Lesser Known Road Racing for Women Thread

[Izzyeviel]

sad about the woments tour, but on the brightside, no-one will be getting maimed this year.

 

[theyoungest]

Tomorrow's Volta Limburg Classic will be the road debut for Fem van Empel in Jumbo colours. Not a UCI race, though it is broadcasted on the regional L1 tv channel and on GCN.

 

[Armchair Cyclist]

Tomorrow's Volta Limburg Classic will be the road debut for Fem van Empel in Jumbo colours. Not a UCI race, though it is broadcasted on the regional L1 tv channel and on GCN.

And escaping the feared collapse of Dutch racing due to policing regulations.

 

[postmanhat]

With teams being aware that the Women's Tour was likely not going to be held, which has now been confirmed, they might ot have wanted to travel over just for one race, even if it is in and around London.

Very bad news, particularly on a personal level as for the first time since moving here, a major bike race was coming to Derby. A few of us from work were looking forward to pretending to be Belgian for the day. Knocking off at 1300 then getting mildly+ drunk whilst watching some of the best bike riders in the world race round your hometown.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Very disappointed in the issues for the Women's Tour, mainly as it confirms the very thing I had initially feared and felt my fears had been allayed - that while Britain had a real cycling boom, this was unfortunately something of a fad - not from the perspective of riders, as Britain is really churning out great young quality riders in both genders, but in terms of sponsors and hosts, as well as from the organisational standpoint some noteworthy misconceptions about what constitutes exciting racing really hurt things. I really feel that Britain needs a race organiser or preferably more than one that truly understands how to utilise the terrain at their disposal. A lot of the sponsors and stage hosts want the image of a bunch kick to put on their promotional materials, but a close race settled in a bunch sprint with small time gaps might sound good to somebody who knows nothing about the sport, but most organisers in traditional cycling hosts are aware that most sprint stages are transient, they don't live long in the memory, and much of the time they don't exactly provide riveting action that hooks the audience in either. There are of course exceptions.

I was raising these concerns about the Women's Tour back in about 2015, and it really looked like they'd resolved them - the best editions were in fact the 2016 and 2019 editions - both editions which were won by Britain's own Lizzie Deignan, which you'd have thought gave them ample material to try to capitalise on that. They'd introduced a first hilltop finish in 2019, they brought in the ITT in 2021, they'd got an extra stage... so I thought they'd got over that 'hump' so to speak. I thought, well, they aren't going to deliver on the hype that it was going to be one of the true highlights of the women's calendar - at first it got that simply because the women were being treated like stars in a way pretty much nowhere else did, but swiftly the lack of decisive racing and insipid parcours rather tamed the enthusiasm (Emma Johansson was taking podium selfies and celebrating one of her best career experiences at the 2014 edition, after the 2015 edition she said she wouldn't return unless they improved the route to give opportunities).

It's not unique to the Women's Tour - if you look at the one race in Britain that consistently over-delivered it was the Tour de Yorkshire, which was the one organised by an experienced overseas race organiser. The ToB and WT organisers may be a bit more hamstrung by not being the Tour de France organisers, but it seemed like a lot of the time, even if they were limited by the towns that were bidding, the stages provided in pro races in Britain left a lot to be desired, many being lazily-drawn loops around a county studiously avoiding readily available obstacles that would significantly improve the potential of the race to deliver action, and many featuring some chaotic finishes including extremely technical run-ins with a lot of road furniture, which might have been ok had they used those obstacles at their disposal but without them, ended up turning into demolition derbies.

Britain still has incredible untapped potential for racing. I honestly think you could make the best stage race for classics men and women ever conceived in the country, using things like the cobbled bergs of Halifax, the Ardennes ramps of Yorkshire and the Peaks, the relentless back-to-back hills in urban areas in South Wales, and the mostly unexplored terrain of Scotland (although the paucity of significant urban areas that are in such areas is very much a limitation there I'm afraid, and most of the time when Scotland does host a stage in the men's ToB it's between Peebles and Dumfries, in the least interesting county of Scotland topographically, or on the Glasgow circuit.

However, I also thought that (possibly with the whole Brian Cookson thing and also a great deal of striking-while-the-iron-is-hot with cycling being the 'in' thing in the UK at the time) giving WWT status to the RideLondon Crit over so many better, more challenging, rewarding and interesting races was disgraceful at the time, and completely counter-intuitive to how to grow the sport. Because it had such a good prize pot, the RideLondon Crit was always going to draw a decent audience, but how are we ever to entice people to watch women's cycling when the best coverage we can muster is an hour of a pan-flat circuit going directly up against the men doing a race nearly four times as long and including several hills?

 

[Axel Hangleck]

I don't think it's a coincidence that the best race in Britain in recent years has been the Tour of Yorkshire, organised by the ASO. Sweetspot's limitations are shown up regularly in ToB & WT....

I always wished that RCS would come to the UK and organise a rival race across the other side of the Pennines, the Giro di Lancashire.....Plenty of decent terrain for a similar type race, or something different if you include the pre-1974 Lancashire boundaries.....to include Merseyside/Gtr Manchester.

 

[awavey]

any race organiser will be hampered by the lack of income opportunity & sponsors available for running a race in the UK, RCS and ASO arent charities. if the TdY was such a success, how did it manage to also succumb to the "escalating financial challenges" ? it lost money in every edition and the councils were increasingly having to make up the shortfalls, even the TdF lost 1million quid, even if the bulk of that was unsold merchandise.

I dont doubt Sweetspot made mistakes, and their race routes were increasingly lacklustre, but does that come back to money again ? they were always beholden to the stage hosts funding, most who had no interest in producing an exciting race, they were just about boosting local tourism, ticking a box to say they do sport and promote activities, and the inevitable stage finish mass sprint, which forces you to design some route that doesnt create a challenging course.

 

[Samu Cuenca]

It's Easter Monday and that means it's time for the Ronde de Mouscron. The start list isn't stacked with stars, but that should give an opportunity for some of the lesser known riders to shine, especially if the more established names have heavy legs after Saturday's Paris-Roubaix.

The final 75 km were broadcast live last year, and it'll probably be around the same this time around. They have apparently removed the one cobbled stretch from the race, but both wind and rain can play a role instead and blow things apart.

The best thing about the race isn't the parcours anyway; it's the (assumingly) delicious chocolaty treats for the winner. Sure a cobblestone or a Basque hat can be nice to have, but can you eat them? I wouldn't recommend it.

 

[RedheadDane]

Van Agt solo in front.

 

[Samu Cuenca]

Van Agt is a former field hockey player and already showed promising signs in her first pro-ish season last year.

 

[Samu Cuenca]

Pikulik hasn't had much luck on the road since leaving Australia and that trend continues today.

 

[Samu Cuenca]

Van Agt's gap is coming down now as the group behind gets shattered in the wind. But Uno-X is the only team that's really willing to work at the moment.

And now Borras tries to jump across to Van Agt.

 

[Samu Cuenca]

The St Michel-Mavic-Auber 93 riders have attacked a million times, but they can't get away. Around 25 riders left in the front group.

 

[Samu Cuenca]

No attack has been successful as they enter the final four km. Uno-X and St Michel-Mavic-Auber 93 "deserve" the victory the most, but that's not how races are decided.

 

[RedheadDane]

I think Martina is gonna share a bit of that chocolate with Arianna.

 

[Samu Cuenca]

Martina was clearly the strongest in that sprint and Ari did a great leadout, but I still think Ceratizit didn't work as much in the race as they should have done.

 

[yaco]

I was surprised that Uno X did not send one or two riders up the road in the last 20kms, instead of bringing back attacks - They did not use their resources wisely. Previously posted that I could not understand why Jayco let A.Fidanza go, but chose to retain riders who are not even continental standard.

 

[Samu Cuenca]

I was surprised that Uno X did not send one or two riders up the road in the last 20kms, instead of bringing back attacks - They did not use their resources wisely. Previously posted that I could not understand why Jayco let A.Fidanza go, but chose to retain riders who are not even continental standard.

Yeah, Uno-X ended up being forced/being too eager to accept to close the gaps after HPH lost Pikulik, and that took the edge out of their leadout at the end, while Ceratizit and Fenix-Deceuninck got a much easier ride. It probably also benefited M. Fidanza that she didn't ride Roubaix unlike many others.

I saw some nice hug shots after Roubaix, but this one takes the cake chocolate chicken!

 

[awavey]

Uno-X seem happy with the 2nd, but it did look like a result they gave away.

 

[RedheadDane]

I saw some nice hug shots after Roubaix, but this one takes the cake chocolate chicken!

Just goes to show that sometimes the best pro cyclist to get a hug from, is your big sister!

 

[Dk one]

Looks like Cavalli is still not fully recovered mentally and/or physically. Pretty wild that Frain did not even get a dsq in tdff for that stunt.

 

[Samu Cuenca]

Looks like Cavalli is still not fully recovered mentally and/or physically. Pretty wild that Frain did not even get a dsq in tdff for that stunt.

I was pleasantly surprised to see that she finished in the second group, cause it looked like she was about to get dropped earlier in the race, but I definitely don't think we'll see her dominate the Ardennes finishes year. Hopefully she can both mentally and physically recover in time for the Giro.

 

[awavey]

I was pleasantly surprised to see that she finished in the second group, cause it looked like she was about to get dropped earlier in the race, but I definitely don't think we'll see her dominate the Ardennes finishes year. Hopefully she can both mentally and physically recover in time for the Giro.

they pulled her from Strade Bianche didnt they because they said she was still suffering from concussion from the tdff crash ? which could be persistent headaches,nausea and dizziness/loss of balance, not ideal for going racing a bike on.

she got hit pretty hard she probably doesnt remember anything about the crash or that whole day fwiw,I know when I hit my head quite hard, nothing as bad as the hit she got, but I had concussion for best part of a month and its something that came in waves with peaks and troughs, it took time (as theyll keep telling you) to feel ok again, its not a linear recovery.

 

[Samu Cuenca]

they pulled her from Strade Bianche didnt they because they said she was still suffering from concussion from the tdff crash ? which could be persistent headaches,nausea and dizziness/loss of balance, not ideal for going racing a bike on.

she got hit pretty hard she probably doesnt remember anything about the crash or that whole day fwiw,I know when I hit my head quite hard, nothing as bad as the hit she got, but I had concussion for best part of a month and its something that came in waves with peaks and troughs, it took time (as theyll keep telling you) to feel ok again, its not a linear recovery.

Sure a concussion can have long lasting consequences. Just ask Lizzy Banks.
Still with Banks' and other riders' stories in mind, I assume/hope she wouldn't keep showing up to races if there were any persistent issues.

We've seen her hanging around at the back in the races this year. That isn't a rare sight for talented riders in the women's peloton, but it could also be a sign that she still has to get used to riding in a peloton again.

 

[Izzyeviel]

Niewiadoma hasn't won a race this decade. The longest win drought for a top tier rider in the peloton?