How Cycling Clothing Opened Doors for Women

I was rushing to a 10 a.m. meeting with the director of the organization where I had just started working. In an attempt to look less disheveled than usual, I was wearing a long, red skirt. And I was cycling rapidly to get there in time.

Cycling became gradually harder the closer I got to work. Eventually, I couldn’t ignore the resistance to my pedaling, and I saw the culprit: The bottom of my skirt had gotten entangled in the bike spokes. I tried to extricate it gently. When this didn’t work, I started yanking. The skirt tore off unevenly, the ends marked by unsightly patches of bike grease. I looked like I’d gotten into a fight with an urban fox, and lost.

Dressing for a commute should be straightforward. Yet this becomes more complicated when the commute involves a bicycle, and when the clothing is intended for a woman.

Pants, like bicycles, have long been associated with mobility. Despite confining each leg, or more accurately they confine each leg, pants allow greater freedom of movement: freedom from worrying about exposing too much skin,