This month’s Star Letter wonders just where exactly all the women mountain bikers are in MBR magazine?

>>> Best womens mountain bike saddles

Having just received the Summer 2020 issue, I am currently ‘trawling’ through the articles. One thing I have noticed, with great disappointment is the lack of women featured. In fact, just one…! Laura on page 79 – out of 106 pages!

I started mountain biking about two or so years ago, I am not an expert. At the age of 44 I am happy to make my way around trails in one piece.

However, there are women out there who do know what they are doing. They can ride as well as any man! Perhaps you could find some and put them in your magazine! I look forward to seeing more women in your articles/features!

– Julia Stevens

Ed – You are absolutely right; there is an unfortunate lack of diversity in the Summer issue. Although, I would say that we did better a month in both the preceeding and following issues, where there were a much stronger representation of women riders. We had a riding feature written and starring Julia Hobson, along with her best friend Rachael Walker in June and a woman on the cover of the July issue with contributions from many women to our 50 Best Places 
to Ride feature. And August’s cover star was Tahnée Seagrave, in an image shot by Saskia Dugon.

We need to do better though, I fully understand this. Budget constraints mean it’s not possible to hire any more members of staff and rebalance out gender diversity within the office, but hopefully freelancers like Julia Hobson and Laura Bailey and others will contribute more to the magazine in the coming months (Laura’s reviewed the women’s saddles 
group test, see link above).

We are taking every opportunity to get women riders onto the pages of the magazine, and rest assured, Laura will not cut us any slack 
if we don’t improve!

If you have any suggestions for ways to improve the content, or for content you’d like to see, please let me know. 

Contact us: mbr@futurenet.com

All Star Letter correspondents win a Madison Zenith waterproof jacket worth £99.99.