Women of COTA - Origin Story
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The Women of COTA (WoCOTA) was started by two passionate volunteers - Kate Eng & Rene Warne, who wanted to make trail work more accessible for women. After many years of being avid COTA volunteers, Kate & Rene began to question why men came by the handful, but new women volunteers were far and few between. For so long, trail work was a boys game. Due to this, it was found that the initial step to starting trail work can be intimidating for women. Thus, the WoCOTA was born as a way to bring women together in a supportive environment to learn about COTA and the trail building/maintenance process while riding our local trails.
WoCOTA started as a way to help women feel empowered to do trail work. Since its beginning, WoCOTA has evolved to accept all gender identities that want to come to an entry level trail work event. This is a group meant to support all folks who at first find trail work intimidating, but want to get started with supportive people. |
Ride & Work EventsThe WoCOTA started work parties called the Ride & Work as a way to get women more involved in COTA. This event is a group ride, stopping to trim bushes and small trees (aka brushing) to improve sight lines while learning more about COTA and trail work. These events start with a safety briefing in the parking lot, as well as a quick trail maintenance overview. Then, the group ride will commence and will halt at various points for hands-on trail maintenance training. You'll learn about drainage, sight lines, native vegetation, brushing, and so much more. All ability levels are welcome and no one is left behind! All of these events are posted on our Meetup page, and membership is not required to join these events! |
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Starting in 2024, WoCOTA plan to have Ride & Work events on a weekly basis, which will most likely be Thursday's. There will also be sporadic Ride & Work events on the weekends as well. If you would like to get more involved with the WoCOTA, please shoot us an email with how you'd like to do so! We suggest subscribing to our Meetup page to stay in the loop come next trail maintenance season!
Partnered Events
WoCOTA LOVE to team up with local businesses to empower women in our community. In the past, WoCOTA have partnered with Chariot Bikes to teach women about proper bike maintenance. This is a traveling bike mechanic company that's woman owned, and is exceptional at helping out our community. WoCOTA have also previously partnered with Grit Clinics, a women owned company that focuses on teaching women how to improve their mountain bike riding skills. Not to mention, Ladies All Ride has come out for work parties as a group! Seeing the love from our community is what makes WoCOTA worth it. We hope to see similar events like these in the future!
