The Lesser Known Women's Road Racing Thread 2022

[Libertine Seguros]

Shocking camerawork for the last km, which also happened in Norway - It makes it hard to get a good appreciation of the finish

They're under strict instructions to not upstage the Giro

 

[Samu Cuenca]

Manly makes it three in a row for BEX.

 

[RedheadDane]

Yet another win by team BikeWinExchange in Germany. This time Manly again.

 

[yaco]

It was a wise decision for BEX to come to this race, instead of Ride London. The team has ridden well for the last month.

 

[Izzyeviel]

Her best result before this week was a 2nd in a time trial in New zealand in 2015. Now she's got two wins, one race. Chapeau.

 

[yaco]

Her best result before this week was a 2nd in a time trial in New zealand in 2015. Now she's got two wins, one race. Chapeau.

Manly has not ridden on the road for three years - She finished 12th in Amstel and 10th in Branbantzje Pilj in 2022.

 

[Dk one]

Such a bummer that only the third, and likely most boring stage, of Ride London is available to watch live. Top notch start list and two classic style stages we wont be able to follow

 

[Samu Cuenca]

This is quite sad. But at least it seems they still have their spare bikes and will be able to continue in the race.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1530105753029189634

View: https://twitter.com/Lotto_Soudal/status/1530105753029189634

 

[Samu Cuenca]

Manly does it again!

And Wiebes won in London.

 

[Izzyeviel]

Manly does it again!

WTF?? How??

 

[Samu Cuenca]

WTF?? How??

By winning the sprint in the group that made it to the finish. Ceratizit tried to break it up into the final kilometre, but Manly was able to hold on. She already proved yesterday that an uphill finish wasn't a problem for her

 

[lemon cheese cake]

Such a bummer that only the third, and likely most boring stage, of Ride London is available to watch live. Top notch start list and two classic style stages we wont be able to follow

It's not really acceptable only having the final day live. I'm pretty sure wwt races have to have atleast some live coverage for each day. So if the giro had it's categorisation removed for that reason, why shouldn't a small race in the uk not have the same? Likewise, this should go for next weeks Tour of Britiain if their coverage is highlights like last year.

 

[Samu Cuenca]

At least the organisers claim they have an agreement with the BBC to have coverage of all stages next year.

 

[Izzyeviel]

By winning the sprint in the group that made it to the finish. Ceratizit tried to break it up into the final kilometre, but Manly was able to hold on. She already proved yesterday that an uphill finish wasn't a problem for her

I was following on procyclingstats... she was dropped at one point & crashed at some point after that. I think I've found my new favourite rider!

 

[Samu Cuenca]

I was following on procyclingstats... she was dropped at one point & crashed at some point after that. I think I've found my new favourite rider!

There was some kind of brick at the side of the road, which resulted in some riders sliding out to avoid it. Manly had to change bike because of it.

I was only watching the final 4 kilometres, so I don't know everything that happened.

 

[Izzyeviel]

There was some kind of brick at the side of the road, which resulted in some riders sliding out to avoid it. Manly had to change bike because of it.

I was only watching the final 4 kilometres, so I don't know everything that happened.

Todays stage if anyone has a spare 4 hours to spend...

The crash is around 2hours & 5 mins..

Manly did a great job.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

It's not really acceptable only having the final day live. I'm pretty sure wwt races have to have atleast some live coverage for each day. So if the giro had it's categorisation removed for that reason, why shouldn't a small race in the uk not have the same? Likewise, this should go for next weeks Tour of Britiain if their coverage is highlights like last year.

They were just trying to protect Marty MacDonald from a Ralph Wiggum moment after Anna Henderson was caught in the final kilometre.

 

[yaco]

I can watch 2 or 3 hours live coverage of the Lotto Thuringen tour, yet I can only get one day's live coverage of a 3 day WWT race in Britain - This is after the 2021 TOB WWT had no live coverage and the 2022 live coverage is yet to be confirmed.

Anyway, BEX need to allow breaks to have the next two stages to protect the GC - Four stage wins is enough.

 

[Samu Cuenca]

I can watch 2 or 3 hours live coverage of the Lotto Thuringen tour, yet I can only get one day's live coverage of a 3 day WWT race in Britain - This is after the 2021 TOB WWT had no live coverage and the 2022 live coverage is yet to be confirmed.

Anyway, BEX need to allow breaks to have the next two stages to protect the GC - Four stage wins is enough.

The GC looks quite safe now, unless somehting surprising is to happen. I think it might be good for the race if it goes back to having an ITT.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

I can watch 2 or 3 hours live coverage of the Lotto Thuringen tour, yet I can only get one day's live coverage of a 3 day WWT race in Britain - This is after the 2021 TOB WWT had no live coverage and the 2022 live coverage is yet to be confirmed.

Anyway, BEX need to allow breaks to have the next two stages to protect the GC - Four stage wins is enough.

SweetSpot and the other UK organisers are pretty good at getting the on-site side of things sorted, the UK races always draw good crowds and seem to get good attention locally, but the coverage that was once at a high level has basically never improved or even really changed at all in almost a decade now, and looks decidedly passé given the amount of progress that has happened around it.

I have some major issues with the design (as I mentioned in another thread, as an example, they literally cycle straight past the steepest climb in East Anglia twice in the first stage of the Women's Tour - and while I get that they're happy to open up with a sprint in these stages in the region, which is very supportive of cycling, just having something that would create a platform to attack from or even just give out the QOM for something reasonable would be nice, you know? Take the Stowmarket stage a few years ago, there's a climb of around 750m at 6% not far out of that town, they rode past it twice on the finishing circuit. It's not like that climb is going to settle the race, but it adds something for riders other than sprinters to work from), but I get why they try to go past e.g. schools and similar to try to attract a bit of interest and inspire children - that side of the game is something they're really good at.

It's good that they have an MTF this year, as a bit of variety, like with the ITT last year, it may overbalance and make things all about one stage, but there is serious danger in the Women's Tour of things growing stale. I don't even think they need to move the race too much, after all repeat hosts are clearly supportive of the sport so should be rewarded for that continued support; they could just maximise the terrain of the areas they are using and the race would be far better. Growing the RideLondon Classique out from just being a crit (which never deserved WWT status, and hey, the prize pot meant it would have drawn a good field regardless) is a positive sign, but does it mean all that much if nobody gets to see it (see also: Madrid Challenge before Ceratizit came on board) until that crit stage, if your "tougher, hillier stages" are still won by the same sprint specialists as would be contesting the one-day race?

It just has this vibe that, when the Women's Tour started out, they sold it as this big deal, and the crowds, the coverage and the media attention it got absolutely justified that - the course was pretty lacklustre but they sold it fairly as needing to establish it and they would develop it in time. But given all the changes that have taken place for women's cycling in the last decade, the pace of progress with the Women's Tour has been glacial, and they are now hard pushed to sell it as being what it was when it started, let alone what their ambitions were. And I know people in the media are keen to go softer on SweetSpot than some of the other organisers who haven't got as much goodwill cached - but the Giro basically got turfed out of the WWT for trying to run their race whatever it took in 2020 - and it showed, so they were punished. The Women's Tour kicked the can down the road a year to get a free pass - RideLondon kicked it two years - and yet they still weren't able to comply with the minimum requirements and got a reprieve. Yes, the Giro had a few other organisational problems, issues securing sufficient prize money for the race's standing and so on... but from the outside looking in, it sure looks like the British races are being given a lot more rope, and are not doing a lot to justify it, resting on past laurels because a decade ago they were ahead of the curve, and not recognising that now, they're behind it.

RideLondon will always be fairly restricted by being centred around London, but could be a decent three day race with some moderate hills. The Women's Tour of Britain could legitimately be a centrepiece in the calendar, being far enough removed from the Tour and Giro and off the back of that Spanish mini-season for the climbers. The men's Tour of Britain is a middling 2.PS whereas the women's was one of the biggest races on the calendar and drew an A-grade field. Now, they need to recapture some momentum to avoid becoming no more important to the women's calendar than the men's race is to its.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

By winning the sprint in the group that made it to the finish. Ceratizit tried to break it up into the final kilometre, but Manly was able to hold on. She already proved yesterday that an uphill finish wasn't a problem for her

I wish they could use the full, old school, pre-shortening version of the Dreieck. That was the circuit for the 1984 Friendship Games Road Race and had a really cool little punchy climb in it, the current iteration of the circuit only really has the first half of the steepest bit you can see at the bottom of this profile. I've watched some old Formula E1300 and Tourenwagen Trabant races on the old circuit, if they could have brought it up with the times it'd be almost as beloved as Spa by motor racing fans too, fast, flowing and prone to bad weather.

 

[awavey]

At least the organisers claim they have an agreement with the BBC to have coverage of all stages next year.

there is "coverage" of all the stages this year,theres highlights on iPlayer, or via the Red Button channels each day, so 1030pm tomorrow is stage 2, if you can stomach the commentate by just reading a list of previous race victories style commentary per rider style by Simon Brotherton, at least Hayley Simmonds tries to bring a bit of balance but sheesh just get Marty MacDonald in and stop pretending you care about showing this stuff BBC.

like literally the guy is calling out Coryn Labecki as a rider to watch for victories, because she won the Ride London crit in 2017 & Womens Tour 2018 so she "knows British roads" !!!

 

[Samu Cuenca]

I wish they could use the full, old school, pre-shortening version of the Dreieck. That was the circuit for the 1984 Friendship Games Road Race and had a really cool little punchy climb in it, the current iteration of the circuit only really has the first half of the steepest bit you can see at the bottom of this profile. I've watched some old Formula E1300 and Tourenwagen Trabant races on the old circuit, if they could have brought it up with the times it'd be almost as beloved as Spa by motor racing fans too, fast, flowing and prone to bad weather.

Speaking of racing in East Germany, I've just discovered that Petra Roßner is commentating the race for the German broadcaster MDR.

 

[awavey]

SweetSpot and the other UK organisers are pretty good at getting the on-site side of things sorted, the UK races always draw good crowds and seem to get good attention locally, but the coverage that was once at a high level has basically never improved or even really changed at all in almost a decade now, and looks decidedly passé given the amount of progress that has happened around it.

Totally agreed on everything you raised there, I mean the UK media will never seriously question any of the UK race organisers because it feels they are inevitably too close to one another to get that perspective to criticise for fomo, and then recognise that all is not perfect with these races.

I did ride part of this years stage 1 a few weeks back with a friend who showed me that monster climb (well for Suffolk) that they literally just ride past, local bike clubs use it as a hill climb course, and you do think seriously why on earth arent they using this its perfect in a supposedly flat stage here have a 9% climb (tagged in that 100 climbs you must ride book) to deal with,and its not an easy climb, and it comes back to the only sponsors they can get are mostly councils, whose interest is solely about the destination places the race starts and finishes in for tourism,not the bits inbetween, not the cycling or the race, just about getting people to visit these places and because they use part of an education/future sport fund as part to fund the sponsorship they route via as many schools on the way so the council can push the teachers to drag the kids out roadside and its then educational content theyve spent money on.

and the sponsors all want a sprint finish, because to them sprint finish is exciting, I mean yes it is and can be, but its something the GrandTours mostly know how not to over egg the pudding with, lone breakaway winners can be just as exciting in the context of the race, or stage, but not if you went to the "destination" finish expecting the sprint finish. And like we knew Lorena Wiebes is pretty much a dead cert for Ride London Classique, just because its so totally sprint focussed, it doesnt make for great racing.

I do fear, and yes for sure its tied in with lack of title sponsorship so they concentrate their resources elsewhere where the money is, that the Womens Tour is slowly collapsing in on itself, they definitely dont promote it as much as they did in its heyday, maybe 2016 ? and it doesnt feel as polished as it once did, and if the UCI were fair and reasonable it would just be given pro conti status, which would likely be the death knell of it in this country. But GCN are still showing on the planner live coverage of the womens tour is happening, but youd think theyd be shouting about it off the roof tops if that was really the case rather than just hoping some sponsor turns up with the cash in time. I mean the stupidness of the Ride London Classique today is they had a helicopter following the whole stage today and yet they only have 26mins of highlights hidden away on the iplayer.

 

[awavey]

also as an aside just watching the coverage for Ride London classique, and as they kept focussing on her via the pictures though never brought this up on the commentary, why is Anna Hendersons bike set up so that she keeps moving so far forward on her saddle, every 8-9 peddle strokes she has to hip rotate backwards to get back on the saddle again ? that doesnt seem a very efficient way to ride a bike