From a "woman's persepctive" . . .

[channlluv]

Limewave, I thought your first post was funny. The spokes in your menstrual cycle? Ha!

I posted recently about a race motorescort rider who had gotten off his motorcycle to direct an oncoming women's peleton of about a dozen riders around a male rider from the other ongoing race who had crashed. He was talking to another one of the race people - a medical assistant - about how you never see the women riders force each other into the barriers, and that "Men want to race against their friends. Women want to race with their friends. It's a totally different dynamic." And true to the form he'd just set out, the women came rolling up at a reduced speed in honor of the fallen rider, all smiles and friendly chatting together through the crash zone.

At the crit in Redlands the next day, one of the men who had narrowly escaped a six-bike pile-up commented on the riders ahead of him that they'd ridden away at top speed, "Contador-style," meaning they'd taken advantage of the crash to breakaway from the field.

In another race, our local announcer was criticizing a men's race (I forget which Cat, but I'm guessing a group of 3's based on his comment) for not organizing and working as teams to breakaway, that it "looks like a Women's 4!" It was an insult.

He's said other stuff, too, like when they combined a women's race group with a men's 45+ because not enough women entered to warrant their own race time, that the men should do whatever they could to pull away from the girls, and that he couldn't believe the girls were hanging with the guys, that the guys must not be trying very hard....yeah, really. He couldn't "tell the men from the women. Ordinarily I'd just look for the ponytails, but there's a guy out there with a ponytail (my husband) and he's right in the middle of the pack..." and so were the women riders. They were basically kicking a$$. (The winner of that race was Thurlow Rogers, former Olympic champion.)

And yet, in DH's bike club, we have two women's state champions (Juniors Cyclocross and I think Women's Time Trial for whatever age group includes older women - she's in her 60s; and the Junior Women's National Road Race and Track champion). We had at least one other women's state top ten finisher, but she recently defected along with the rest of the elite racing team to a club with better sponsors.

So, yeah, the women's perspective...

What are the stereotypes about women riders?

Roxy