The amazing Fancy Women Bike Ride is here and in 24 countries

This weekend, it is time to decorate your bicycle and get fancy for a Sunday morning ride. The Fancy Women Bike Ride is scheduled for this Sunday, Sept. 19. For a local ride near you, check the website.

Almost a decade ago, Sema Gür put up an event posting on Facebook inviting friends to cycle in the city center with a colorful dress, high heels, and flower-decorated bicycles. The idea took off and spread around the world, now the Fancy Women Bike Ride is a popular annual tradition with cyclists everywhere who like to show that, as Pinar Pinzuti says, cycling is not just about “lycra, speed, and sweat, but also something that can bring joy, happiness, and amusement.”

In addition to a fun experience for all cyclists, the ride is geared to new and non-cyclists in hopes of getting them to try riding a bike. So, all participants are encouraged to bring some not usually using a bicycle.

The dress code is simple: “Fancy, fierce, fabulous (whatever makes you feel beautiful, strong and great!)” Participants often decorate their bicycles, pose for the cameras and take selfies. Pinzuti adds it is important to be inclusive to all womxn and support those new to cycling.

“Bring your friends, mothers, aunties & sisters, and be prepared for a magical afternoon,” she adds.

The inaugural Fancy Women Bike Ride took place in Izmir, Turkey in 2013. The event had 300 women attending as well as almost 50 journalists.

“I guess they did not want to miss the “critical mass of the cycle chic,” Pinzuti says. “The next day, the photos and videos of the event were everywhere, in national and international media.”

The next year, the event expanded to three cities, then 10. In 2019, there were 115 events in 15 countries. This year, there are more than 150 Fancy rides in 24 countries.

“The event grew fast thanks to the sisterhood and solidarity among the women,” Pinzuti says. “The application process to host the event in the proper city is simple. Volunteers get in touch with us, we explain everything, give training on how to use social media. Sema and I create all the communication materials (posters, flyers, etc) and share it with the cities.”

According to Pinzuti, there is now a manual (in Turkish, English, French and Italian) and visual content to explain how to create a successful fancy Women Bike Ride.

She attributes the success of the ride to be accessible and free of associations with any institutions or brands.

“I do not ask people to bike to work, I show people how I bike to work every single day. I do not say people to leave the car and go on an active holiday, I am the one doing it,” she says. “So we both live a life, we ask people to consider, at least once. That’s the reason why we insist on having a “person” (not a group or platform) as a host for our events in the cities.”

Pinzuti, coordinator of the Fancy Women Bike Ride along with Sema Gür, calls herself an official “cycling brainwasher,” and works for Bikenomist based in Milan, Italy, attended the first ride in 2013 and appreciates the way the event helps to change the “face” of cycling.

“The male-dominated cycling world was only showing one face of bicycle, which was all about competition, but there was this other face of bicycle which was hardly finding space in mainstream media, the urban cycling: bicycle as means of transportation,” she says. “The sportive image of cycling was not very attractive and it was also very hard to convince more people to choose a bike for commuting.”

The Fancy Women Bike Ride is around the same time on the calendar as another important day cyclists: World Car Free Day, which is celebrated on Sept. 22. So, yes it is about the simple joys of slow-cycling with a community of people, but there is more to it.

“Fancy Women Bike Ride claims the public space, filling it with women on bikes. If people experience the city without cars, they might like it. They might also start to advocate for car-free cities,” Pinzuti explains.
“When we cycle, we start to see things that we’ve been looking at for a long time. When we see things, we start to understand. Fancy Women Bike Ride is an occasion to see the city and understand if it is made for people or cars. We can achieve things if only we have more people, asking for the same thing (which is the human-sized cities).