Why She Cycles: Building the Case for Community Bike Repair and Bike Education

The aim of this project was to learn more about the link between women's knowledge of bicycle mechanics/repair skills and women's usage of bicycles. The methods used were a literature review, survey analysis and conducting interviews. In the literature, a gap in cycling habits has been noted between women and men cyclists, with men riding significantly more than women. As well, there is little known about the link between knowledge of bicycle mechanics/repair skills and bike usage. We cannot conclude that there is a relationship between knowledge of bicycle mechanics/repair skills and usage. We found, however, that there were factors that contributed to usage including: purpose(s) for cycling, environmental factors and personal factors, all of which intertwined with social factors such as gender, class and cycling culture. In this report, we have included the literature review, survey analysis and a final interview analysis.