Cognitive Differences

Laura Williamson explains some of the fundamental differences between guys and girls…

Being a female mountain biker is full of difficulties. Inferior strength-to-weight ratio, quick release levers that are too hard to open, and being offered sample products by bikini-clad spokesmodels after events, to name a few. For me, it’s also the embarrassing tendency to squeal when attempting technical drops, and the fact that my gloves have to match my riding top. But by far the most humiliating part is this: I can’t fix my own bike. I know. Go take a course, you say. They have women’s bicycle maintenance nights at lots of shops these days, so you only have to be inept in front of other females. And I have tried. But no matter how many times bike repair is explained to me by some keen, sinewy twentysomething with chain lube under his nails, I just can’t seem to take it in. The minute he utters the word ‘hydraulic’ or ‘lug’, my eyes glaze over and he might as well be lecturing in Cantonese.

 

I do understand the basics. I can change a tyre, and I did replace a derailleur hanger once (by the side of a trail, no less). I’ve tightened the occasional bolt with an Allen key, and I know how to use a chain breaker. Or, I think I do. It’s been a while.

 

But beyond that, I’m lost. For example, every time I go to put on my rear wheel, I have to stare at my cluster for about 10 minutes before I figure out how on earth I’m going to insinuate it between my chainstays. Sometimes I manage, but more often than not my husband grabs the wheel off me in frustration, dropping it in with a lightening quick series of moves that, after 10 years of marriage, I have yet to decipher. He actually thinks I have some sort of learning disability, like dyslexia, but for mechanical things. But I think it’s chromosonal.

 

Spring is the worst time. After a few months off my bike, I don’t just struggle with fitness. I can’t remember which brake is which (was that ‘right is rear’ or ‘right to the front?’), and I inevitably spend a couple of weeks going up a gear when I mean to go down, and vice versa.

 

This all is perfectly rational, if you ask me. For one, why does pushing my Rapid-Fire lever with my right thumb cause me to shift down, while pushing with my left thumb causes the opposite? Who came up with that? A man, obviously. Yes, it’s something about one derailleur having to move one way and one the other because of physics or geometry or one of those other classes that I wagged in high school. Whatever. I don’t care if there’s a scientific explanation; it’s stupid.

 

Many of my female friends have similar problems. One woman I know – no slouch, she races downhill nationally – says the worst moment of her life was when a male competitor tapped her shoulder shyly before a race. He didn’t mean to interfere, but did she know that her Maxxis High Roller was on back to front? I won’t repeat what she called him (I’m not sure I know how to spell it), but I’m betting that’s the last time he dished out any helpful cycling-related advice to a woman.

 

It wasn’t her fault. One of the documented differences between the male and female brain is that men can visualise objects in three dimensions. With Yoda-like prescience, they can see which way the High Roller needs to go, without even looking. We, on the other hand, read human emotions better, which is why when our boyfriends are watching us struggling with a spoke wrench, we can tell that they think we’re unfathomably stupid. Hence the grim silence during the car ride home.

A few hints, then, for our male companions. Don’t sigh and roll your eyes when your girlfriend is taking a wee bit long to adjust her seat post. Don’t tap your foot impatiently while she’s re-centring her disc brakes. And for God’s sake, the minute she starts loading the bikes onto the roof rack, grab all the men in the vicinity and leave. She’ll let you know when the job is done (and it might pay not to point out that she’s put the skewers in the wrong way around).

 

As for us females, why fight it? The inability to tell a head set from cassette may just be one of those secondary sex characteristics, like Adam’s apples and ear hair. Who cares if we can’t recalibrate our disc brakes? After all, it’s not what you do in the workshop that matters. The real test is out on the trail.