Over 80 women joined the breakfast bike ride to the Whitworth Art Gallery in Manchester to welcome the new Wilmslow Road Cycleway and highlight the need for more routes. Photo: Katie Dervin
Women joined the ride on Sustrans Fallowfield Loop and rode along Wilmslow Road. Photo: Katie Dervin
To celebrate the start of safer ‘Danish-style’ cycling conditions in Greater Manchester over 80 women joined a breakfast bike ride to the Whitworth Art Gallery. The bike ride, that coincided with International Women's Day, was organised by Sustrans and Love Your Bike and is one of many events that are taking place throughout March as part of Women on Wheels.
Participants commuted along Greater Manchester’s newest and longest separate from traffic cycle route, The Wilmslow Road Cycleway, to the Whitworth Art Gallery café for breakfast, including Danish pastries.
Safety a concern for female cyclists
Up to four times as many men cycle in Britain compared to women, mainly due to fears around safety. In countries like Denmark which have a quality network of traffic-free cycle routes, women outnumber men. In the recent Bike Life report for Greater Manchester female interviewees highlighted safety as a concern and 75% of all respondents said they supported more investment in cycling.
Rosslyn Colderley, Sustrans’ England Director North said: “This International Women’s Day we want to celebrate the new Wilmslow Road cycle corridor. We know that women are put off cycling here in Manchester because of dangerous roads. Yet in Denmark, where traffic-free cycle paths are the norm, more women cycle than men.
“These new cycle routes will help more people feel safer to get on their bikes and the Women’s Day ride is a chance for women to try out Greater Manchester’s first version of a Danish-style route, and demonstrate their support for more similar routes.”
Increasing cycling levels in Greater Manchester
Love Your Bike volunteer Catherine Thomson said: “Love Your Bike campaigns for improved cycling facilities to enable more people to cycle to school, work and for leisure. It is fantastic that these new cycle routes are available – but as research shows more people would cycle if there are safe routes – so we need to invest in building a network of safe, convenient cycle routes across Greater Manchester.”
Greater Manchester aims to increase cycling levels to 10% of regular journeys by 2025, and recently opened the Wilmslow Road Cycleway as one of six new routes separate from traffic in the city region. The ‘Dutch-style’ cycle route on Oxford Road is due to open in the Spring.