To Whom it May Concern,

My fellow cyclists: a couple of weeks I got the idea to write Velonews.com regarding an advertisement that they run on their webpage for WrenchScience.com. WrenchScience is a company out of Berkeley Ca that sells very high end bicycles over the internet. The reason for my letter to VeloNews is that the WrenchScience ad clearly objectifies and degrades women. This ad is using a woman as a tool to attract male customers. I thought that sending letters to VeloNews would make a difference, so far it has not. After numerous letters, I got the editor of the mailbag to admit that he objects to the ad, yet he informed me that the ads fate lays in the hands of the people in the advertising department. I am not the only one who has sent letters to VeloNews. As recently as 11-27-03 letters are still coming regarding this advertisement.

I am simply asking everyone to voice their opinion with VeloNews.com. If you really get fired up call or email WrenchScience to let them know your opinion. This world needs to stop objectifying women, and begin portraying them as equals. We don't want our son's and daughter's to continue living with these societal norms that far to many people have become blind to. Do what you know is right, and help stop this bogus advertisement.

After a phone call to WrenchScience, a representative of the company told me “It is our prerogative to run this ad, and this ad is not about the portrayal of women.” I find his statement that this ad is not about the portrayal of women to be a huge crock. Of course the ad is about the portrayal of women. In the ad, there is a woman who has clearly been placed to attract attention. The way she is laying with her buttocks up in the air clearly suggests something other than “do you want to buy a high end road bike.”

Since I sent my original letter out on Tuesday the 25th of November 2003 WrenchScience has changed the ad that they run on VeloNews.com. I wrote the mailbag editor to thank him for his honesty about this advertisement. I told him that I did not want to know if it was just random chance that the WrenchScience ad changed or if it was due partly to the fact that I have written so many letters over the past few days. If it was random chance that the ad changed I didn't want my bubble to burst. I would like to say that the ad did change within a few hours of a telephone conversation I had with one of WrenchScience's employees.

Cyclingnews is the only company that I know of that is still running the old advertisement with the picture of the woman with her Buttocks in the air. While it is true that VeloNews.com has changed their ad people are still writing in about the old ad. It seems that there are many men out there that think there is nothing wrong with the ad. One man wrote a letter on the 27th of November. In this letter he stated that the readers of Velonews's free website should be happy wrenchScience is even advertising. His reason why we should be happy is that this is a time of dwindling interest in the sport. No companies want to advertise and no one wants to watch the sport. I guess he figured that if WrenchScience was good enough to run an ad that degraded women than cycling could all of a sudden become more popular than the NFL. Miraculously overnight every major city would have its own professional cycling team and it all would be possible through the marginalization, degradation and objectification of women.

WrenchScience easily could have chosen a professional female cyclist to represent their company, instead they chose to follow a formula of advertisement that has been in existence for years. A form of advertisement whose tenure needs revoking.

WrenchScience advertises because they want to make profit. They chose to run an ad with a woman posing with her buttocks up in the air because they thought they had a sure fire way to attract business. They failed to think about the fact that they were degrading women, as well as objectifying them. The WrenchScience ad has no place being on a cycling site. Take away the wording above the woman and all you have is her. She is completely out of place. True, the same could be said about many other forms of advertisement but does that make them right as well. This is the logic that the Wrench Science representative tried to make with me when he said that they were just following a marketing scheme that has been used for years. I told him that the cycling community is small enough that it should be able to break free of that cycle of ignorance.

Please look at their ad in the proper context. You will have to go to www.velonews.com in order to see the ad properly.Please forward to anyone you think may be able to help with this most important issue. Do tell people to write to WrenchScience, and to cyclingnews.com regarding the advertisement that is still running on cyclingnews' site. Have people explain that they will not stand for this kind of advertisement. Email cyclingnews.com at  advertising@cyclingnews.com or cyclingnews@cyclingnews.com

WrenchScience can be reached at

Call Toll Free :: 1.866.497.3624 Wrench Science, Inc. 1022 Murray Street Berkeley, CA 94710

Phone: 510.841.4748 Fax: 510.841.4708 Toll free: 866.497.3624