Wise Words is our interview series talking to some of mountain biking’s most switched on people.
We’ll ask our short list of questions to a heap of influential, inspiring and outspoken people that we feel are driving the direction of mountain biking today. Some will make you think, some will make you laugh, some will be plain dumb, some will inspire you to better yourself and your riding. We hope!
Wise Words this week is brought to you by Dr. Fiona Spotswood.
Dr Fiona Spotswood is Associate Professor in Marketing and Consumption at Bristol University Business School, specialising in understanding and addressing gender inequality in sport and physical activity. She leads Project FIAS (Fostering Inclusive Action Sports), which is a research, evidence, insight and impact project designed to understand and address gender inequality in mountain biking and other action sports.
Fi is also a long time mountain biker and ex-endurance racer. She set up and leads Bristol Shredders, a club for children up to age 13 (with gender parity in the club amongst riders and volunteers), where her three daughters all ride. She leads the Ride Bristol women’s rides, their monthly night rides and is a trustee of Ride Bristol. She is on the Reframing MTB organising team.
How would your closest riding buddies describe you to someone who has never met you?
I guessed they’d describe me as ‘annoying keen’, but when asked, I was told ‘infectiously energetic’. I don’t hide my love of riding bikes, that’s for sure. And these days, when opportunities to ride are a bit more thin on the ground, I do have a tendency to ride in a furiously joyful state, like a dog with two tails.
What thing or things have you bought in the last year that had the biggest effect on your life as a mountain biker / cyclist / person that works in the bike industry?
Just over a year ago I bought my Ibis Ripley. I’d had a XC bike before that, for 12 years. The perfect machine for mile munching in adventure racing, which was my weekend activity of choice for a long time. When my kids were super tiny, I fell out of love with mountain biking, only riding occasionally and spending most of my ‘free’ time trail and fell running.
When I started Bristol Shredders, a kids mountain bike club, I rode more but only with small humans. Then I started my research into women’s experiences in mountain biking and started riding with a lot more people. I realized the old XC bike wasn’t going to cut it, and tried the Ripley at Dirt Divas women’s mountain bike festival. It was a life changing moment. Suddenly the old buzz came back. The updated geometry, awesome grippy tyres and much more travel made me want to ride all the time. I’ve never lost that feeling and every chance I get I’ll take that bike out. It’s just a beaut.
What unusual habits do you have as a bike rider?
I like climbing. For me, it’s unusual that other people don’t find that usual.
What piece of advice do you think every mountain bike rider should hear? And what piece should they ignore?
Aha. My research focuses on women’s experiences in sport, and at the moment that’s particularly focused on mountain biking and other action sports. So this question is an excuse to speak directly to that. Everyone in mountain biking should understand that sport isn’t as open as it might seem. If we understand why some people are excluded, we can take steps to make mountain biking more fun for more people. What piece of advice should they ignore? Almost anything you read in the comments section of Pinkbike.
If you could go back and re-ride one day from your life so far, where/what/when/who would it be? Would you change anything?
There used to be an amazing 7 day race called the Trans Wales. I rode the first ever one only a few months after I started mountain biking. It was love. Camping on a mountain side in some distant corner of Wales. Ride bikes all day, chatting about riding bikes all night. And repeat. With the exception of the year I did the Trans Rockies, I did every one of those races before it folded. I’d sign up again in a heart beat. It was a magical time. I was fit and the most responsible thing I had to do in my life was remember to eat breakfast. There so were so many perfect days. Incredible views, great people, terrible jokes. I’d go back and ride any of those days again. Perhaps not the night timed stages.
What have you wasted the most time on in your life as a rider or bike industry career that you wished you’d given up years ago?
I went through a period of time in my 20s racing 24 hour solo races, which was a tough time for all sorts of reasons. Partly due to some toxic experiences with a coach. It triggered a spate of disordered eating and I became obsessed with being light and lean so I could ride faster. I look back at that time and consider it all a waste of time. I could have spent all that energy connecting with good people and riding fun trails. Now I’m the mother of three girls, I’m instilled in them that bikes should be fun first, and that food is fuel for good times with good people in good places.
Someone pass the cake.
How do you motivate yourself when you’re struggling or lacking inspiration?
I have so little time that is genuinely ‘free’, from my work at the university, or from my family. I never lack motivation or inspiration to ride, if that’s what you mean. I just lack time. When there is time, I’ll be pedalling. I also do a lot of gym training, and to be fair I don’t always want to get out of bed at stupid o’clock and lift heavy things off the floor, but luckily I do that with one of my best mates who is also a brilliant mountain bike buddy and so there’s generally a bit of chat about our next ride/adventure.
I also do a lot of voluntary ride leading, women’s rides, trail association night rides for Ride Bristol, kids club rides. I never lose motivation that. Mountain biking has brought me so much joy over the last twenty years or more, and I just want to share it, and particularly to make sure that it is ‘on the table’ for more women and girls. When I started, there were so few women riding. There are more now but it’s not an easy sport to get into. I want to be part of a new era that blows mountain biking open.
What single and specific thing about riding bicycles do you gain the most happiness from?
This is hard. I have interviewed a gazillion people and asked this same question. They always say the flowy feeling, the sense of achievement and the mental relief that riding in the woods can bring. I agree with all of that. But I have to say, I love scaring myself too on steep techy trails. I love the feeling of holding on, picking my way down, being on the edge of what’s possible. It’s such a buzz. I don’t feel like a middle aged business school professor when I’m doing that.
What single thing would you like to erase from cycling history from the last year?
It’s a toss up between the Muc Off ad that so stridently reinforced the gender hierarchies in mountain biking, and the ranking of women Rampage riders based on their appearance. But on the plus side, in both instances, these were called out so much, with such force (by men and women) and triggered some really useful conversations and progress.
What single thing would you like to make happen in the cycling world in the next year?
With Project FIAS, I’m doing loads of work with organization in mountain biking who are committed to fostering more inclusive environments and really working on gender inequalities across the ecosystem of mountain biking. It’s so exciting and there will be all sorts of new initiatives, events and projects this year. Keep an eye out!
But one of my ambitions is to work more with race organisers to encourage more proactive effort to support women and girls into racing. I think there is so much more we can do, and the postfeminist view that ‘well they can enter if they want’ (that I hear a lot) represents a chance to have a real impact.
Who else should we ask these questions to?
Morgan Jones at Disability Sport Wales.
