you know nothing about the bike you brought in, is not asking for that much.
In a June 2019 article for Bicycling online magazine, Gloria Liu discusses why bike shops should stop treating their customers like garbage:
And some might argue that many negative shop experiences could be an issue of perception -- behaviors like condescension, exclusivity, and even sexism are usually more subtle than outright. But bike shops are retail and customer experience businesses, and they exist in a market where customers have alternatives: namely, the internet and even specialty stores like REI… Ninety-five percent of the 332 independent bike dealers who participated in the National Bicycle Dealers Association’s [2017] study reported that internet competition is their number-one challenge… 56% of women and 44% of men have stopped going to a shop altogether because of a negative interaction with an employee...Shops that treat customers poorly aren’t only hurting their own bottom line. Bad experiences in bike shops can turn off beginners of anyone who doesn’t ‘fit the mold’.
Maybe it seems a bit dramatic to be so worked up about how femme, trans, and gender nonconforming people are treated in bike shops. While men are more likely than other genders to ride bikes, white, able-bodied, and wealthy people are also more likely to be cyclists. Issues of access for black and indigenous people, people of color, and people with different mobility issues do not occur and cannot be addressed in a vacuum. It turns out that there are femme, trans, and gender nonconforming people within all these intersections of identity. So it should be fairly intuitive that an exclusive and presumptuous environment may weave its way into alienating not just people outside the hegemony of cisgender men, but also those outside the hegemonies of white, able-bodied, and with income to spare on a bike. The hope is that femme identity can be a wedge for other more marginalized identities to move into the generally white, masculine, and able-bodied spaces of bike shops.
56% of women and 44% of men have stopped going to a shop altogether because of a negative interaction with an employee...Shops that treat customers poorly aren’t only hurting their own bottom line. Bad experiences in bike shops can turn off beginners of anyone who doesn’t ‘fit the mold’.
- Gloria Liu
I cannot read minds, I am never sure if and how well people listen, but these concepts and topics are not new, so I find myself feeling crazy for repeating what has been said so many times before. I understand that running a bike shop is not always the most lucrative or selfish endeavor, there are far greater demons to address. However, I wanted to better understand Seattle bike culture because I really do love it. I think Seattle has an incredible diversity of passionate cyclists, and we owe it to ourselves as a community to be more welcoming, inclusive, and supportive of our own. Engaging this well-worn discussion from the point of bike shops is more tangible than surveying every Seattleite that cycles about their experience in the world. Bike shops are discrete, and their approach to customer service speaks volumes about their ability to nurture an inclusive cycling culture from the moment someone starts to shop for their first bike. Which, if you remember, was where the survey started: Where do I send new cyclists?
There are still so many questions that come from this data. Is it too simple? Do we need a more intersectional analysis for validity? Were there enough responses? What can lower-scoring shops learn from higher-scoring shops? Do they want to learn at all? Would the use of money with one business over another have an effect? Is there enough of a critical mass to create change through capital? My only hope is that the survey drives conversation within the local community about how we get more types of people on bikes and we treat one another in the world. I understand that addressing prejudice and implicit biases are personal journeys and they take time, not everyone knows about the scholars writing about race, gender, and rape. If they wanted to look into work by Dr. Patricia Hill Collins or Dr. Roxane Gay as a start, they certainly could (hint, hint). I just do not view this type of reading or personal work as a voluntary or extraneous exercise. Living in a city like Seattle with residents from all over the world who act as coworkers, neighbors, clients, and customers I learn new things about how to be a more inclusive organizer and friend all the time. We owe it to one another as a community to interrogate why so many people feel uncomfortable in so many bike shops and riding bikes around Puget Sound, and what we can do to remedy the discomfort.
Anyone interested in learning more about how to evaluate their organization and initiate change is encouraged to utilize the resources below: