Tour de France

[cyclebabe]

Am curious if anyone knows..........why aren't there any female riders on the tour?? Is it that there aren't any women riders at that caliber, or is it a french thing??

[Trixiee]

Hi,

I heard that here is a women's event that kicks off after the men are finished. I guess we should be putting pressure on the sports media to televise it. I did catch a very little bit of it last year on TSN.

... Maybe you could be the first woman to enter the Tour?

Trixiee

[cyclebabe]

Thanks for the feedback, I've heard that the womans event is no longer being held

Doubt that I could ever ride in the Tour, it just struck me while watching the prologue on Saturday that I didn't see a single female rider. I just wasn't sure why and thought I'd poke around.....of course the men will tell you that it's because we can't compete at the same level

Maybe one day................yeah, right.

[ayermail2]

check out the following sites (it's helpful if you know some French!!)



www.tour-aude-cycliste-feminin.com

http://www.team-france-org.com/

http://www.velo-feminin.com/

http://www.treelined.com/events/default.asp

[angriecow]

hey girl, i dream of the tour too am 21 and about to finish chef school, going to move to france or england to work (chefchef) and train... hehehehe if you be crazy just like me, who knows see you on the prodium

[presfoxm]

I hate to be the one to say this. But it would be very difficult for a woman to keep up in the Tour de France. If you compare average speeds at women's races to men's there is a significant difference. Few women could maintain a 50 kph for a 50k time trial.

In the Worlds Elite Women's TT: ave speed of winner 46 kmh (23k)
Mens: 50 kph. (40K)

I would love to see women in the Tour de France but in reality men and women are not built the same.

Angricow: I hope you can train and be the first woman in the TdF. I too have fantasies about riding in the Tour....

[missliz]

'Scuse me, but in the twenty years that women have finally been allowed to play sports our times and performances have exploded across the gender gap. As more women participate in coming generations and the pool of talent grows who knows what will happen? Women are taller and stronger, at least in the USA, than at any time in history. If the next generation of female athletes aren't crippled by eating disorders destroying muscle mass, amazing things could happen. I know a local veterinarian who can sit at 30mph for 120 miles, and she doesn't race. She just does that on the weekends. Women are known to do better in endurance events because of our body fat and metabolism of same. Female marathon runners are schooching up there.
Le Tour is big business. Teams with big sponsers have to race all season to qualify, teams staffed by genetic freaks that can handle the load. You need perfectly aligned knees and hips, abnormal lung capacity, ect., and that's just the domestiques. It's a culture like the NFL, and for a chic to crack it she would have to be exraordinary indeed. There aren't youth development programs for women like for guys. But it's getting better.
Of course that girl plays pro hockey in Canada. Anything could happen.

[pennys]

Right on Missliz.

There was a recent discussion on the Mudhunnies group at Ridemonkey.com At the 24 hours of snowshoe ( a big race), the top prize for men was $4000; women it was $300. Boy are the women riders p*****. Hot discussion, including potential boycotting of future races. The promoters excuse is that the women's field is smaller therefor they can't offer the same amount of money.

the thread is called " for chicks who love to ride" in the mud hunnies forum at ridemonkey.com

Of course we are capable, very very capable.

penny s

[marianne]

Hi' I live in Belgium, that's a tiny country near France! There is a tour de France for women , it's called La grande boucle and it means the big curl, it is usual in august and it takes about a day or 15! Jeannine Longot (42 years old now) has always been the champ, but now the russian girls are the best;this summer i did half a tour de franceas only woman with 10 men and i must say they didn't have to wait for me!! women are stronger in fact, we just miss the muscles! i'm called Mance Armstring, funny no?? sorry but my language is dutch, not english.

[Trixiee]

Marianne,

Thanks for the European insight! Very interesting. Please continue to post, telling us about biking in Europe. I so want to take a tour!

Regards,

[Jacqui C]

Hi, new to this forum.

Re: TdF 2003. As metioned there is a womens race, however there is also something called the E'tape de Tour. This is an open even, 7500 places are available and you basically ride one mountain stage of the TdF. The event is usually two days before the pro's do the stage, so after you have slogged your way round you can go back and watch the likes of Lance doing it.
My husband and I have entries for this comming summer. It will be 123 miles and two ro three major clims, stage 16 if anyone wants to check out the route.

Hence any advice on training for long distance riding?

[ayermail2]

Outside of this forum, these are some excellent (in my beginner's opinion!) resources:

1) books:

A Woman's Guide to Cycling by Susan Weaver
The Female Cyclist by Gale Barnhardt
Mountain Bike Like a Champion by Ned Overend

(I think all of them can be found at http://www.amazon.com/

2) other website:

http://www.ultracycling.com/


Coming to this forum, reading those books, and reading that website have helped me tremendously.

While we don't have a lot of mountains, we are somewhat hilly here in the Piedmont area of North Carolina, US...

I have been riding since July 2001 (prior to that, the last time I rode was 16 years ago when I had half a paper route, approx 1 1/2 miles round trip), ) and have since completed 2 week-long, cross-state tours and 1 century ride.

Above all, ride and have fun!!

[missliz]

My god that sounds fun- referring to Jacqi C's Tour stage ride. In a year or two- I've been hurt. It's a pilgrimage.
How experienced are you? You need a training base of long slow distance for conditioning- the speed comes. When you're fit enough you need training rides of a minimum of two and a half hours regularly- thats the point at which the body makes the big training adaptation.
I'd look around for a good club to train with. Knowledgable people, structured training rides, moral support. Books are excellent but they ren't much fun on the road in the cold. Racing clubs often have non competitive members and that might be a good resource since they'll have a coach or at least know who you should talk to. You can get a century training schedule from almost any cycling mag, but the climbs are going to be the sheep killers. If you want to be the goat it will take technique, and live people to teach and tweak and push you when you need it. The Dance of Lance, that beuatiful high cadence spin, a good club will go out and ride drills on this kind of stuff and you'll have it to get up those climbs. Find a club you like- these are the people you'll get cold and wet riding into the wind with all winter and then drink with after so you should be on the same wavelength.
Keep us posted! How exciting!

missliz