Closing the Gender Gap
/Being told you belong is important — but is it enough?
Learning new skills at the Rowdy Gowdy women’s mountain bike camp | PHoto by Cameron Way
“If you think about sports writ large, it’s been for men, designed for men, this arena in which men can display their masculinity. ... And so women have — forever — not always been welcome in that sphere.”
Women are often told we can do anything we want in life: ride bikes, scale cliffs, surf waves. But in some areas of outdoor recreation, the gender gap remains shockingly large.
In this episode, we visit a women’s mountain bike camp in Wyoming and explore what’s really needed to get people of all genders on equal footing.
-
Welcome to Out There Podcast. Our stories are written for the ear, so for those able, we recommend listening while reading along. Transcripts may contain minor errors; please check the audio before quoting.
VOICEOVER: Hub and Spoke audio collective.
WILLOW BELDEN: Hi, I’m Willow Belden, and you’re listening to Out There, the podcast that explores big questions through intimate stories outdoors.
Before we get started today, I have a favor to ask. I’m in the midst of planning our next season. And I’m really excited about the stories we’re going to be producing. But creating those stories is expensive. We spend months — literally months — crafting each narrative, and producers need to get paid. We also have costs for music, audio hosting, and much more.
My goal is to raise $9,500 by the end of this year to help cover those costs.
If Out There brightens your day at all, please consider joining me in investing in our next season. There are several easy ways you can contribute. Just go to outtherepodcast.com/support — or click the link in the episode description — to get in on the fun. Again, that’s outtherepodcast.com/support.
And now, on to our story for today.
Growing up, I was taught that I could do anything I wanted in life.
I had a mother who was fiercely independent. She had built an impressive career for herself. She had traveled the world. She knew how to use power tools and hike mountains and go camping. And she instilled in me this idea that I was capable of anything.
My mom was definitely ahead of her time. But even so, I think a lot of women in my generation received similar messaging. We grew up in an era when traditional gender norms were being questioned. Finally, girls were allowed to have ambition. We were told it was ok to follow our passions. To build careers. To ride bikes, and paddle rivers, and sleep in the wilderness. And that was a gift. That kind of messaging is so important.
But is it ENOUGH? Being told you can do whatever you want — is that sufficient to get you where you want to be?
In this episode, we’re going to visit a women’s mountain bike clinic. And we’re going to explore why there’s still such a big gender gap in certain areas of outdoor recreation — and what’s really needed to get women on equal footing.
JENN HESS: Alright, I want to get rolling, since, you know, today we might have a bit of rain issues. So I’m Jenn. I’m the director of the Rowdy Gowdy, co-founder — or actually the founder, not the co. I’m the founder. [laughs] So this is our sixth Rowdy Gowdy. We started in 2017…
WILLOW: It’s a chilly morning, and several dozen women are gathered at a state park in Wyoming. They’re decked out in colorful bike clothing. And the excitement in the air is palpable.
JENN: Alright, so what I’d like to do is introduce the coaches. So coaches, can you go over by the green box? Alright, we’ll start with Leslie! [Cheering] She was first a camp participant, and now she’s a coach.
WILLOW: As each coach is introduced, they do a little dance. And the group erupts in laughter. Playfulness is clearly a priority here.
JENN: Next we’ve got Sarah. She’s pretty a big deal. I don’t know if you know about her, but she went to the Olympics. [laughter]
WILLOW: This event is a mountain bike clinic for women. It’s called Rowdy Gowdy — Curt Gowdy being the name of the park where it’s held. And it’s basically like summer camp for grownups. It’s two full days of coaching and riding and building skills on bikes in the company of other women.
The participants are an eclectic group. There are old women and young women, novices, and folks who have been riding for years. But regardless of their background, almost all of them are here for the same reason. They want to gain one thing in particular…
CAMP PARTICIPANT 1: Confidence.
CAMP PARTICIPANT 2: More confidence.
CAMP PARTICIPANT 3: I just need to build my confidence, I think, and learn to trust my bike.
CAMP PARTICIPANT 4: Just to be more confident.
CAMP PARTICIPANT 5: You know, I want to get over the panic.
WILLOW: So, I’ve actually participated in the Rowdy Gowdy bike camp before, back in 2017. And confidence was something I had been struggling with too. A lot.
I had been mountain biking for several years at that point. And I should have been decent at it. I mean, I was generally an active, outdoorsy person. I was in good shape. I had a lot of stamina.
But mountain biking scared me. It’s a sport that involves big rocks and tight corners and steep descents. And I didn’t know how to navigate that stuff. Nobody had ever taught me. So when I got to a gnarly section of trail, I usually chickened out. I’d just get off my bike and walk. And the more I did that — the more I backed down from obstacles — the more I doubted myself.
Now — in hindsight — I know I wasn’t alone. It’s actually really common for women to lack skills and confidence when it comes to adventure sports. Which is why clinics like this one have sprung up all over the country.
JENN: Hi, I am Jenn Hess.
WILLOW: Jenn runs the Rowdy Gowdy camp. And she’s one of the most talented mountain bikers I know. She’s the kind of person who jumps off rocks with her bike, and tears down steep descents. And she does it all with this giant grin on her face.
But it wasn’t always that way. Her start with biking was actually pretty rough.
JENN: So, this is going to go way back. I was eleven, and I wanted to be like my brother. He got a paper route, and he got enough money he bought a used little GT BMX bike, and he rode his paper route on that bike. And I thought that was the coolest thing.
And so, at eleven, I decided to do the same thing. So I bought a pink Schwinn, a used one. And I rode around with my brother. That’s all we did was ride our BMX bikes. And I started to get pretty good at it.
And then my brother decided to do a couple races, and I decided to go with him, ‘cause he was my buddy. And I was the only girl at this race. It was outside of Minneapolis, Minnesota — like ‘91, ‘92. And I was the only girl, and I was very shy at the time. And boys made fun of me ‘cause I had a pink bike. I was the only girl. And I got so like frightened that I just went home. I didn’t even ride, didn’t do the race, didn’t do anything. And from then on, I walked away from bikes.
WILLOW: Jenn didn’t start riding again until she was in grad school. By that point, she had moved out to Wyoming, and there were a lot of trails in the area, and she had this friend who was into mountain biking. So she started riding with him.
JENN: I learned by trial and error. It was basically trial by fire, and I crashed a lot, and I just wanted to keep up.
WILLOW: This friend did not go easy on her. But even so, she loved it.
JENN: The best thing about it was that you got away from work and all the stress in your life. And you had to be present on what you were doing. Like you couldn’t think about like, ‘Oh, I gotta do this analysis and it’s not working.’ You know, feels like you’re a kid again, ‘cause you don’t have all the stresses that adults have, you know? [laughs]
WILLOW: Over the years, Jenn got more and more into mountain biking. And she got really good at it.
But there was something that bothered her. She was often the only woman — at least on the advanced trails.
This wasn’t exactly surprising. Mountain biking has always been a male-dominated sport. Like, really male-dominated. By some estimates, almost 84 percent of mountain bikers identify as men.
But still — Jenn was miffed that there weren’t more ladies out there. And so, she starting thinking. For some time already, she’d been helping out with mountain bike camps for kids…
JENN: And kept having the parents ask us, “When are you going to put on an adult camp?” And we would kind of just laugh about it, “Haha,” like “Yeah, that’s right, an adult camp.” And we’d just kind of focus on the kids.
WILLOW: But then she became an ambassador for a bike clothing brand. And they gave her some money to host an event.
JENN: And so I was sitting at lunch with my partner, and I was like, “Man, an event — what could we put on?” And then it dawned on me: “Of course, a women’s clinic!” You know, one, I want women to ride the hard stuff. But I also want some friends to ride with me that are women. ‘Cause I was only riding with guys. And I’m like, “I would really like to ride with some ladies. If they come to the clinic, maybe they’ll want to ride the advanced trails with me.” So…
WILLOW: So, pause. If your goal is to get more women into mountain biking, and help them advance in the sport, a skills clinic makes total sense.
But why is that women – specifically – need clinics like this? Why do we lack technical skills in the first place? And what’s kept us out of this sport for so long?
To answer that question, we have to zoom out.
CHRISTINE YU: If you just think about sports writ large, you know, it’s been for men, designed for men, this arena in which men can display their masculinity and can develop leadership skills and all these characteristics that we kind of associate with men. And so women have — forever — not always been welcome in that sphere.
WILLOW: That’s Christine Yu. She’s the author of a book called Up to Speed: The Groundbreaking Science of Women Athletes. And she says there HAS been progress. Many more women and girls are participating in sport these days.
CHRISTINE YU: But there definitely are certain sports where that gender gap and disparity is more pronounced. And it seems to be concentrated in kind of like those action and adventure sports — so, things like mountain biking and surfing and the like, right?
WILLOW: So what’s up with that? Why is the gender gap so pronounced in adventure sports?
Kate Evans is a professor at the University of Wisconsin LaCrosse, and she studies women in outdoor recreation. She says there are several things that come into play. But a lot of it boils down to what we learned — or didn’t learn — as kids.
KATE EVANS: When girls are really little, they’re told girls aren’t supposed to get dirty. Girls should be inside – they should be playing, you know, house and doing those kinds of things, while boys should be outside getting dirty, playing with sticks and mud and that kind of thing.
As we start thinking about outdoor skills, right, so learning about how to be in the outdoors and how to build fires and to hunt and fish and those kinds of skills, traditionally those are skills that are passed on from father to son. And so girls are often just left out of the mix in terms of how to even gain those skills.
We’re seeing some of that changing. But the women now, what they came up through, very much were those more traditional male versus female skills within our society.
WILLOW: And then there’s media representation — or lack thereof. Both Evans and Yu say that’s a big deal.
CHRISTINE: Because, I mean, it’s cliché, but if you don’t see yourself in the sport, it’s harder to then do the sport.
KATE: And a lot of times when we see people who are portrayed in the media, we see men who are sort of these rugged, muscular people that are mountain bikers or rock climbers. They’re sort of the ones that are doing the things in the pictures, right? And women, if portrayed at all, are the girlfriend or the cheerleader or the one that are sort of on the side watching.
WILLOW: And even when women are portrayed doing a sport, it’s usually a very specific type of woman. White, cis, able-bodied.
KATE: And so even the people that can see themselves in that space is a very sort of narrow kind of a person as well.
WILLOW: All of this means that most women my age didn’t grow up mountain biking, or doing other similar sports. We didn’t learn the skills when we were little. Which means our male counterparts have a lifetime of experience, while we’re starting from scratch.
And when you learn from scratch as an adult? That’s hard.
KELLI TRUJILLO: I’m Kelli Trujillo.
CAROLYNE WHELAN: My name is Carolyne Whelan. And I’m the Editor-in-Chief at Adventure Cyclist Magazine.
KELLI: So the first time I was ever on a mountain bike was with a boyfriend who was an experienced mountain biker.
WILLOW: This is very common. For a lot of women, their first experience in any given adventure sport is with a boyfriend. Typically, a boyfriend who’s been doing it for years. Which can be problematic.
CAROLYNE: Even people who are supportive partners I don’t think are necessarily the best coaches. And so then you have, like, ugh, I really hate using these terms, because I hate this binary so much, but there’s like the girlfriend riders, where somebody buys their girlfriend a mountain bike…
KELLI TRUJILLO: And so here I am on this new mountain bike that we had just bought me.
CAROLYNE: And she goes on like a ride or two, she doesn’t immediately pick up this sport that he’s been playing for 20 years.
KELLI: So there was lots of loose gravel, lots of roots, lots of rocks.
CAROLYNE: And then he goes and takes off with his buddies that they’re on a group ride with.
KELLI: And it seemed like he assumed that I should be knowing how to do this innately, which I just did not. And I really couldn’t ask how to do it, because he had taken off up ahead.
CAROLYNE: And then the girls end up getting discouraged, taking it really personally.
KELLI: It was frustrating, and it was demoralizing, and it was a, ‘I can’t do this.’ And so it soured the whole experience for me.
CAROLYNE: That feeling of telling somebody to just do it, without any real explanation of how, is really anxiety producing. And then that’s going to create a lack of confidence and also some really mixed internal messages of: ‘I should be able to do this; I can’t do this; what is wrong with me that I can’t do this thing?’ And then being like, ‘You know what? I don’t want mountain biking to be the thing that ruins this six-year relationship. I’m just gonna back off, you can just do this thing, because I don’t want to be crying in the woods on a Saturday afternoon with you.’
KELLI: I gave up altogether, and I didn’t have another bike, even around town, for it was probably another 15 years.
JENN: A lot of times, folks don’t understand that beginners need some help. And it’s hard to just try it as an adult and get better.
WILLOW: That’s Jenn Hess again, the founder of the Rowdy Gowdy camp.
JENN: And so, I think as an adult, it really helps to break down the whole process and kind of take a step back and try to figure out a progression, step by step, to work on your skills.
[Bike sounds, brakes squealing]
COACH 1: Ok, so come through again, and let’s just do one more lap, and I want to see, first, take some time in that neutral position…
WILLOW: Back at bike camp, participants have been broken into small groups. They’re riding over wooden ramps, and through orange cones, and there’s even a station where they’ve got their wheels up on a picnic table. It’s supposed to simulate a steep hill, and it helps you learn how to position your body properly.
COACH 2: Now, are you in your ready position? You’ve got your level pedals. Um, hover your hands off of your handlebar, and just feel where your balance point is.
CAMP PARTICIPANT: Oh my gosh. OK…
OTHER VOICES: You got this! We got you. Nice! Yeah! Nice! Woo!
WILLOW: It’s cold and raining, but spirits are high, and there is so much encouragement. Every little success is celebrated.
COACHES: Nice! Beautiful, Riley. You got it. Nice! That looks great, that was smooth! Did that feel better. Yeah Christie. Good job, nice!
WILLOW: It’s rare to be in an environment like this. A place where you’re learning without being under a microscope. A place where you can be honest about your fears and insecurities. A place where you can take risks, and make mistakes, and blunder your way through things — and everyone will support you one hundred percent.
That’s not a luxury you get very often in regular life. And the upshot is kind of amazing.
ALYSSA WECHSLER: You know, just in the span of a 20-minute session, you can see confidence being built.
WILLOW: That’s Alyssa Wechsler. She’s one of the coaches.
ALYSSA: The things that always stand out are people who, at the beginning, are so uncomfortable or don’t want to ride over any obstacle or any rock — have spent their lives, as soon as they get to an obstacle, just getting off the bike and walking. And to watch people — it doesn’t even take a whole weekend, it just takes a little bit of confidence boosting, and all of a sudden, they’re just riding things.
Willow, I remember you very specifically being one of those people, actually. Like, am I wrong? ‘Cause I’m pretty sure I remember that. And then I remember watching you send it off of that rock drop on Stone Temple, and just like going for it. And I was like, “That is not the Willow I have ever ridden with before, and she smoked it!” [laughs]
WILLOW: Yeah, that’s about right. [laughter]
I remember that weekend at bike camp, back in 2017, so vividly. I showed up, and they had set up this obstacle course for us. Like, an actual obstacle course. There were these tight corners we had to navigate, and long, skinny platforms to ride over — almost like balance beams, for your bike. And there were even teeter totters. Seriously: teeter totters! I mean, who in their right mind, rides a bicycle over a teeter totter?
It looked daunting.
But then this amazing thing happened. They showed us how to do everything. They broke it all down into bite-sized pieces. And all of a sudden, I was pulling off moves that I never would have considered even attempting. I was jumping off the end of platforms. And riding down steep rocks. And doing bunny hops. And, yeah, it was still a little scary. But it was also exhilarating. Finally, the fun was overshadowing the fear.
And the teeter totters? Turns out, those are the most fun of all.
KELLI: There always in this stuff now for me is a little bit of the, “Oh yeah? Huh. Watch me! I can do this. I’m gonna do this.”
WILLOW: That’s Kelli Trujillo again — the one who gave up on mountain biking after that demoralizing ride with a boyfriend.
Years later, she finally gave it another try. Got a bike. Went to a clinic. And instantly, she felt herself blossoming.
KELLI: We were riding on this stuff that was, I now know that these were intermediate trails there. So we went around this thing, and there was this big drop-off, and I was scared. I went sideways, and I — “Eek!” — I did like a little girl’s scream. But then we went through it. And like, “OK, well there we are, alright.” And it was just great. It felt like a milestone. It was a “I can do this. See, I can do this. I just need some instruction.”
WILLOW: These days, Kelli gets out mountain biking multiple times a week. And this year, at age 56, she did her first race.
A decade ago, when I’d go out mountain biking, most of the other people I encountered were guys. Now? There are so many women on the trails. And they’re riding really well.
And yeah — skills clinics probably can’t take ALL the credit. Just like there are a lot of factors causing the gender gap, there are a lot of puzzle pieces contributing to progress. For example, these days, there’s more media representation of women in the outdoors. There’s more gear and clothing that fits our bodies. There are whole organizations dedicated to getting little girls into biking.
But I do think there’s a fundamental truth that these women’s clinics are tapping into. They’re based on the premise that when it comes to social change, it’s not enough to just open the door.
Yeah — it’s great to tell people of all genders they belong. It’s great to invite us to ride bikes and scale cliffs and surf waves. But we also need someone to show us the ropes. We need to learn the skills we never got as little kids. We need to be told, “You can do anything you want. AND HERE’S HOW.”
If you enjoyed this story, please consider supporting Out There.
We have an exciting year coming up, with lots of wonderful episodes in the works. But quality storytelling is expensive. We spend months producing each narrative, and we have a commitment to compensating our storytellers fairly. We also have to pay for music, and equipment, and IT, and lots of other things. It adds up.
Lately, advertising revenue for independent podcasts has been dwindling. Which means your support matters more than ever.
There are a number of easy ways to make a contribution. You can support us on Patreon, which is a crowd-funding platform. You can make a gift through PayPal or Venmo. Or you can even make a tax-deductible donation.
Just go to outtherepodcast.com, and click support, to see all the options. Or use the link in the episode description. Again, that’s outtherepodcast.com/support.
Thank you so much for being part of this endeavor with me.
Coming up next time on Out There…
MAYA KROTH: There’s a saying that how you spend new years is how you’re going to spend the rest of the year.
WILLOW: Maya Kroth wanted to gain confidence. And she figured a good way to start was to take herself snowboarding on New Years Day.
MAYA: Snowboarding would be a fake-it-til-you-make-it kind of challenge. If I could just act confident long enough to get me down the mountain, then I would develop actual confidence from having done the scary thing.
WILLOW: But the outing didn’t go as planned. Tune in on January 4 for that story.
Out There is a proud member of Hub & Spoke, a collective of idea-driven independent podcasts. One of the other shows in the collective that I think you might enjoy is called Subtitle. It’s a show about languages and the people who speak them.
In the latest episode, we hear from a loving but confused family living in the UK — American mom, British dad, British-born daughter. They discuss simple words like “sure,” “reckon” and “middle class” — words that mean different things to each of them. There is no mother tongue in this family.
You can find Subtitle wherever you get your podcasts, or at subtitlepod.com.
Today’s story was reported, produced, and sound designed by me, Willow Belden. Story editing by Forrest Wood. And special thanks to Lori Mortimer for additional feedback.
If you’d like to learn more about Rowdy Gowdy, I have a link at our website, outtherepodcast.com.
Out There’s advertising manager is Jessica Heeg. Our audience growth director is Sheeba Joseph. Our interns are Katie Reuther and Maria Ordovas-Montanes. Our ambassadors are Tiffany Duong, Ashley White, and Stacia Bennet. And our theme music was written by Jared Arnold.
Special thanks to everyone who’s supporting Out There with financial contributions, including Angie Chatman, Heather Kitching, Eric Biederman, Phil Timm, Doug Frick, Tara Joslin, Deb and Vince Garcia, and the family of Mike Ludders. We couldn’t do this without you.
We’ll see you in the new year. And in the meantime, have a beautiful day, be bold, go outside, and find your dreams.
Credits
Story and sound design by Willow Belden
Story editing by Forrest Wood
Production feedback from Lori Mortimer
Music includes works from StoryBlocks and Blue Dot Sessions
Links
Rowdy Gowdy Women’s Mountain Bike Camp
Sign up for our email newsletter
