2nd Paris-Roubaix Femmes, April 16th, 2022

[Izzyeviel]

Katie Clouse 'A Lunch Ride' on strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/6991456702

 

[DaLong]

Katie Clouse 'A Lunch Ride' on strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/6991456702

Shame her HR monitor went out after 5 miles...

Interesting the big watt numbers at the beginning. XC style where they're fighting for position from the get go?

 

[Izzyeviel]

No idea.

 

[yaco]

Never expected much from BEX ( its a development year ) but you give yourself little chance with 4 riders - And two of them were recovering from illness and one was a last minute call up - Yes they have some injuries/illnesses but you need riders wanting to ride the race.

 

[Valv.Piti]

I know very little about women's cycling, but whats the argument for these mickey mouse distances? Its frikkin Paris-Roubaix, give them 200 kilometres or at least 150 man.

 

[Red Rick]

I know very little about women's cycling, but whats the argument for these mickey mouse distances? Its frikkin Paris-Roubaix, give them 200 kilometres or at least 150 man.

My guess it's mostly laziness and "guess this is womens racing so it is what we do". I also reckon it just costs more money to organize womens races if they're longer and they're already bleeding money?

It's definitely not that the women can't race longer or lobby against racing longer.

For this race specifically I think they're jsut like "we've done the bare minimum, job done let's pat ourselves on the back"

 

[Valv.Piti]

I feel like its extremely disrespectful. Again, I know nothing about women's cycling, but I know for a fact that girls can go extremely long and hard. Funny story, me and my friend got completely railed at a Alpe d' Huez timetrial by this girl at a warm up race for La Marmotte. I was like damn, this girls is quite good. I think to myself that I maybe have more endurance than her, trying to comfort myself after she sent my heart rate up to 190 at the first switchback and dropped us Contador-style. Short story, no I didnt, i got completely and utterly railed again in La Marmotte, 180 km, 7 hours of brutal climbing.

That was a freakin amateur bro. Imagine what pros can do. La Marmotte got mountains, Paris-Roubaix dont. It doesnt add up at all. 125 km of flat roads? Amateurs do 180 km in scorching heat in the Alps!

 

[Samu Cuenca]

My guess it's mostly laziness and "guess this is womens racing so it is what we do". I also reckon it just costs more money to organize womens races if they're longer and they're already bleeding money?

It's definitely not that the women can't race longer or lobby against racing longer.

For this race specifically I think they're jsut like "we've done the bare minimum, job done let's pat ourselves on the back"

I assume they're in a position now, where they can add an endless amount of laps through Denain without losing more money, but that wouldn't make the race any better.

I feel like its extremely disrespectful. Again, I know nothing about women's cycling, but I know for a fact that girls can go extremely long and hard. Funny story, me and my friend got completely railed at a Alpe d' Huez timetrial by this girl at a warm up race for La Marmotte. I was like damn, this girls is quite good. I think to myself that I maybe have more endurance than her, trying to comfort myself after she sent my heart rate up to 190 at the first switchback and dropped us Contador-style. Short story, no I didnt, i got completely and utterly railed again in La Marmotte, 180 km, 7 hours of brutal climbing.

That was a freakin amateur bro. Imagine what pros can do. La Marmotte got mountains, Paris-Roubaix dont. It doesnt add up at all. 125 km of flat roads? Amateurs do 180 km in scorching heat in the Alps!

Obviously it is kind of disrespectful, but not that many riders actually want more parity when it comes to race lengths. One of the things that has made women's races appealing to some is also the fact that they have been ridden more aggressively due to the shorter distances.

I wouldn't mind longer distances in some races though, and P-R could easily be half an hour longer, but I think it's much more disrespectful when organisers leave out key points like Mount Fuji or Arenberg or fail to have decent live coverage. Flanders Classics are currently doing a much better job at that than the ASO, though with the Zwift money they've been able to up their game a bit. I'll never be a fan of Fleche Wallonne finishing at noon either.

 

[yaco]

The biggest issue facing the women's peleton is achieving more depth in their fields - The calendar is getting bigger, so teams will need 16 to 20 riders in the next two or three years - We need federations to be pumping more money into development ( not just juniors ) as with the growth in salaries it's an achievable career for women - Over to you National Federations.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

The biggest issue facing the women's peleton is achieving more depth in their fields - The calendar is getting bigger, so teams will need 16 to 20 riders in the next two or three years - We need federations to be pumping more money into development ( not just juniors ) as with the growth in salaries it's an achievable career for women - Over to you National Federations.

Increased variety in parcours is a key step towards this. Until now because a certain type of parcours has heavily dominated the calendar, this has meant that a particular type of skillset is prized far more than any other. Introducing races like Roubaix which have specialised skillsets, along with more mountainous races and more individual time trials to improve the value of the specialists in a single discipline, not just as stars but as domestiques too, will swiftly provide depth simply because more women will have the chance to have their day in the sun. More stage races mean more chances for baroudeuses too, which is currently a very underdeveloped area of the women's péloton, because stagehunting only becomes a factor in, say, the second half of the Giro or Thüringen, or stage races with mid-level fields like Tour de l'Ardêche where there are sufficient mountains or sufficient time trial mileage to leave riders in a position to make stagehunting without GC ambition a legitimate goal.