British Cycling has this week launched its first Women and Girls’ Club Toolkit, the latest step in its #OneinaMillion campaign to reduce the historic gender gap within cycling.

The toolkit, which will be distributed to each and every one of British Cycling’s 1845 affiliated clubs across the country, contains advice, tips and best-practice examples of making the cycling club environment as appealing as possible to prospective female members.

While huge strides have been made in encouraging more women into both competitive and recreational cycling, only 18% of overall affiliated club membership is currently female.

In launching the toolkit, British Cycling has highlighted the barriers which research shows still exist to female participation, and outlined ways in which clubs can overcome these and thus increase its female membership.

British Cycling’s Head of Programme Design, Jill Puttnam explains:

“We know that there are huge, ever-growing numbers of women cycling, and playing active roles in the sport throughout the country. However, the figure that shows that only 18% of club members are female highlights that there is still work to do in ensuring that women see a cycling club as an environment that is suitable to them.

“We have launched this toolkit to work alongside clubs to help this to happen. Some clubs are doing fantastic work in recruiting more women and girls, but we know that others want to do more but lack the time and resource, which is where we hope this toolkit will help.

“There are clear and achievable steps which clubs can take, all of which are informed by research, which would make a real difference to both the levels of female participation and the health of individual clubs.”

Since launching its Women’s Strategy in 2013, British Cycling has made significant advancements in inspiring more women to get into cycling, as it strives to narrow the sport’s gender gap. Further information is available here, while the toolkit is available to download here.