No Women In Tour De France

[SadieKate]

Not enough drama.

If you want drama, watch women's tennis.

[lovelygamer]

I've been watching my friend Heidi get ready for this, all the training, panic, and adrenaline that has come with it. She's been writing for Peloton magazine the whole time, which is a new kind of hell: Ride 130 km, THEN be eloquent in prose? Wow.

http://www.pelotonmagazine.com/Wisdo.../Swift-Stage-4

It's not a race, but the women are riding the whole stage the day prior to the men. The miles and emotions are very much real and her stories and tweets have been putting the TdF in quite a different perspective for me.

-- gnat! (GO HEIDI GO!)

That is awesome! GO Heidi is right. The ladies came up on my radar because I am in the National Bike Challenge and Kate Powlison came up on the top of our leader board a week or so ago. Those girls are amazing. I am going to look at your link later. Thanks!!

PS. Have you girls been following Larissa on the Big Ride? Her facebook posts and pictures have been great. What a great life experience she is having.

[velo]

Women have their own pro circuit and really, when watching any sport, the most exciting events to watch are when people are evenly matched. I wouldn't want to watch a mixed event. Most people wouldn't because they like to watch fierce competition. And when people don't watch, the "pro" in pro cycling no longer exists because the riders are just two-legged advertisements. The advertising companies want the most bang for their buck. Just look at Trek sales (and the Madone in particular) because of Lance.

But really, as someone mentioned above, men are just much stronger riders. It doesn't diminish what women are capable of, it's just different.

[malkin]

If you want drama, watch women's tennis.

Or men's tennis.

[SadieKate]

I think there's less. Maybe it's just my reaction to all the shrieks and grunting. Not to mention, the women barely even make eye contact when they shake hands at the end of a match. It's pretty well known that they hardly talk to each other in the locker room. Some cry on court during the match.

The men frequently clasp hands much more warmly, give each other hugs or pats and talk to each other. There is constant discussion about who is best friends with whom. The concept of "sportsmanship" is more apparent, sometimes even helping each other not waste line challenges.

Maybe back in the Connor/McEnroe era, the men won in the drama department but not now.

OK, there is Murray and his constant aches and pains . . .

[malkin]

Maybe back in the Connor/McEnroe era, the men won in the drama department but not now.

Alas, those two got old and now pitch for Advil and rental cars. No more drama.

Nastase was also quite a piece of work back in the day.

[kamikazejane]

Are you following them? It's kind of fun. For those interested:

• Heidi Swift's blog for Peloton magazine: http://pelotonmagazine.com/Swift/art...0/SwiftARCHIVE
• Kristen Peterson's blog: http://www.kristenpeterson.com/2012/...his-hurts.html
• A twitter list including the 6 team members: https://twitter.com/#!/cynicalprof/revetdf

Thanks for the links....just read through their adventures thus far. So awesome!!!!!

[Kiwi Stoker]

If there was a woman who could ride TdF with the men I suspect then her femaleness would come into question.

(I watched the doco on Caster the SA runner who had to pass "sex" tests as people thought she was too male.)

Or that she was taking testrosogen.

[Suze]

My understanding is that the women's Tour de France covers a different, shorter route, happens sporadically, and is not occurring this year, or last.Riders I met in the Pyrenees told me about it. I think it was called La Grande Boucle Féminine Internationale.

There is a group of 6 amateur women cyclists riding the route this year. I just published the link in a different post, hadn't seen this.

[Suze]

There used to be an event called La Grande Boucle Féminine Internationale. I believe it began in the 1980s, but hasn't happened for several years. Some riders in the Pyrenees told me it was considerably shorter. As an aside, I just posted a thread about six American amateur women who are riding the route this year. Hadn't seen this post when I wrote it.

[Possegal]

The pro-cycling race in Philly every June has both a men's and a women's race. The race is a around a 15 mile loop and the men do like 7 laps and the women do 4 I think. Each lap includes a climb up the Manayunk Wall. It's neat to watch both of them - they are on the course at the same time for a period. At one point the moto crew for the women's race came around the corner and they had put on their sign that for the first time ever - the women had lapped the men. The crowd went wild. (don't ask me to explain the logistics of it, as I honestly can't remember and it was 2 years ago that I was up there riding around on my bike with my sister and brother-in-law, watching it from several vantage points).

The one thing I noticed that I thought was interesting was how the team cars rode. The cars for the male riders rode with a level of crazy reckless abandon that the women's cars did not. Despite that in all cases it was men driving the cars. It was actually an interesting difference.

[Dog]

Totally impressed by the six ladies riding the tour (REVE). Pretty awesome and fun to follow.

[sashadieken]

http://www.idahostatesman.com/2012/0...al-exergy.html

[nuliajuk]

We just got back from a vacation that was partly in France, and arrived at our hotel on the outskirts of Rouen to find two, count em, two professional teams camped out there. Each team had a full size bus for the riders, an equally large truck to serve as a mobile workshop, several cars to carry the team bikes, at least two bikes for every rider, extra wheels for all those bikes, extra chainrings and parts in the truck, tools and washing equipment... After my husband picked his jaw up off the ground, he tried to estimate what all that must cost - in addition to salaries and team clothing, and just gave up. It's a hugely expensive proposition, to outfit a professional cycling team. This is way out of the league of things like marathon running.

I'll post pictures as soon as I can figure out how. I've tried the paperclip symbol, but it just seems to park the images somewhere.