welcome everybody to Seattle bike blog I am your editor Tom Fucoloro and I'm with Roxy Robles who just conducted a survey of women trans femme and gender non-conforming people who in Seattle and asked them how comfortable they feel at different Seattle bike shops and we just released the results this week Roxy want to tell people a little bit about yourself sir my name is Roxy I am a cyclist as you can imagine I'm an urban planner and I really love making Filipino food sounds good so there the survey is called splain is that an acronym for something yes it stands for Seattle peddler's looking for action to inform and it definitely doesn't come from any patriarchal way of talking to people okay I'm sure nobody picked up on that yeah so maybe just briefly let's talk about the shape of the survey like what how it was collected and you know the methodology that went into it and then we'll talk a little bit about why okay yes so the survey was developed with Google Forms it's a pretty easy way to just distribute something and each shop had kind of a call out in the survey with its address and then there was a space at the end of the survey for people to leave pick up the feedback or any kind of comments that they wanted to and within the survey respondents were asked to rank each shop from one to five with one being I don't feel comfortable here and five being I do feel comfortable here and then all of the responses kind of went into a spreadsheet and we crunched the numbers weighted them and divided by the number of responses and we got these average ratings for each shop so we've got the chart up on the screen now and I'm going to zoom out and might be hard to read it especially if you're on a phone but essentially can you explain a little bit about what will how to read this chart sure and so on the right side you see that there's a legend blue green yellow orange and red indicate the different kind of levels of reading and then each shop has a bar and so the proportion of the bar in each color represents the percentage of the ratings that were you know 5 4 3 2 or 1 and then at the end of each bar is the number of responses of that shop received so for example you can see that free-range cycles had 52 responses and the Seattle BMX had four so you know this survey isn't perfect since it's qualitative and there's a wide range of how many people gave answers for each shop but it gives you an idea of how people feel in these spaces yeah yeah and then that's we'll get into some of the caveats about the data in a little bit but yeah in general the longer the bar the higher the average rating yeah and then the number that's written in there is the number of votes they got and so that was sometimes that takes a little bit of reading into you guys I think it's a really like informational packed chart to do it this way but yeah I know I'm first glance sometimes people don't understand that the length of the bar isn't the number of votes yeah so yeah well thank you so I guess let's go back to kind of rewind a little bit then why did you come up with the idea to do this survey like where did that idea come from and yeah what kind of I guess what were what were you hoping to accomplish with it I mean initially just started as a component of a class that I'm teaching in the spring introduction to bike touring for femme people and I wanted to make sure that if I'm getting people excited about bike touring if I'm getting people excited about riding their bikes that when I send them out into the world that they have a safe place to go you know when they need repairs wanna buy a bike etc so I thought I would do the survey and just kind of keep it internal to myself in this class but then when I started talking about it with more people and distributing it people just really really wanted to see the results and a lot more people than I expected and wanted to have it published in them kind of a more public way so I got inspired to you know contact you and start working with you and make the results public yeah great oh thanks so much for reaching out to me yeah yeah it was there's a crying baby in the background just to acknowledge that people toddlers having a nap time and that's just that's just gonna be the way this video this is real poor kid oh yeah yeah I mean immediately when do you sent me the initial survey and said can you help distribute the survey to two more people and we included in the bike news roundup in it I might have said something on Twitter about it I actually kind of forget if I did or not I know cascade bicycle club did as well so you clearly were emailing it the link around remember when I saw they go that's gonna be I immediately recognize it as let to be really interesting because what comes from this and so when you reached out to to kind of to put the results out there I was pretty excited I was also pretty nervous and you wrote in your blog post that you were a little nervous as well I guess can you explain why I think that just in the history of you know when things are uncovered from kind of like a feminist perspective or any kind of perspective that isn't you know part of being a white cisgender man that there's just typically pretty violent like backlash I didn't expect that anybody would be extremely worked up about this or anything but you just never know when you kind of prod at male anxieties what is going to happen so yeah I was really nervous about what this might bring up for people and being that most of the shop owners in town are white men I yeah this is like probably very pointed at them and I was also very nervous because it's not like owning a bike shop is you know necessarily like a huge money-making endeavor I don't know that there are any billionaire bike shop owners maybe maybe there are I don't know but you know this I have compassion that this is someone's livelihood in that this is someone's these are small businesses so it was a it's difficult to want to point out kind of flaws or maybe places where their service could improve because that could affect their bottom line it could affect you know families yeah yeah and I guess we could talk about you know being worried about canceled culture and you know the idea well we put these out and someone will say well we're boycotting the shop then right yeah kind of because you said that that's not what you want people to take away from the survey no I I think that canceled culture in many forms can be pretty destructive and it leaves it doesn't leave space for people to internalize whatever you know change they're being asked to make or internalize whatever you know wrongdoing that they've done and do better so I really did not intend for this to be any kind of you know I I hope no boycotts or anything come out of this I've gotten a lot of feedback from shop owners that they want to take this seriously and and I just hope it can affect change yeah and yeah something that has come up a lot is the you know the idea of community and the idea that a bike shop could be the center of community but also that your community is more than just white men yeah and that if you're catering just to white men then you're missing out on a huge portion of the community so I guess you know to kind of get back to you know why do the survey like what are the I guess just what are the common experiences that people report that that leave them feeling either disrespected or unempowered or just having a negative experience makes them not want to go back to a shop like yeah and I should say that when I talk about these experiences I know that they're not relegated to only them people that I have heard a lot of feedback from people that they have similar experiences even if they are kind of able bodied white men so I mean I think the things that I was reacting to and starting this survey and that I've heard from friends is that you know a lot of times if you're a femme person or if you maybe like a beginner even by bike shop employees can just ignore you they won't take your requests or needs seriously they might they just maybe won't ask questions about this bike that you've brought in like this is I've had just really bad advice given to me in this really pedantic and patronizing way about a bike that like I know and like I know enough about bikes to know that that's bad advice but someone just kind of authoritatively saying this is the way this needs to be is and not asking me any questions about my needs I think it's just was rude and that bad practice I think of your professional providing a professional service so yeah just being ignored being talked down to and being talked over is really common I think just like if you're you can't get a a word in edgewise with people that just seem to need to tell you how much more important their expertise is which sure not everybody's the same type of mechanic or you know obviously these shops have a lot to offer but it's just like they're not asking questions about someone's needs just because they look a certain way is really really frustrating yeah well so I did a followup with Shawna from free-range cycles I should and I we actually posted this story at the same time as the as the survey because our conversation Shawna was just everything like it's funny like sometimes you write a you know I'm reporting a story it takes a lot of work to take you know my notes from a conversation and put them into a a good story and this one took me like two seconds because I basically just like put a quote at the beginning I'm gonna put at the end just cuz you know everything was important and insightful and I think informative and I really you know anyone like there's like one of the easiest things that I think bits of advice that she had that anyone can do starting today is like when someone walks in the door you know you drop all your assumptions and even if you think you know the answer ask the question anyway ask you just ask tons of questions about you know how how experienced are you what are your goals like what are you yeah you know rather than assuming that you know based on their appearance or how they're presenting or even the bike they bring in um that just ask questions even if you think you know yeah because you might often not actually know yeah um people in different goals yeah and even about like yeah like one that Shawna brought up asked you know it's like are there times when you make mistakes and Shawna said well I have this tendency to assume that people are trying to save money and I've had to unlearn that one and say no I like investing my bike so why would I assume that someone else doesn't want to invest in their bike if she had to stop assuming that they don't want to spend money that's insulting if you're trying to spend money yeah yeah yeah those funny it was good I really like that yeah oh but there's just there's so much in here just just good advice that you know it's one of those things where you know some of it's common sense but maybe you just don't think about it and some of it is well it's not it it's not something that just comes naturally or not it's something that's practiced yeah and I thought that was really really good advice that they talked about it all the time in the shop about how can we do better and it's not it's like a core piece of their daily operations is to discuss being more welcoming and making sure that as soon as someone walks in that they get what they need yeah and that we don't have negative interactions and you don't leave frustrated in and I think that's why they did so well and why so many people went out of their way to give those kudos to that bike shop because you know they had so many responses in the survey and it's because when you go in there you know you're going to be welcomed and treated like a human being like with with your own experience and knowledge um in talking to I had a lot of conversations this week with bike shop owners since we you know gave everybody a heads up about the reading and let them know that this was going to be published I talked to a lot of bike shop owners this week and I think a lot of them want to they wanted to know you know like they were trying to find some I kind of hit a nugget in the data about like some silver bullet for how they can make it better or like did anybody mention names of you know like mechanics and whatever but I mean to Shawna's point about it being a practice I don't think that this can in a conversation I don't think that these you know any of these issues are gonna be solved with just like you know putting up some poster about inclusivity or something it's like something you have to practice every day and you're gonna mess up I mean I yeah I mess up it's fine you just like talk about it and keep moving on and keep you know being better the next time right yeah so anyone who in the story I made sure that that we we thanked you know everyone who contributed to this survey but also any shop owner manager employee who takes time to really think about it and has a conversation like on the shop floor about it yeah and you know takes it seriously and engages with it you know thank you because it's it mean it is hard work you know when it's you know it might take up time that you could be wrenching right yeah yeah I think I hope that the results suggest that that's valuable yeah use up that time it's not a waste well I mean the top three shops you know free-range do you know and the by curry you know free-range we learned that that's part of their culture G&O is you know kind of a family-oriented job so by its nature kind of geared towards beginners children you know people with children and then the bikery is a you know kind of a donation based teaching space so by its nature you know the mechanics and the people looking for help are kind of learning from one another and everybody's kind of teaching one another so that involves asking questions and being engaged with one another and not kind of this you know expert dynamic yeah yeah then the the number four shop is bike works but that was interesting because Shawna mentioned that she worked at Bike Works both in the shop and then running youth programs and bike works as part of their mission makes always makes time to talk about inclusivity and equity and that you take time out of your one time when you could be wrenching yeah and you talk about these things yeah you're very intentional about it and so I think it's you know Shawna is not the only person to come out of Bike Works with this mentality and it's kind of interesting to have this organization sort of seeding all over the place to have this mentality and have this practice in their lives and yeah obviously this practice is good whether you run a bike shop or not right oh yeah everyone should be doing this this survey was just bike shops right and yeah if I think I mention that in my blog post it's like well so what you feel uncomfortable in bike shops like you have money to buy a bike but I it's obviously about a lot more than bike shops it's kind of about you know just any kind of patronizing attitude or you know patriarchal polish culture in general that assumes you need certain types of knowledge or certain types of access to be any good at like a sport or whatever it is and so of course this was bike shop specific because bike shops are discreet and I'm a cyclist but um it applies to so many other things yeah yeah providing this kind of feedback I think this is a service you to to your community and to the bike shops even if it doesn't feel that way immediately yeah you know I think that it is an active community love I guess it's true I did it because I love like I've I've never had a community like this before I lived in Seattle about five years now and I feel like the last two years have become really rooted here because of cycling and the people that I found here and I did this because I want to bring more people into it and I think like we can all help each other be more inclusive and yeah I did do it out of love oh so the the survey is of 90 people's responses and so a lot of our original posts was basically caveats the survey yeah here's what the survey doesn't say yeah and that's not to say that's not like a insult to the survey it's just a almost like here's a list of follow-ups for further study I mean like any academic paper yeah has that list of like for further research so I guess I'd like to talk a little bit about you know what things you think would be interesting to know I'm not necessarily saying that you should do but that somebody should do I'm not trying to say yeah but I guess like through this process you know in some ways it raises more questions I mean it starts a conversation which means that you might leave with more questions then you're came in with I guess what are some of those that stand out the things you'd like to to know or things that you'd like I guess people to think about that art that weren't actually addressed in this hmm being able to isolate maybe how beginners feel would be interesting I mean I didn't collect any demographics so any kind of isolating any kind of demographic would be really interesting because you know this survey was geared towards it was kind of gender focused people that are cisgender men but you know it didn't capture anything about race you know national origin or anything like that so or body type or age right I mean yeah the list could go on and on and on so um any of those intersections could be interesting at the same time it's like you know we just need to be like a it's a professional service like you should be you know welcoming people in so I don't know what those demographics might what else those my demographics might LS sometimes it's like maybe I'm just I just want to know I don't know yeah yeah I feel like the conversation that it starts is the important part of life because the conclusion would be the same well I mean not necessarily but yeah I'm really curious about how far shops take this mm-hmm that's my good question and I don't think it would make sense to redo this survey annually because people don't visit bike shops that many times in a year but I it would be interesting to run it again and at some point in the future and also to figure out what shops are like actually doing to address this because I had a lot of conversations this week about you know shop owners saying like thank you so much and I'm so excited to dig into the resources you provided but you know that's a good intention but you know like we talked about this is a practice and this is something that really does need to come from leadership in a shoplicate because they're setting the tone for how people work in existence nice so that's my biggest question just how are people gonna really engage with this information and have you heard from people in any other cities who have seen this and it's shown interest doing it because I've seen I've seen some things on social media there's some folks in the East Bay okay um and I saw someone in New York talking about it and I'm interested to see I'm hopeful yeah I would like to see other cities try something like it yeah it's very replicable so I mean I it to cyclist a zine which is out of New York they're kind of a DIY cycling zine perfor Femmes and POC and I basically wrote about the methodology so I'm hoping that it inspires people to maybe do it in their own towns I don't Twitter so I feel very disconnected from oh I envy you so much don't join okay it's I mean follow follow syllabi plug on Twitter but also don't don't join Twitter okay just makes you feel terrible on everything bummer have you very informed Twitter's unfortunately I think why you feel terrible interesting you know about why the world sucks before anyone else does yeah but that's nice to hear that people are getting inspired to do it because it was you know it took a lot of reminding people like I said so many emails and ping people on slack and you know just trying to find new avenues over and over but um it's very replicable if you have the energy to send emails nice yeah well great yeah because that's that's the other another thing we talked about is we okay we have these numbers and we have no baseline to know what they think is it is like if you look at like this city is a holy was that good yeah you had 90 people I'm pretty sure there's more than 90 cyclists but you know I had to that's the thing about starting something yeah you can't be scared to just start yeah um so yeah maybe night 90 isn't good and maybe these readings are completely far off I don't think they are though because just from my own experience and what I've been hearing from other people these readings kind of reflect how people feel yeah I've seen that a lot where people look at it and they say yeah or some people who says oh yeah we you know I talked about this with my friends all the time but it's so it's gratifying to see it like exactly we've been talking about yeah been replicated yes in this way so Seattle's average was three point four three which is above three so this is like I have no you look is that good yeah that a good average like did we do well or is that really bad like I don't know I mean it says that the you know the majority of people's experiences at bike shops are good that's above three average are not uncomfortable I'm sure yeah um so yeah I mean it's just like we have no baseline to know like it well we have one number now I guess now we have a baseline yeah people we don't we don't know how that compares to other cities we don't know how that compares to you know have we done have we gotten better in the past ten years yeah we don't know yeah anecdotally I think we have but that's what I've heard from people but I have no idea yeah I'm like it should it should be repeated at some point I just I'm not sure yeah so if someone were to walk into a shop and they're having a negative interaction with someone other than just leaving do you have any ideas about what they can do about that um I think yeah you can you're always allowed to leave and sometimes it's hard when you're worked up or potentially triggered by something someone says to kind of have the space in your mind to have a like response ready but I think some things at work are repeating what they just said to you back and you know if it's something like rude or condescending be like you just said XYZ is that what you meant or how am I supposed to like feel about that something like that I know it's like easier to say mmhmm to do these things then to do them sometime because of our social social contract to not disturb one another like create uncomfortable situations but yeah repeating the same thing I mean if they're being really rude we're ignoring you you could just be like I'm gonna need you to ask me with a different attitude that's a really good one Mike I guess my friend was pretty spunky I'll say as a kid and her parents would use that with her like you're gonna need to ask me that again you're gonna need to come to this interaction with a different attitude if I'm gonna stay here and because that you know if people have the pattern because of whatever prejudice or you know acculturation that they have like they're just gonna be in that groove or be in that pattern so asking something like that can sometimes take people out of it yeah those are some things that I use when people are getting on my nerves yeah I guess it's a little it gets even more complicated if they have your bike and it is broken I want to leave here but first I need you to I don't know what the bike shop equivalent of like spinning in a burger is right but I don't want to know yeah well I've heard uh packing repack someone's hub with peanut butter instead of grease because it works at first and then it stops working yeah so if if you were to give advice to you know where someone wants to know hey my shop wants to work on this are there any resources to kind of help us what where would you point them I think that it would be good for leadership to do a self-assessment I included resources at the end of the blog post both on your blog and then also my blog for self assessments and so these are kind of step by step ways to interrogate how your business runs and the degree to which it has inclusion as a value and you know it's there's a lot of resources out there now so it's if you want to start doing something like this and taking these actions it's you know good resources aren't that hard to find I also included a link to the brown bike girl they are a bicycle advocacy consulting group and also a fiquitiva the same type of thing they can come and these are people of color that will help you in engage your business model and kind of restructure your leadership to be more inclusive grease rag bikes is also another really great resource they have a lot of really great resources on their website and WTF bike Explorers are doing a lot for femme and trans gender non-conforming people in the bike world and they recently released a cycling pledge so you can sign on to the cycling pledge and it just means that you're gonna kind of adhere to a list of values I don't think there's any way to kind of put police that or whatever but you know I think that having those values as a reminder can be a really great way to have conversations in the shop like okay are we are we kind of are we interrogating how we're treating people are we bringing people into the fold in a productive way first shops definitely start I think with the self assessments just give yourself like a baseline and yeah hopefully grow from there great okay so you are teaching a class can tell me a little bit more about what this class is and yeah I of course love cycling and I love bike touring that's like my main discipline if you want to call it that and I think that the notion of bike touring can be really intimidating for people there are a lot of kind of parts to it I definitely didn't know where to start when I started just kind of figured it out so I'm teaching an introductory class to bike touring for trans femme and gender non-conforming people at Seattle colleges through their continuing education program it's gonna be May 9th from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. I don't think that the registration is out yet but look for it in their spring catalog great and you also have a blog of your own yes how can people find it feels on wheels dot net yeah I write about bikes and feelings great yeah that's wonderful yeah um yeah well thanks so much for taking time to talk with me about this and for all the work that you've put into gathering all the information and you know working with me to put it out on the stuff on the blog and I think it's really valuable I really appreciate there was hard work yeah that's a lot a lot a lot of hard work behind the scenes but I think that I've been very happy with how the conversation is gone since its come out I think it's been it's already been pretty effective and fruitful and I hope that it this is just the start of something yeah yeah I don't know what but we'll see yeah yeah thank you for your collaboration it was really easy and I'm excited that I thought that I gave you lots of work to do like I thought it I was thought for sure one of these times you're gonna send me back an email saying like not gonna do that my baby I wanted it out in the world so yeah I'm also like yeah just like being busy so okay great well thank you so much thank you and thank you everybody for watching