Calling all cycling ladies!

[Auntie Helen]

Yeah, I've been involved in some surveys for Colchester's Cycling Town and had a range of answers about why people don't cycle. Mostly 'I don't have a bike' (which is hard to argue with!) and 'there aren't enough cycle paths' which always makes me wince. There are a quite a lot of cycle paths around Colchester and I almost never use them...

 

[Cathy]

When Sustrans did their survey there were some quite interesting answers too - 'I'm too busy' and 'would feel self-conscious' were quite stand-out answers, I thought. But the main one was road safety/traffic concerns.

 

[Kirstie]

As regards the kind of bikes people own, you could also include:

full suss mountainbike
singlespeed mountain bike
hardtail mountain bike
downhill mountain bike
29'er mountain bike

I have three different kinds of MTB, all of which I use for different things, so I've had to fill in the 'other' section

 

[Wheeledweenie]

I know of your friend wheeledweenie - she is skiving off the next FNRttC in order to watch her husband bulge out of some lycra overalls I believe - lifting furniture as an excuse apparently.
Luckily, all those in the vicinity of her exploding lights and accessories on the last ride (well, I htink it was her...) have made a complete recovery and are expected to attend.

That fall was soooooooo last month. I can vouch that Cathy is not spam-tastic. She's lovely.

 

[Dayvo]

That fall was soooooooo last month. I can vouch that Cathy is not spam-tastic. She's lovely.

We would like to see some photographic evidence!

 

[bonj2]

I don't want to give away exactly what I am working on as I do not want other people thinking 'aha, that's a good idea, maybe I'll do that!'. But I can confirm I am not researching for a company, for marketing purposes nor am I trying to sell you anything. I can also confirm I am late for football and must dash but I will check in later and anyone is free to contact me at cathywallace@hotmail.co.uk with any further question/concerns/privacy issues.

There are a lot of people on here who are particularly anal and like to get worked up over things for which there is no need to get worked up over at all.
No amount of justification of what you are doing will satisfy them - you could post the full intricate details of what resources you are planning, and then they will look down their nose at it and decide they don't like the idea of what your'e proposing and refuse to fill it in anyway. You're best spending your time broadening your exposure than wasting time trying to convince these people.
You aren't asking for personal or identifiable information if people don't want to give it, but that isn't enough for some people.

 

[Cathy]

Nonetheless concerns should be taken into account - however I totally agree that no amount of justification will persuade the more neurotic that I am not a force of darkness and evil.

I have 30 responses so far, which is pretty good for one day's work! So thank you to all who have filled out the survey and please do mention it to friends/colleagues/girlfriends/mothers/wives/sisters.....

Photographic evidence eh? I put a photo on my profile but it doesn't show up when I post, presumably I am missing some 'click here to display your grinning visage to all and sundry' box on the 'edit profile' section. Lets see what I can do.

 

[Kirstie]

Generally speaking it's good research practice to assure survey respondents that their responses will be treated in the strictest confidentiality and that their details will not be disclosed to third parties.

This is what I look for before disclosing any information, particularly personal information (like name, address, email address, as you have asked for) in a survey. If these kind of assurances are not up front on a questionnaire, then I assume that the person conducting the questionnaire is either not aware of research ethics or is incompetent at research. But then I teach social research methods, and research information privacy so I am over sensitive to this!

Actually this questionnaire design means that the respondent can choose to be completely anonymous, but I am unclear as to whether this is by accident or by design. As such I have not disclosed any personal information, but the reason for this is that I am not sure how exactly the information I disclose will be treated because of the lack of assurance at the front end of the questionnaire.

 

[SavageHoutkop]

I think you've just loaded it as your profile pic where you need to load it as your avatar as well / instead of.

 

[Shaun]

There are a lot of people on here who are particularly anal and like to get worked up over things for which there is no need to get worked up over at all.
No amount of justification of what you are doing will satisfy them - you could post the full intricate details of what resources you are planning, and then they will look down their nose at it and decide they don't like the idea of what your'e proposing and refuse to fill it in anyway. You're best spending your time broadening your exposure than wasting time trying to convince these people.
You aren't asking for personal or identifiable information if people don't want to give it, but that isn't enough for some people.

True, however, this as an introduction to a request for information from people, doesn't really explain much:

I am interested in putting together some findings and data about women's cycling habits. Please take five minutes to complete this short questionnaire online.

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=bj0O_2buAL24Rm6oV1RWcFug_3d_3d

The request doesn't introduce Cathy or tell us much about her background, doesn't explain whether the findings will be used for personal or commercial use? and points to a plain survey page at an anonymous site called Survey Monkey.

Now Cathy does appear to have gone some way towards making ammends for this and has explained a bit more and been a bit more open about what she's doing, but it might have been greeted with less suspicion had her intro gone something like this:

Hello,

My name's Cathy.

A friend of mine introduced me to CycleChat and I'm a keen female cyclist who is looking to gather information regarding women's cycling for the purpose of .... personal interest/providing new services or information for women who cycle/promoting greater inclusion of women in the sport/pasttime.

The information will/will not be used for commercial/marketing purposes, will/will not be kept private/shared with other parties, and will/will not be published or made public.

I have created a simple survey using a basic online tool and would welcome some input from the ladies on the forums.

You don't have to give your name, and hopefully the information you provide will enable me/us to shape information/services to be better geared towards women.

If you don't fancy taking the survey, I would welcome thought's on any aspect of women's cycling to <email address>

Thanks for your time,
Cathy

It's not so much about giving the information, more about the approach and making people feel at ease.

A bit of suspicion is a healthy thing to have and can protect you from fraud/harm, although not, of course, in this case ...

Anyway, I'll shut up now, since I'm not a woman and haven't done all that much cycling of late!!!

Cheers,
Shaun

 

[Cathy]

Of course I could have always avoided all the flak by introducing myself as a 'student working on a project for school' and punctuated the survey with several spelling mistakes for authenticity, like most of those dreaded marketing people do nowadays...

 

[Arch]

When Sustrans did their survey there were some quite interesting answers too - 'I'm too busy' and 'would feel self-conscious' were quite stand-out answers, I thought. But the main one was road safety/traffic concerns.

I have worked for a company promoting cycling for local authorities via try out roadshows and in my experience there are some people (not all, but some) who will find any excuse, but who basically just don't want to - you know this because as you demolish (nicely, of course) each of their 'concerns', they find another. The want to look as if they want to, because they probably know they could and should, but there are so many possible excuses it's easy to hide behind them...

Mind you, in a suitable mood it was fun destroying every concern until they were really scraping the bottom of the barrel....

'would feel self conscious'? Do these people walk along in burkhas never speaking? I suppose I'm relatively unbothered about how people see me, but that just sounds downright daft.

 

[Arch]

Of course I could have always avoided all the flak by introducing myself as a 'student working on a project for school' and punctuated the survey with several spelling mistakes for authenticity, like most of those dreaded marketing people do nowadays...

Innit....

(to be fair, perhaps some intro would have been better, a couple of posts before you stuck the survey up - just mentioning Weenie might have helped.... Nettiquette is a sticky business.)

 

[ianrauk]

A classic case of the pot calling the kettle black if I have ever seen one.

There are a lot of people on here who are particularly anal and like to get worked up over things for which there is no need to get worked up over at all.

 

[Shaun]

Of course I could have always avoided all the flak by introducing myself as a 'student working on a project for school' and punctuated the survey with several spelling mistakes for authenticity, like most of those dreaded marketing people do nowadays...

I didn't mean to preach - just thought that if you're going to be asking on other forums/web sites, you might want to tweak your approach a little bit.

So, did you have any preconceptions about how the results would work out, and have peoples responses differed wildly?

Cheers,
Shaun