AILSA CHANG, HOST:
In North America, riding a bicycle has a gender gap. In cities like Montreal and French-speaking Quebec, riding a bike can be an efficient, environmentally friendly and cheap way to get around. And that is where reporter Emma Jacobs visited a group of women trying to get more women on bikes.
EMMA JACOBS, BYLINE: Today is Aminata Traore's first cycling class. In an oval middle school parking lot, she and about two dozen other students start out pushing bikes with the pedals removed. Then the pedals get added back one by one.
(CROSSTALK)
JACOBS: Traore first tried biking as a teenager but balancing spooked her. She hadn't tried again in years. She's 25 now with two young children.
AMINATA TRAORE: (Through interpreter) I said to myself, it's now or never. And also, when I see people biking with their kids, I think that's an activity I would like to do with my kids someday.
JACOBS: The nonprofit Velo Quebec - or Bicycle Quebec - which puts on these classes design them to try and overcome a lot of often overlooked structural barriers that keep women from biking. That included offering childcare, important for participants like Traore.
TRAORE: (Through interpreter) Right now, I'm on maternity leave, so I have lots of time. But at the same time, if there's no one to watch the baby, it's a little hard.
CATHERINE PLANTE: (Through interpreter) When we started the program, we really tried to push our approach.
JACOBS: Catherine Plante, head of cycling education at Velo Quebec, says they also opted for all women instructors and to bring workshops to students in different neighborhoods around the city and suburbs.
PLANTE: (Through interpreter) The activities are free to allow us to work with women in financially insecure households. And we lend the bikes and helmets.
JACOBS: Montreal's bike-share system also gives the program free passes for students to keep on cycling after the classes.
AMAL SALMAN: (Non-English language spoken).
JACOBS: Another student, Amal Salman, says the class also offers a safe space to learn something completely new. She moved to Quebec recently from Djibouti, where she never rode a bike.
SALMAN: (Through interpreter) For me, it's really the first, first time. I was really, really scared to start out.
JACOBS: But she says she also really wanted the chance to learn.
SALMAN: (Through interpreter) And to have the pride of going to the park with my kids and no longer have to run alongside them as they ride. But I'm also learning to make my kids feel good, too, because they say to me every time, Mama, you don't know how to ride a bike.
JACOBS: Plus, she says, it will be good for her health, for the environment and cheaper than taking the metro. In a few more sessions, her class will venture out of the parking lot onto the streets. But street biking can be hard for new cyclists, even for Faiza Ameur, a former student who now helps teach workshops. She learned to bike at age 54.
FAIZA AMEUR: (Through interpreter) Up until now, I still try to always go where there aren't cars. I'm still scared of traffic, of not having enough space to ride. It's something I need to work on.
JACOBS: This is why cities need both more cycling education and to add more protection for cyclists, says Jennifer Dill, a planning professor at Portland State.
JENNIFER DILL: Montreal has done a great job of building a lot of protected bike lanes. And there's good evidence out there that women feel more comfortable in that type of infrastructure.
JACOBS: For now, in the parking lot, just over an hour into her first lesson, Aminata Traore has graduated to a bicycle with both pedals.
(CHEERING)
JACOBS: For the first time, she propels herself forward using both pedals for a few dozen feet as students and instructors applaud.
(APPLAUSE)
JACOBS: For NPR News, I'm Emma Jacobs in Montreal.
(SOUNDBITE OF CAROLINA CHOCOLATE DROPS' "MAHALLA") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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