This semester, Parking and Transportation Services has created a way to help women get outdoors during the day and enjoy a new community on campus — there is a new all-women’s biking club on campus for afternoon rides.
Started through the Ripple Effect initiative, a movement to make Colorado State University more welcoming for female staff and students, this biking club revolves around an hour session that includes lunch, a short ride and lessons on basic bike care and safety tips such as how to ride with traffic, how to ride in winter and how to use turn signals on the road.
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Amanda Fitzpatrick, one of the coordinators for the project, said the club is important for building interest in biking as well as new friendships.
“The main goal is to provide the opportunity for positive social experiences on bicycles for women of the CSU community by hosting group rides,” Fitzpatrick said.
She said it is important for these types of group activities to exist because not only do women sometimes feel uncomfortable riding alone, but it helps build strong friendships amongst people with the same goal in mind.
“Having an opportunity for women to get together for a group ride over their lunch hour feeds into the initiative of making CSU a great place to work and learn,” Fitzpatrick said.
Sophomore Anna Hastings said this idea should translate into student life, too.
“I am sure there are programs like this already, especially for freshman, but it would be really helpful to have clubs be advertised better as ways to make friends instead of just to have your resume look good,” Hastings said.
Hastings said help for women is something that she hopes to find more campuses doing.
“It’s nice to know that people are starting to take special notice of women and trying to help them succeed,” Hastings said. “Activities like this for just women should definitely be advertised more.”
Fitzpatrick hopes to influence women on campus to enjoy cycling more as well as the community revolving around the sport. After receiving a grant for this idea, she said that they got right to work creating the project.
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“We applied for the grant because we wanted to help build an environment where women feel more connected with not only one another but also CSU as a whole,” Fitzpatrick said. “We hope that the rides will bring women together who decide to ride more than just during the scheduled lunch time rides.”
The ride schedule is as follows:
- February 10, using signals
- March 9, passing etiquette
- April 13, conquering taking your bike on the bus
- April 27, riding with traffic
The club’s first meeting was supposed to occur Wednesday, but Fitzpatrick said that as of that morning, no one had signed up.
To participate, contact Amanda Fitzpatrick at (970) 491-7600 or amanda.fitzpatrick@colostate.edu.
Collegian Reporter Katy Mueller can be found at news@collegian or on Twitter @Katymueller13.
