Draft article for your feedback [bicycling, randonneuring]

[rebeccmeister]

Now that I have finally finished reading Saddle, Sore, I want to submit this to our national randonneuring magazine, but I also want to be sure it reads well. Your feedback is greatly appreciated! (most especially on whether I'm going off on too many tangents at any point; the World Toilet Day thing might be a stretch?)

Also, credit to my sister for being my impetus to try out pee funnels in the first place.

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Here is a story about a potential game-changing piece of equipment, one to add to your kit or suggest to the friends and family members you ride with.

It was the final morning of Paris-Brest-Paris in 2023, featuring yet another incredibly beautiful sunrise, but I had a small problem: I really needed to pee, but I was in an area of wide-open fields, without even one small shrub in sight for miles and miles on end. During my previous PBP in 2015, this small problem would have quickly multiplied into a much larger one, as I would have needed to devote simultaneous effort to hunting for somewhere discrete to drop my bike shorts, while also allocating effort to holding in the pee for however long it took to find the right spot. I had no such problem in 2023, where quickly pausing to pee was a trivial matter and I was able to get back on the road in short order. The big difference-maker for 2023 was the acquisition of and practice with that one small, handy, game-changing piece of equipment: a pee funnel.

My interest in pee funnels grew directly from that 2015 experience: as that year’s PBP progressed and I got increasingly tired, I became more and more resentful of how simple and easy it was for most of the men on the ride to just pull over and pee into the ditch as we traveled along, basically anywhere they wanted. In many cases, they didn’t even need to get off their bike! Meanwhile, I’d have to look out for a promising long driveway or road, safely set down or prop up my bike, go for a walk, and just cross my fingers (and legs) that I wouldn’t encounter a farmer at work. Sometimes the urge to go strikes when we’re still miles from the closest town and its public toilet.

I’m convinced that the disparity in bathroom access for women is a contributing factor in the ongoing gender participation gap in long-distance cycling. This participation gap is persisting even while evidence is mounting that women can thrive and even excel in ultradistance events. Really, just knowing how to safely go the bathroom outside can be a huge game-changer for all kinds of people, as illustrated by Emily Graslie in her Brain Scoop video on how to get outside in nature (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXg55KU7mnQ). I also happen to be writing about this on November 19, which just happens to be World Toilet Day. Globally, it is estimated that 1.25 billion women and girls don’t have access to safe and adequate sanitation, and around 526 million don’t have a toilet at all. Having safe places to poop and address menstrual hygiene are a larger part of the global issue, but the ease of access to a place to safely pee matters, too. Holding in pee for extended periods can lead to urinary tract infections, incontinence, and kidney damage. And it is directly at odds with the crucial need to maintain good hydration during long-distance events.

In her book Saddle, Sore, author Molly Hurford includes a short chapter about strategies that women cyclists can use to pee while wearing bike shorts and/or bib shorts. The latest edition of her book was published in 2016, and while it addresses a slew of the big issues and questions that women cyclists experience, it is surprisingly quiet on pee funnels. Thankfully, a quick Internet search suggests that pee funnels are increasingly being adopted by outdoor enthusiasts, and articles that compare models and talk about how to use them are fairly easy to find. By now there are many different options to choose from, ranging from the classic and inexpensive (but bulky) oil changing funnel available at the nearest auto store, to disposable funnels, to funnels made from a range of materials that vary in shape, size, and flexibility.
Here are some of my experiences and suggestions for pee funnels, which I hope are helpful and inspiring for you and/or your randonneuring friends.

• A compact funnel is best for randonneuring. I wound up getting a pStyle, along with its breathable organic cotton pCase, because it can easily clip on somewhere accessible. You can get pStyles in all kinds of fun colors, and they even have a model made from recycled ocean plastic. I keep mine clipped onto my Camelbak, causing more than one randonneur riding up behind me to ask, “What’s that thing clipped on there?” and then maybe regretting they asked the question when they are immediately subjected to my enthusiastic reply. The advantage of this arrangement is that the funnel is easy for me to reach, use, rinse, and then put right away. The breathable, washable case lets the funnel dry out, and the extra UV exposure helps reduce microbial growth.
  
• If you’re used to peeing sitting down, it can feel strange to learn how to pee standing up. The best place to practice is in the shower, where you can get the hang of how to position the funnel based on your body’s anatomy, and learn how much control you have over the destination of the flow of pee.
  
• Pee funnels are also phenomenal for sketchy porta-john situations. I started PBP 2023 exceptionally well-hydrated on account of the heat, so I wound up having to use the heavily oversubscribed porta-johns in Rambouillet multiple times before my departure in the (yes) P wave. Every time I visited those porta-johns, I was grateful all over again that I had my pee funnel along for the ride.
  

I hope this article encourages you to consider this game-changing piece of equipment. And I hope it sparks further conversations about how to continue supporting and encouraging women in our sport. A similar article could get written about menstrual cups, for example. I don’t know how the statistics look yet for PBP 2023, but in 2015 the US had the overall highest number of female participants out of all the countries involved. I have been proud to be a part of these statistics, and yet we still clearly have a long ways to go to reach parity in our beloved sport. It’s a project that can be tackled one pee funnel at a time.

Comments

[twoeleven]

It needs only a little trimming. I can blue-line it if you want, but I'd like a .doc file to work from for that.

Otherwise:

* The section on WTD is a stretch too far; it needs a link rather than a description.

* A few sentences are too long or extraneous. For example: "...just pull over and pee into the ditch...". A period goes right after ditch, and strike the rest. The last sentence in that paragraph can go entirely.

Also, check the word-count guidelines for the magazine; even some online magazines have minima and maxima to meet their style guides.

[rebeccmeister]

Thanks!

I'll factor in these recommendations, and will look at word counts soon to see how far off I am at the moment. I think I'm in the right ballpark, at least!

[twoeleven]

Since you don't seem to want my full editing enthusiasm, let me add:

* The section that starts with "In her book Saddle, Sore" and goes through your bullet-pointed examples is perfect! It's concise and information-dense. I think that's what women need to know.

* So, if it meet's the magazine's style guide¹, name or link to some examples of the different kinds of pee funnels. I think that will help women get a better idea of what's available and what they'd like to try.

1: Most magazines don't care about specific products being named, but some tack on a disclaimer about "author's opinion only, not magazine's endorsement", and still others will sell ad space on the same page or following pages (for print) for named products.

[rebeccmeister]

Thank you again! annikusrex sent along some typedits, and so hopefully she's managed to catch major redlining points. (she's a former newspaper editor FWIW).

When I submit this article, I'll ask about point 2. This is a pretty small, homebrew operation, so we'll see what they say.

[twoeleven]

I've never run into a magazine that objects to product placement, but how would I know if they did? :) And if they're going to run ads for things you mention, you should know you're serving as an unpaid spokesperson.

[annikusrex]

emailing a redline. i don't think it needs much content condensing at all, but it does need some adverb trimming and general tightening. nice work!

[mallorys_camera]

I don't know the magazine you're submitting the piece to, so my editorial comments may be totally off the mark here.

But.

I would start the piece with some variation on yr first sentence in paragraph 3: Are you a woman intent upon bridging the cycling gender participation gap in long-distance cycling? Don't take the lack of adequate bathroom access sitting down! Pee funnels are a potentially game-changing piece of equipment, one to add to your kit and suggest to the friends and family members you ride with.

I would then combine yr present paragraphs 1 and 2 into a single paragraph, ditching maybe 150 words, keeping the sentences short, snappy, & descriptive. You're essentially doing a a product review, right? You don't want readers to get so lost in long sentences that they stop reading—and many of them will—before you get to the products.

I think that paragraph needs to be followed by a short definition of pee funnel as well as potential pee funnel problems and how to steer them off at the pass. (Something along the lines of, You may be apprehensive you're gonna get pee all over your pants, but if you bla, bla, bla... The part about practicing in the shower is good.

Then you go on to how unequal bathroom access is a major factor in women's reluctance to participate in ultradistance sports of all kinds and cite Hurford's book.

And from there, you review the various models.

[rebeccmeister]

Thanks!

I do have a question, though. I'm hoping that some fraction of the 90% of the readers who are male will still read this.

You do have a good point about defining pee funnels, etc. It's almost as if you have decades of experience writing compelling magazine articles. :^D

[mallorys_camera]

You can play with the opening to make it more inclusive. And obvs "don't take it sitting down!" is a baaaad joke. 😀

Is the national randonneuring magazine an Internet publication or a print mag? And is it subscription-based, or is it supported by ad revenues?

In the case of the former, you can pretty much assume that anything you write that gets by the editor will be read. People subscribe to specialty publications for specialty info, so you don't have to woo the reader.

But if it's an ad revenue model, you do have to woo the reader. In my experience, that means making the opening a hook of some sort.

[rebeccmeister]

And don't we just live for the baaaaad jokes? :^D :^D

This is a subscription-based print mag that comes with membership to Randonneurs USA. I don't actually know what percentage of the US members are female, but it would be a safe bet that it's well under 50%.

So I think there doesn't have to be quite as much of a hook. I really do want male readers to read about pee funnels in addition to the women in the audience.

[ranunculus]

Pee funnels are also extremely useful for stagehands who happen to be operating some piece of machinery on an isolated, usually elevated platform. Think lighting. The best example is: for movies where the light operator is in a lift up to 80 feet in the air; usually visible to lots of people; for hours at a time. The lift is noisy, takes a lot of time to get to the ground (and back up in position again) and might or might not have a place to reach the ground safely once the set is in place. Food and water can be sent up on a rope, so some days could stretch to 10 or 12 hours, though 5 or 6 would be more standard.
Your article looks good, though I agree it needs tightening and a couple of punctuation things. My partner Donald has been a journalist and a technical writer his entire life and I can't count how many articles of his I've proofread and commented on.