Kirsten Wild (Argos-Shimano) won the second stage of the Ladies Tour of Qatar ahead of Specialized-lululemon’s Ellen van Dijk and Trixi Worrack.
Kirsten Wild (Argos-Shimano) won the second stage of the Ladies Tour of Qatar ahead of Specialized-lululemon’s Ellen van Dijk and Trixi Worrack.
Ladies Tour of Qatar, Stage 1. Chloe Hosking of Hitec won it from a four-up break. Hosking, who rode for Specialized-lululemon in 2012, is new to Hitec, and is also studying journalism.
USA Cycling announced on Tuesday that it has created a “pro team structure” for women’s cycling. It all sounded a bit confusing. So, let’s see if we can sort it out, shall we?
Without getting on the phone and calling a bunch of people (because this is tumblr after all) here are the key points of the changes and some analysis of their significance.
The easiest to understand change will shift the women’s national championship to the same weekend as the men’s pro championship. Also, the women will race for equal prize money.
This one has been a long time coming. For years, the women raced the “elite nationals” (in Europe known as elite-without-contract), which received considerably less media coverage than the men’s US Pro Championship.
Now, women who are on elite and UCI-registered teams and who carry a category 1-2 license will race the same weekend as the men. The same change applies to the US Pro Criterium championship. Also, I’m just going to go ahead and say, fuckyeah equal prize money!
Under the new rules, the U23 women will get a separate national championship race. In the past, the U23 women raced with the elite women, but were scored separately. Confusing, right? And not especially awesome for the younger women trying to make names for themselves by winning nationals. So now, the U23 women will race the same weekend as the U23 men’s race and have their own chance to shine. This is an important change for developing young riders for the future.
The “pro team structure” is less easy to understand, because in the immediate future, it does not appear to change much of anything. This change is aimed at the future and at building the women’s side of the sport into a more professional and logical structure.
Currently, there is no “pro license” for women. Women race as “elite” and the top license category in the U.S. is category 1 for women. Women’s teams are registered through the national federations in much the same way as men’s continental teams. There are technically no “pro teams,” though obviously, we tend to consider teams such as Specialized-lululemon, Marianne Vos’s not-Rabobank team, and Orica-AIS as professional.
The creation of a “professional team structure” opens the way to offering a “pro license” for women. This would also presumably in time create a more coherent structure for professional teams. As the sport grows, the women could have a separate national championship races for the elite and the professional riders in the same way the men do.
For now, the change sounds intangible and symbolic, but in the long run, it opens the way for the pro teams to become more professional, while the elite non-pro teams serve to develop riders and prepare them for the professional ranks. It also should create a distinction between elite and professional riders, a change that potentially makes the top level more competitve and more straightforward to sell to sponsors.
For now, this measure doesn’t change much. In the future - and it’s unclear what the time frame might be on this development - it almost certainly will.
Last, the USA Cycling announced the creation of a new race category 2.HC. The Exergy Tour will run under this designation. UCI-registered teams and national teams can both race in the 2.HC races.
(Updated! I removed some stuff here about race categories, because I still don’t quite understand the changes that are in place for next season.)
Buy raffle tickets. Support Hope Lives. Win Prizes. Simple.
Meredith Miller, cyclocross badass and former national road champ, is raising money this October to support Hope Lives. The Fort Collins charity offers services and support for women undergoing treatment for breast cancer.
Miller chose Hope Lives, because fundraising for a local charity allows her to see the results of her efforts. The dollars she raises go directly to women in her Fort Collins community. Even small donations make a difference.
Want to help Miller reach her fundraising goal of $10,000 this year? All this week, you can buy raffle tickets to support Hope Lives and possibly win some pretty awesome prizes donated by the cycling industry.
This year’s grand prize is an S-Works Crux built up with SRAM Red and a Zipp 101 wheelset. There are also prizes from Thule, Kinetic, Light and Motion, Strava, Oakley, lululemon, Modify, and Boa Closure Systems.
Raffle tickets are $5 per ticket. Head to Bikereg to get yours. Tickets are on sale through 1 November, and Meredith will announce the winner on her website, mmcyclist.com.
Want more information? Go here.
Pactimo was born in a basement in 2003. The Colorado-based company has grown just a little since then, and they offer clothing for cycling, running, and triathlon. The company also does custom team orders.
The thing that stands out most about Pactimo clothing? The colors. Especially in the Women’s Designer line, Pactimo loves bold colors and intricate graphics. If black-and-white is not your thing, Pactimo has got you covered.
I had the chance to try out a jersey and shorts from the Designer line. I have long been a bibshort kind of girl, but if I were to have a conversion experience, these Pactimo shorts just might do it.
The colors look just as rich in person as online, the quality of the stitching and materials is high, and the fit is comfy.
Sizing
Pretty much the worse part of online ordering is guessing sizes. Is the little picture with the measurements correct? In the case of Pactimo, it is. I tested size medium in both shorts and jersey, and the measurements matched the size chart. No unwelcome surprises, there.
Women’s Designer Short
I switched to bibshorts early in my cycling life, due in part to an aversion to the binding feeling that shorts tend to have in the waist. It turns out the waistband on these shorts is the very best part. Okay, they look pretty nice, too.
But people! The waistband! Knowing that tight elastic on long bike rides is not a fun thing, Pactimo gave these shorts a smooth front like you might find on a nice pair of yoga pants. The elastic bits are in the back, and the shorts stay on, but they don’t bind.
I hear you, enough about the waistband. You get it, it’s comfortable. The Chamois! Tell us about the chamois!
G-Form makes protective gear for people and for phones and laptops. They also threw down to ensure that the women’s fields at recent cross races in Providence received equal prize money.
As reported by Cycling News, “while the UCI points up for grabs for the elite men’s and women’s fields… are equal, the prize money originally slated for their respective podiums was not” (Source). Founded and run by athletes, G-Form felt strongly that the women deserved an equal reward for their equally intense competition and training.
There’s some cool footage of the women’s race in this video recap. It looks like a fun day out. And you know, if you’re a fan of women’s racing, it’s always good to keep the companies who step up to support the sport in mind. You can thank them, maybe. Or buy something from them, even.
Thank you @gform for equaling up prize money for top 3 men and women at @providencecross this weekend. This is so important & awesome.
— Lea Davison (@leadavisonbikes) October 5, 2012
What she said. Equal prize money for men and women is important and awesome. The trend in cyclocross is running in this direction, at least at the top level races. Mountain bike racing has also traditionally supported women athletes well. Road racing, with its chronically underfunded teams and minimal prize money for women, could learn a thing or two from the dirt disciplines when it comes to gender equity. There is just so much to love about beer, barricades, and equal prize money. Keep it up, cyclocross!
I seem to be having a women’s cycling moment here, so let’s roll with it, and talk transfers. Specifically, Tibco, Hitec, and Specialized-lululemon.
Yesterday, we learned that Tibco has signed three new riders to support the team’s international ambitions. Chantal Blaak, Shelley Olds, and Claudia Häusler will all join Tibco next year.
The additions should make for a competitve and balanced team at Tibco. Olds won a World Cup this year, why not another next time around? Häusler has not had the best of seasons lately, but she is a past Giro Donne winner. This combination looks intriguing, especially when combined with Tibco’s existing riders, especially if Amanda Miller and Megan Guarnier stay another year.
The other team snapping up talent this week is the Norwegian-registered Hitec team. Emma Johansson who rode as the team’s 2011 leader announced that she intended to transfer, though she has not confirmed her new team just yet. Hitec has lost no time in building up their roster.
Read moreBritish Cycling’s head coach Shane Sutton thinks Emma Pooley should take a year off from the sport. Maybe that will make her less frustrated with the way in which women’s cycling is governed.
Right, because Pooley could not possibly have legitimate grievances. Because you know, women.
Instead of engaging her in a constructive way, Sutton says Pooley would be better off leaving the sport and dismisses her criticisms as illegimate and motivated by bitterness. If that ain’t mansplaining, I don’t know what is.
Pooley is no slouch at pro cycling. She has a world championship title in the time trial and she’s picked off several world cup wins. In 2011 she finished second in the Giro Donne in a scintillating battle with Marianne Vos. That was some seriously good bike racing. If Pooley is wrong for cycling, I don’t want to be right.
I had the chance to talk to Pooley last fall in the context of the upheaval at Garmin-Cervélo. It eventually worked out with the partnership between the managements at AA Drink and Slipstream. But that agreement lasted just one year. Last year Pooley told me she loved racing her bike, but she hated the off-season uncertainties of finding a team.
With her AA Drink-Leontien.nl team stopping, it’s not a huge surprise that Pooley might be feeling a little frustrated.
Hey Coach Sutton, let’s talk about why one of the top riders in the sport is thinking about leaving it. And maybe we can start by not blaming her for being frustrated with the lack of support from sponsors and from institutions like the UCI and the national federations.
During the 2011 season, Tibco-To The Top did two blocks of racing in the Europe with the goal of grabbing points for the U.S. Olympic team and bolstering the ambitions of Amanda Miller and Megan Guarnier.
Now, the California-based women’s team is looking to take its European ambitions a step further. Today the team announced three new signings that will add significant international experience to the team.
Chantal Blaak, Claudia Häusler, and Shelley Olds will join Tibco for the coming season. Häusler is a past Giro Donne winner and comes to the team from Orica-GreenEdge. Currently 22 years old, Blaak comes to Tibco from AA Drink-Leontien.nl team, which is stopping this year. Blaak finished second this past season at the Dutch one-day race, the Ronde van Gelderland.
Shelley Olds, meanwhile, brings sprint speed to Tibco. She won a World Cup race in China this past season, and is a past national criterium champion. Olds has also won two national titles on the track in the scratch race. At the London Olympics, Olds made the winning break only to suffer a flat tire which put an end to her hopes. She is hoping to race through to the 2016 Games in Rio.
Team captains Jo Kiesenovski and Meredith Miller continue with the team next year. Miller is currently racing cyclocross for Cal Giant Berries-Specialized and raising money for the cancer charity Hope Lives. Check out the t-shirts for sale at Breakaway, and jerseys from Voler.
