About Ride of the Fancy Women Edmonton

The Ride of the Fancy Women is an Edmonton tradition organized by the Bikeology Guild of Canada. Every year on the second Sunday of June, we don our heels, fancy hats, and favourite outfits. We decorate our bikes with flowers, ribbons, or bells. We slow roll through our city, waving, smiling and reminding our city administrators, councillors, and neighbours that women enjoy using bicycles to commute to work, run errands, get kids to school, go out for dinner or a movie, and otherwise get around our city. And to do this, we need safe, well-designed infrastructure. As we ride, we declare:

• Bicycles are women's freedom machines
• Bicycles fight traffic congestion
• Bicycles fight climate change
• City streets must welcome women to bike!

The Ride of the Fancy Women welcomes persons of all genders, all ethnicities, all ages. We especially invite women who don't normally feel comfortable riding in the city: come, join your sisters and have fun on a bike.

Our Mandate

We use whimsy and glamour to advocate for women-friendly bicycle infrastructure, infrastructure that entices any woman to ride in the city

Learn more about women's history with the bicycle here.

About this Archive

This archive serves to honour the advocacy work of Ride of the Fancy Women and preserve its history. It was built by graduate students at the University of Alberta and Athabasca University from interdisciplinary faculties including Media and Technology Studies, Library and Information Studies, and Interdisciplinary Studies.

The building of this archive was guided by a set of values and principles.

Values

• We value accessibility.
• We value community.
• We value sustainability.
• We value reflexivity, transparency, and accountability.
• We value each other.
• We value plurality of experience.
• We value cultural sensitivity and relational ethics.

Principles

• We are facilitators, not experts.
• We prioritize context, consent, and care over completeness.
• We acknowledge and explain archival gaps.
• We regularly reflect on power, positionality, and social location.
• We document decisions with transparency.
• We prioritize collective safety over platform performance or profit.