Women on Wheels: How the Glasgow cyclists reclaiming the city streets are changing lives

The health and environmental benefits of cycling may be well known, but take-up rates for women in Glasgow, and particularly women from ethnic minorities is very low. Which is where the pioneering work of social enterprise Women on Wheels comes in

Six days a week the Women on Wheels is a hive of activity. Glasgow-based Shgufta Anwar founded the women’s community cycling hub in Govanhill in early 2022. Based in a former church, she and her permanent team of four (all women), cram in a busy schedule of daily activities, along with 42 bikes, which are continuously being moved in and out of the building to serve these sessions.

Shgufta describes it as “busy and hectic most days”. On Mondays it’s lessons and led rides, with Tuesdays sessions focused on refugees; Thursdays it’s new mother and toddler sessions, and maintenance classes; and Fridays it’s intermediate maintenance classes. On Saturdays it really gets busy, with family and women’s sessions, lessons and led rides, back to back from 9:30am to 6pm. Sessions are almost invariably sold out.

While cycling is growing in Scotland, Shgufta points out the figures around cycling diversity are ‘grim’ particularly for women and ethnic minorities. “Only seven per cent of people who cycle in Glasgow cycle at least once a week, of which only a third are women, and a very, very tiny fraction are people of colour. So that's very, very, very grim statistics,” she says.

Author Laura Laker. Picture: Ben Broomfield @photobenphoto

Shgufta set up Women on Wheels to try and shift that status quo. As the name suggests, all of their participants, as well as their board and staff, are women, or gender non-conforming. By offering skills training and support, as well as creating a nurturing community, Women on Wheels’ aim is to spread the joy of cycling to a broader demographic.When Shgufta set up the charity in 2022, it was a huge leap of faith. After eight years working in the charitable sector, she was burned out and exhausted and, as time passed, the long-gestating idea simply refused to go away.

“I thought actually, I can’t sit around waiting for funding,” she says. She started the first sessions with no bank account, and only a team of volunteers, borrowing bikes from another charity, while launching a crowd funder. The money got them the Govanhill space and the community got together in support, bringing food along and volunteering their time. Within days they were leading rides three times a week. Now funds come from local and national government grants, community sports and health grants, lottery funds and contributions from the odd cycling brand.

While her charity day job left her feeling “totally depleted”, with Women on Wheels, “I had boundless energy and that made me realise actually, this was the right thing to do,” Shgufta said.What she and her team have achieved in a couple of years is a testament to Shgufta’s drive, skill and tenacity. It’s also proof of the pent up demand for inclusive cycling spaces. In just two years she and her team of four have worked with more than 900 women and families. Along with staff members, there are 20 sessional staff delivering training and leading rides, and 30 volunteers.

As time went on, they began upskilling participants to take groups out on bike trips, around Glasgow and then further afield. Last year they launched family-focused ride sessions and this year they’re extending their offering to teens. Anyone working in physical activity and health knows the alarming rates at which teenage girls drop out of sport.Most of Women on Wheels’ participants are cycling beginners, and the lessons are the busiest aspect of their work. Some of them then go on to do some pretty serious cycling.

Founder of Women on Wheels, Shgufta Anwar, centre left, with a group ride out. Picture: Women on Wheels

Part of the secret to their success is creating a safe space to learn and grow cycling skills in a supportive environment. More recently Women on Wheels organised BMX sessions at the Loading Bay skate park in the West End of Glasgow. A skatepark can feel intimidating to the uninitiated and the team quickly realised these needed to be women and non-binary-only sessions. Arranging to close a section of the park for one group was a logistical challenge, but their efforts were soon vindicated, when 108 people turned up to ride. A third of those were Muslim riders – an even more impressive achievement given it took place in the middle of Ramadan, when those women were fasting. Shgufta’s hope is that in future organisers of those facilities will recognise the power of these dedicated sessions, and that they become part of venues’ regular offerings.

Women on Wheels held mountain bike sessions around Balfron, which were similarly successful, and are now going to Glentress to offer more advanced sessions. They’ve run cycle touring trips to Falkirk, Millport and Loch Lomond. Now women, some of whom only learned to cycle a year or two ago, are organising their own group bike tours.

What is it like to be part of that journey? “It feels really lovely actually,” she says. “We've enabled that. I supported all those individuals to get to that level… and these were all people that were not friends with each other before last year.”

Perhaps unsurprisingly, no two women’s journeys are the same. Some are already fit and active when they come to Women on Wheels, there are single mums who use their cycling time to recharge. For others, the sessions will be their only form of physical activity; indeed some have physical and mental health challenges, which cycling now helps them manage. Some come to sessions believing they can’t cycle, and end up thriving on a bike, even joining cycling trips as far afield as the Lake District. Closer to home parents accompanying a bike bus, founded by Women on Wheels’ families co-ordinator, end up cycling to work, too.

Also unsurprisingly, there are challenges for Shgufta and her team – and for more women and ethnic minority riders taking up cycling. Among those are funding. Days before we spoke on the phone, Shgufta secured 12 months’ funding, allowing her to relax – for a couple of months, at least. Much of Women on Wheels’ funding comes directly from Transport Scotland, as well as from funds to improve mental health and wellbeing, and from Cycling Scotland. The other challenge is that “we're very, very quickly outgrowing this space,” and finding a suitable, larger venue is a challenge.

Another issue is the lack of safe cycling infrastructure in Glasgow. Shgufta says: “Nine out of 10 women are still coming to us citing road safety as the biggest barrier to cycling, and change is very slow.” While the city has delivered a number of new cycle routes in recent years, the network is still patchy and the routes aren’t always well designed. On the South City Way, one of Glasgow’s flagship routes, she says drivers “constantly” park in the cycle lane, people open car doors dangerously into the path of passing cyclists, and it’s often filled with pedestrians.

"Infrastructure around Glasgow is improving but it is an incredibly slow process and until the whole city is accessible by safe and segregated cycle infrastructure Women on Wheels is here to show people how to get about the city and remain safe.

“Glasgow is better than a lot of other places, but there’s still a lot of work.”

​Laura Laker’s book, Potholes and Pavements: A Bumpy Ride on Britain’s National Cycle Network, is published by Bloomsbury, £16.99, out now; womenonwheels.org.uk/