Hello BBC Members, women racers, and the greater bike racing community,
In the middle of the 2022 season, the Buffalo Bicycling Club (BBC) Officers took an unprecedented step to build participation in women’s cycling. We saw that women’s participation in road and crit racing in Buffalo and around Upstate New York had been declining. We reached out to and listened to our female racers from our club and beyond and we heard:
1) If women don’t see other women pre-registered, they are unlikely to register, which in turn means others won’t register.
2) Women will travel to races with large women’s fields but not for low registration races.
We also saw that USA Cycling data shows that about 20% of licensed racers are women. While there are fewer women racing, there is untapped potential in increasing women’s field sizes in our region. The BBC has the infrastructure to put on excellent races using Buffalo’s varied terrain, which makes for exciting road and crit racing.
With this information, we built the Buffalo Bicycling Club Women’s Initiative to build better fields for women racers. We want you at our USA Cycling sanctioned races. We want to eliminate barriers. Registration for all women’s fields in the sanctioned races promoted by the BBC will be free. This applies to all categories as part of our 5-year plan to grow women’s racing in Buffalo. In our club’s 50th year, this is part of our “BBC Next 50” plan. While we heard from female racers that the entry fee is not the top barrier to participation for most, we are doing this as a promoter because we want to do our part to address this issue and put Buffalo on the map for quality women’s road and crit races with our fantastic race courses. All women’s prizes will continue to be the same as the men’s prizes for our events.
Growing women’s racing will not happen overnight, but we are in this for the long haul. The BBC wants quality women’s USAC-sanctioned racing right here in Buffalo.
Update 2024: Since implementing the initiative to encourage more women to race by making registration FREE for all of the Buffalo Bicycling Club’s USAC women’s fields, participation by women in our USAC races has increased by 240%! We are in the this for the long haul and want to keep encouraging women to race with us.
Here is our USA Cycling-sanctioned race schedule in 2024:
April 28, 2024– Marilla Spring Classic Road Race
May 19, 2024– Buffalo Ohio St Criterium at Resurgence Brewing Company
June 16, 2024– Hamburg Road Race
July 7, 2024– Freedom Run Winery Road Race