Despite the fact that the Women’s Tour de France has a reported viewership of 23.2 million, disparities in pay and sponsorship are considerable. The overall reward fund for women in the Tour de Femme is €250.000, while the total prize pot for men is €2.3m. The Tour de France Femmes has also had to fight year on year for sponsorship and almost did not take place at all in 2023. Despite this, there is a strong desire to participate in such sports; Zwift reportedly found that 73 percent of women’s cycling fans are interested in participating in sports or fitness activities and that cycling is the 4th most followed women’s sport. In light of this, cycling experts at Swytch, the UK’s leading e-bike conversion kit company, draw attention to barriers that may be hindering women from taking to cycling.

Swytch has found in their own research that over 3 million women now cycle or use an e-mode of transport daily. However, research by the National Travel Attitude Survey highlighted that only 43% of women felt confident riding a bike compared to 75% of men and that 36% of women said they would like to cycle if they felt safe. This highlights infrastructure as a key hindrance. Additionally, barriers have been identified in line with entrenched societal gender norms with an identified association between distance and decreased chance of cycling to work due to expectations surrounding women’s personal appearance.

When it comes to gender gaps in cycling, there is obviously still work to be done. from enhanced safety to sports sponsorship. According to Swytch, 50% of women report that their mental health has significantly improved after they began cycling or walking for an extended period of time, underscoring the benefits that such investments would have on social wellness as well as the significance of such investments for general equality.

About Swytch

Swytch was founded by engineers Oliver Montague and Dmitro Khroma in 2017 in response to an obvious gap in the market for a sustainable transport solution. The idea first developed when Oliver was cycling to his workplace to meet with his boss. Despite travelling similar distances, Oliver had broken into a sweat whereas his boss arrived impeccably dressed, simply because he was on an eBike.

Oliver now plays a pivotal role as head of the company as CEO and Dmitro leads a world-class London-based engineering team as CTO. Already saving 17,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions from previous models, Swytch believes that transport shouldn’t cost the Earth – so they’ve made it their mission to make electric transport accessible to everybody.