A south west London women’s-only cycling club provides an inclusive, safe and social community amidst the testosterone-fuelled sport.
BellaVelo was founded by Belinda Scott and Alison Dex in 2017 and since then, it’s grown into the largest women-only road cycling club in south west London, with over 300 members.
While working in the cycling industry, Scott was approached with the opportunity to open up a women’s cycling shop in 2014.
The shop only lasted a year, which Scott puts down to a lack of traction for women in cycling at the time, but BellaVelo was born.
Scott said: “We wanted a similar offering of community, rides, and social.
“I remember going out on a ride with another local cycling club with my friend David and this group went out hell for leather and I stayed with them, but he didn’t.
“I said to the ride leader you’ve dropped quite a few people and he just went ‘I don’t care’, that was the mentality.”
The club is clear on inclusivity, welcoming anyone identifying as a woman or non-binary rider.
Inclusivity is an important sentiment to members, especially with cycling typically being a male-dominated space.
Scott said: “Our ethos is different, it’s very supportive and I’d say a very feminist ethos in the sense that we want to support women, encourage women and make them independent.”
This ethos is evident from the variety of courses offered to club members, ranging from bike maintenance to nutrition.
BellaVelo offers a range of rides, varying in distance, speed and groups.
All of the rides are no-drop rides, meaning no rider is left behind and the ride captains leading each group receive ride training and first aid training.
Alice Fowles began cycling through the Bella Velo shop in 2015, and later became a founding member and ride captain.
Fowles said: “We want to teach our riders how to look at the route, look at the elevation and select the right ride for them.
“Obviously if it’s a shorter flatter ride you can go faster than if it was a longer hilly ride, so it’s about teaching people how to look at that.
“We have such a huge wealth of knowledge within the club with our members, so there are lots of people that can provide that support and teaching, we’re very lucky.”
Since joining, Fowles has completed a whole host of spectacular challenges with her fellow BellaVelo members including a Chase the Sun ride across England, and Land’s End to John O’Groats.
Fowles said: “It’s given me a huge amount of confidence.
“I was a stay-at-home mum for a long time and I found that although I loved it, you kind of stop being in the outside world if you like.
“But then going back to work and being with the club gave me a huge amount of confidence.”
New riders are supported with a new joiners course where they learn how to ride in a group.
Scott said: “It’s to help new riders not feel intimidated by a group ride, with the hand signals or calls, and so they feel safe.
“That’s another key element for the club, safety on a ride.”
Kathleen O’Connor joined the club in March this year, after spotting a BellaVelo group ride whilst out doing laps of Richmond Park.
Since joining, she’s made the most of the variety of activities on offer, such as road riding, gravel riding, and Zwift racing.
O’Connor said: “It’s incredibly friendly, incredibly sportive.
“I ride with a different group of women almost every time I go out.”
“It’s a classic example, this Monday I went out with three other ladies, none of whom I’d ridden with before and it was just a super day out.
“There was this one really horrible hill on the ride and a couple of the ladies came past me but lost traction so stopped to walk up, and as I was climbing the hill I could hear them calling after me ‘Go Kathleen, go!’.
“It’s just lovely and supportive, it’s not judgmental, it’s just great.”
Promoting a positive atmosphere in sports is essential to the women who take part, as research conducted by Sport England showed 2.4million fewer women than men strongly agree they enjoy getting active, which the organisation termed ‘the enjoyment gap’.
However, BellaVelo was very much created with women cyclists at the heart of what they do, with this ethos even reflected in their membership fees.
Scott said: “It costs £36 a year or £3 a month to join, and we do try to keep costs down as we realise there is still a gender pay gap.
“We also do things in the evenings or sometimes the early mornings, bearing in mind that women often can’t carve out a lot of time in the way that men seem to be able to go off for hours at a time while somebody is at home cooking their lunch.”
Scott said: “When I first started commuting into town I was one of the very few female cyclists, it seemed, and generally whether it’s cycling for commuting or leisure, there’s no comparison.
“You just see so many more women out on bikes.
“The fact that women’s cycling is more professionalized and now on television sometimes, makes a difference, and that if they can find an environment that’s supportive, they’ll get into it.
“Cycling is a very male-dominated sport, and British Cycling allows us to be a women’s-only club because the take up for sport amongst women is unfortunately pitifully low.”
In 2013, British Cycling launched its women’s strategy after their market data revealed just 550,000 women cycled on a regular basis.
Since then, they’ve helped over one million women into the sport, but are looking ahead to improve the number of women involved in governing and running the sport.
As witnessed by British Cycling, women’s only groups play a vital role in creating inclusive and welcoming environments that encourage women into sport.
Research conducted by charity Women in Sport revealed that one in four girls (26%) say there aren’t enough girls-only opportunities to take part in sport.
Women in Sport communication manager Sarah Chaffey said: “We believe that women’s-only sports clubs are a vital step in breaking down some of the barriers that prevent many women and girls from taking part in sport and physical activity.
“Our research shows that 61% of teenage girls feel judged by others whilst exercising and 65% don’t like being watched.
“This is, in many ways, a direct result of the early years stereotyping girls face: being told sport is for boys, that ‘girly’ girls don’t do sport and that they’re not as good at it.
“Women’s-only clubs and sessions offer a solution to this, creating a space for women and girls to feel understood, supported, and surrounded by people with similar experiences.”
Chaffey added: “The demand for these types of opportunities is clear, and there are some brilliant individuals and groups working to make change – women’s-only, and particularly girls-only, opportunities are still lacking on the ground.
“It shouldn’t always depend on women to create these spaces either; leaders in sport and national governing bodies should embed high-quality single-sex opportunities within their strategies.”
All images courtesy of BellaVelo.
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