Author here. Thanks for posting! HN might be interested in the related repos we open-sourced today:<p>- Data-processing scripts and HTML/JS/CSS for the maps and charts: <a href="https://github.com/BuzzFeedNews/2014-06-bikeshare-gender-maps" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/BuzzFeedNews/2014-06-bikeshare-gender-map...</a><p>- Python parsers for the various bikeshare services' published data: <a href="https://github.com/BuzzFeedNews/bikeshares" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/BuzzFeedNews/bikeshares</a><p>- General guide to getting data from these services: <a href="https://github.com/BuzzFeedNews/bikeshare-data-sources" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/BuzzFeedNews/bikeshare-data-sources</a>
Men perform physically dangerous work far more frequently than women.<p>Riding a bike in a large city is dangerous - I've never done in it New York, but in London altercations between bikes, pedestrians, taxis and buses are quite frequent. There are few real continental-Europe-style bike lanes.<p>Perhaps same gender differences in appetite for risk also affects one's decision to ride a bike in a large city?
Interestingly they don't mention helmets and hair as one possible contributor of the gender gap in bicycle ridership (and motorcycles too).<p>Bicycling is an activity where you should be wearing a helmet for safety, and this is at odds with styling your hair in the morning since that helmet with mess up many styles of longer hair.<p>However, that being said, this data comes from city bikesharing services, which often don't involve helmet usage.<p>I also wonder how much clothing choices impact ridership. Unisex clothing choices (pants, shorts) are more convenient for bicycle riding than skirts and dresses.<p>I'm curious, if you normalize the data to discount women who spend a lot of time on their appearance (particularly their hair) and discount the percentage of women who are not wearing unisex clothes, do the numbers more closely hit a 50-50 distribution.<p>Lastly, I'd love to see what data Google has on bicycle ridership for Google Bikes on its Mountain View campus (relative to the ratio of men-to-women at Google of course)