Women’s Ride Wednesdays are back for our 2023.24 season on November 22nd!
We’re stoked to welcome back the legends over at Mons Royale as our presenting partners again. And this year, we’re so lucky to also bring in a new supporting partner, Racer’s Edge Wanaka!
So, what else is new this season? Well let’s start off with the finer details…
Where, when & who?
Quick facts, here we go: Women’s Ride Wednesdays will happen at Bike Glendhu for twelve Wednesday evenings over the course of the season, kicking off on November 22nd and ending just before International Women’s Day on March 6th, 2024. Groups usually meet at Base 334 at 5:30pm, but if you miss that time, eventually everyone seems to converge at Jack’s Spot throughout the evening.
Thanks to our partners Mons Royale and Racer’s Edge Wanaka, passes for women for the evenings are just $10. But that doesn’t mean that the guys aren’t welcome to join on the ride! So come one, come all!
We also have an awesome après after the ride hosted by Velo Café at Base 334 with food and drink specials for participants!
What’s new this year?
New graphic & t-shirt collaboration
Well, first off, we took a page out of our Pretty Sweet Thursdays playbook and had Ella Dulson of Kick Push Design create an epic graphic for Women’s Ride Wednesday! So now you’ll see this beauty splashed anywhere we talk about these ride nights!
What’s more, we’re stoked to join the likes of Sunflower Café and Alice & Brohm in Squamish, as well as Atlas Cafe over in Queenstown for a limited edition Women’s Ride Wednesday t-shirt collab with Mons Royale! We’re going to keep Ella’s t-shirt graphic a surprise for now, but rest assured – it’s totally rad and we’ll be sticking it on a performance riding shirt: Mons Royale’s Icon Merino Air-Con tee!
The really cool thing about these collabs is the charity component. Mons has structured their t-shirt collabs so that 20% of all pre-sales go towards a charity of the partner’s choosing. For both Mons and Bike Glendhu, Women’s Ride Wednesdays have always been about growth and progression. And with this in mind, we wanted to work together to raise funds to support Wanaka’s up-and-coming bike community.
Therefore, a 20% portion of each t-shirt will go towards our mates at WORD NZ, a non-profit that runs MTB after-school programmes and holiday camps for kids aged 7-17. WORD has pledged to use these funds to get more young girls riding bikes in Wanaka.
We’ll be fully launching the t-shirts and taking pre-orders from November 22nd until December 14th, so mark your calendars to get your hands on these beauties! We’ll also be giving one away every week at WRW, so you can also try your luck at winning one!
Mons Royale Ride Outs
We’re stoked that this year, four of our twelve ride nights will be Mons Royale Ride Out events! On November 22nd (kick-off event), December 13th (last ride of 2023), January 31st and March 6th (last event), Mons Royale will be making WRW extra special, by turning the evening into one of their signature Ride Outs. We’ll have Mons Royale athletes and ambassadors join us as Ride Out leaders, as well as bangin’ après sessions with chances to win a $400 Mons Royale riding kit!
Why?
For those who aren’t already in-the-know, Women’s Ride Wednesday was an idea concocted by the team at Bike Glendhu back in 2021. Now, we’re not so bold as to claim that we were the first ones to create a women’s ride night – they were popping up all over the place by the time we put ours together! We just wanted to get in on the fun.
We saw a deep desire within the Wanaka community for an initiative that would bring women riders together, allowing them to skill share while curating a judgement-free, safe space where progression could exist without peer pressure. We asked Mons Royale to join us in this endeavour, because we recognized that it was a natural partnership. Mons’ mission is that they believe action and adventure sports can better people – and planet. And through that, women’s progression has always been a huge part of their history, values, and vision for the future.
In conjunction with supporting Women’s Ride Wednesday, Mons have turned their focus to creating environments for women to progress in MTB, joining forces with some of the biggest female riders in the world and heading up events like the Mons Royale Future Grounds Queenstown progression camp. On the flipside, Women’s Ride Wednesdays gave Mons the opportunity to help foster the grassroots growth of women’s mountain biking, in tandem with their development of global athletes.
Today, the vibe at Women’s Ride Wednesdays is palpable and one only needs to spend a sunny Wednesday evening on the trails to feel the magic. Women (and many guys!) gather at Jacks Spot, chatting and laughing before heading up for their chosen slogs. The sounds of whoops, hollers, spinning hubs and screeching brakes fill the mountain air for hours before everyone gathers again for après at Base 334, where people skip in and out of groups, visiting with their different friends over a pint on the grass.
Women’s mountain biking is about so much more than exercise or adrenaline (although it is both of those of things). There’s a true sense of camaraderie, friendly competition, and support. Women thrive in this arena, and we love to see what happens when you bring a group together, simply for one Wednesday a week.
We can’t wait for you to join us! We’ll see you out there on November 22nd!
