Closing the Gender Gap in Active Travel: Lessons From Switch Your Journey

As Cycle Sisters’ Switch Your Journey challenge has come to a close for this year, we've been reflecting on what helps women make the transition to active travel.   

Switch Your Journey is our annual two-week behaviour change campaign, supported by Muslim Aid, that encourages women to replace some of their everyday journeys with cycling.

The campaign offers free cycle lessons, bike loans, webinars and a dedicated WhatsApp group where participants motivate and inspire each other throughout the challenge. 

These reflections feel particularly timely with the recent publication of the UK’s third Cycling and Walking Investment Strategy (CWIS3), which sets an ambition for 55% of all short journeys in towns and cities to be walked, wheeled or cycled by 2035.   Yet women still make only around one-third as many cycling trips as men in England. 

Switch Your Journey has reinforced something we’ve seen time and time again at Cycle Sisters - helping women make the step from leisure cycling to using a bike for everyday journeys isn't about a single intervention - it’s about bringing together the right mix of practical support, skills and encouragement.  

Here are four things we’ve found make a real difference: 

Access to a bike 

A huge barrier is not having a bike or anywhere to store a bike - investing in one can feel like a big step when you're not yet sure whether cycling will work for your life.  

Through our partnerships with Brompton and Santander Cycles, Switch Your Journey participants were able to borrow a bike for free. Some borrowed a Brompton for a week to see how cycling could fit into their everyday lives, while others used Santander Cycles to try shorter journeys without needing to own a bike. 

"These seven days with a Brompton completely changed my lifestyle. Cycling has gone from something I only dreamed about to becoming part of my daily life. I’m now cycling 10-15 km a day, and I even rode from Finsbury Park all the way to King’s Cross on my own. " Jinny 

Skills and confidence 

There is a huge jump between cycling around a park and cycling to work, school or the shops.

Our free on-road Bikeability lessons gave women the opportunity to practise real journeys with a qualified instructor by their side, helping bridge that gap.

Alongside this, our free webinars on route planning with Komoot, cycling with children with Cycle Sprog and buying a bike helped address some of the practical questions that can otherwise hold people back.

“I found myself taking to the road, where I was petrified previously but now I had the confidence to do so safely, and being able to map out my route in advance was a huge game changer.” Flora  

Community and support 

One of the most powerful aspects of Switch Your Journey is that, for two weeks, hundreds of women are all working towards the same goal together. 

Participants get a safe space through a dedicated WhatsApp group to ask questions, celebrate successes, and get support from people on the same journey. Reading about someone else's "switch" is often what gives a person the confidence to try their own.

"It gave me the extra 'oomph' I needed to finally start cycling to work. Reading everyone else's switches was inspirational." Sara

Start with one journey

One thing that stands out from the challenge is how often lasting change starts with just one journey.   Rather than trying to cycle everywhere overnight, women chose one journey they'd previously thought wasn't possible - commuting to work, cycling to school, visiting family or travelling on busy roads for the first time.  Each successful journey built confidence for the next.

"The challenge helped me be more aware of journeys I could make by bike that I wouldn't have thought possible. Achieving journeys by bike that I hadn't thought of gave me the confidence I needed to continue."  Amara 

The result: 97% of people who took part in Switch Your Journey said they felt more confident cycling for everyday journeys.

If we're serious about delivering the ambitions set out in CWIS3, investment in infrastructure needs to be matched by investment in the people and programmes that help more people feel able to cycle.

That means:

• Free adult cycle training available in every part of the UK

• More instructors from diverse backgrounds

• Investment in community organisations that provide the practical support and encouragement needed to help people make cycling part of everyday life. 

  
  

We're proud to be playing a small part in helping more women make the transition to active travel, one journey at a time. We look forward to continuing to work in partnership with others in the sector who share our ambition of making everyday cycling accessible to everyone.