"How do you speak to a female racing cyclist?": Definitely not like that!

I have no idea what my colleague was up to. As a mountain biker who also regularly rides a road bike, I can only urge you to stop! Please, please don't chat up women on your bike for chat-up reasons. That's what Tinder is for. It may still sound crazy to some men's ears, but a woman travelling on a road bike in the wild wants one thing above all else: to do sport! She might be training for a race you've never heard of. Maybe she commutes to work on her road bike. Then she may have the next meeting on her mind and/or simply be in a hurry!

A few years ago, a similar article must have appeared somewhere (it wasn't BIKE or TOUR!!). Because suddenly, as a woman on a road bike, you were always being chatted up in the same way: a guy approaches you from behind, often during a long climb, and hangs in your slipstream for a while. This is really annoying when you already have 100 kilometres in your legs. Then he suddenly pulls up next to you. The first question: "So, where are you going?"

The first time I was stupid enough to tell the truth. You don't want to be unfriendly. His reply: "Ah, great, I'm going there too!" You don't think it's creepy the first time. I briefly hoped that he might give me slipstream on the last stretch home. But I was wrong. The man simply pedalled casually alongside me and asked one annoying question after another: How long have you been cycling? Ah, yes, I can tell by your well-trained calves... (groan!). Where else do you cycle? (Huh?, am I seriously supposed to list everything on the climb?). I want to get the climb over with, get home and maybe think about what I'm going to make for dinner later... or who else to call... I don't know. Road cycling is also a meditative sport where you can think about all sorts of things in peace and quiet - unless, of course, you're accosted by a complete stranger who bombards you with irrelevant questions.

When I experienced this situation for the third time in a short space of time with three different guys, I realised that this approach must have been recommended somewhere. Probably with the tip: it's best to speak to her during a long climb so she can't drive off.

It is a kind of being at the mercy of others

As a woman being chatted up, it's a really nasty, oppressive situation, a kind of being at the mercy of others! If you simply don't have the strength to drive away at the end of the tour. You can't just turn away uninterestedly because the road dictates the direction. Slowing down and stopping isn't an option either, because a guy who's like that would only see that as an invitation. At the same time, you know that he will stare unabashedly at your bum when you're driving behind and you can't turn him away either!

That's why I soon developed a different strategy for myself: when asked the same question at the start, "So, where else are you going?", I simply answer: "I'm up there, after the climb, at home." That helps. Sometimes you have to stop at some front door until he's gone. Then you have to see which turn he takes at the next junction and then continue your own journey in the other direction. Even if that means an extra loop home.

Incidentally, I have it on good authority that a men's magazine once gave similar pick-up tips when shopping in the supermarket. "Look out for women who go shopping at roughly the same time every evening. You can easily tell at the checkout whether she's shopping for a single household." This alone led to more single men hanging out at Edeka in the evening and only buying one or two things.

I alone know THOUSANDS of men who have used this scam to meet women, and I live in the country! One of them exposed himself at some point: After approaching me several times the days before, he greeted me at some point in the fruit department with an embarrassingly loud : "Ah, there she is!" I then changed supermarkets. The second person was exposed by the bread seller: "Well, sir, can I just have a pretzel again?" And the third even told me that he had fallen in love with a woman he always secretly watched in the supermarket in the evening. Until this woman approached him energetically at some point: "Tell me, are you stalking me?" I celebrate this unknown woman!

Appeal

Dear men, I don't want to believe that you need such tips to get to know a woman. Not in the supermarket and please not on a racing bike either. Remember that a woman will have seen through such patterns by the third time at the latest and will find the whole thing super annoying. So here it is again in a nutshell, especially for all road cyclists:

1. If you spot a woman on a road bike, then that's a woman riding a road bike. That's it. I don't know any, really NO woman who says: "Oh, I'm going to go road cycling today to flirt. Hopefully someone will talk to me."
2. There are certainly women who are not on a major training or commuting mission and like to have a quick chat during the journey. BUT: If that's the case, she'll let you know. So you don't have to come up with a cramped line about her clothes or wait for her in the middle of a climb.
3. Conversation at eye level: If you have a conversation with a female road cyclist, just talk to her the way you would talk to a male road cyclist. As the situation demands. That way, she can and will take you seriously and certainly won't mind another conversation if you happen to bump into her again at a refreshment stop. Let's just do the same sport together!

PS: I still like the colleague who wrote the article. As I said, I don't know what got into him. He's actually an unobtrusive, very reflective guy.