Gravel Grinder News: Gravel Worlds Achieves 1000 Women of Gravel Worlds Goal.

 Today it was announced that Gravel Worlds, whose presenting sponsor is Garmin, achieved a goal of signing up 1000 women to their event in August. This commendable effort was done in a certain way to be free from calls of "sponsored riders" or from any other untoward motives that might be laid up against the Gravel Worlds team. 

Instead of using the leverage of sponsors, media, or advertising, Gravel Worlds used their social media platforms to spread the word and - as organically as is possible these days- raised awareness to the point that the achieved the goal set for themselves. 

And furthermore; it wasn't like Gravel Worlds didn't already have a higher number of female identifying participants anyway. Check this quote out from the press release:

 "According to Garmin Gravel Worlds co-promoter, Jason Strohbehn, the movement started from conversations with sponsors, who said 28% women’s participation at Gravel Worlds 2021 was nearly double the industry average. 

“Initially, we were embarrassed by our women’s participation numbers, and it then became embarrassing to learn that it was double the industry average,” Strohbehn said. “We quickly set a monumental goal to triple the number of women we’ve ever had at Gravel Worlds and obtain more than 35% women. We wanted a goal that was not only going to push ourselves, but also be big enough to encourage an entire industry."

Comments: Well, I think Gravel Worlds has set a pretty high bar for other events to follow and they did it in a way which, in my opinion, was harder to do, but also- believable. In this day and age where riders appear who are "comped" in, and sponsorship dollars and company marketing can be leveraged, (Think what Garmin could have done to help this happen), and it becomes apparent that Gravel Worlds wants to keep things as grassroots as they can, yet be "big" as well. That may seem like two things which are at odds with each other, and in my opinion, it does cause Gravel Worlds some issues with how they put on their event. But this achievement should be seen as monumental in the gravel going niche. (Is gravel riding still a "niche"?) 

So, yeah- If you run a gravel event, and you want more women participating? Here's your example of not only how to do it, but that it is possible to do it. And when I think about gravel events and gravel riding in general, that's been one of the core elements of this sport- "You can do it!". Gravel Worlds is showing us another way that can be interpreted.