SARAH B - ultimate women's cycling fan girl!

A blog about what I have been up to recently, ie. Obsessing about how COOL WOMEN'S CYCLING IS!

So it’s nearly time to start racing, which brings with it a whole array of emotions, from excitement to terror. In the meantime I have been feeding/appeasing my nerves by immersing myself in all things women's racing, and I have discovered a very important thing:

Women's cycling is SO MUCH BETTER than mens.

And so I have become a right little saddo women's-pro-cycling-fan-girl. I thought I’d take this opportunity to share some stuff I think is really cool and inspiring!

1) http://prowomenscycling.com/

This is a super cool blog and podcast written/recorded by a super cool duo Sarah and Dan. It has race reports of every big womens race, and transfer news, stories, great ideas for fans to support the racing, UCI bashing and more. I have nearly stopped commuting to work by bike entirely in order to sit on the bus and listen to their podcast instead! They were the masterminds of the ‘social media jersey’ initiative last year to reward women racers who did great blogs and twitter stuff, and they are just ace and friendly and funny and brilliant and so excited and passionate about racing. You can follow them on twitter as @_pidgeons_

2) http://www.uci.ch/Modules/ENews/ENewsDetails2011.asp?id=OTA2NQ&MenuId=MTYzMDQ&LangId=1&BackLink=%2FTemplates%2FUCI%2FUCI8%2Flayout.asp%3FMenuID%3DMTYzMDQ%26LangId%3D1

The UCI stakeholder survey is now open, if you are a cyclist, commuter, work in cycling or race or ride any kind of bike or even if you aren’t involved in cycling in any way at all, you are entitled to take this survey! These people are meant to represent us; they are our union supposedly. If you think they could/should be doing more for women, you can tell them! It’s a bit long and mainly about doping but there are sections for your comments and a whole page about womens cycling. If you agree with Chloe Hosking’s views on Pat Mcquaid, you can tell him here!

3) http://glittergravel.com/how-to-get-more-women-into-cycling/

This great article about how to get women cycling from somebody talking sense at last, This sentence sealed it for me ‘Basically, all these points boil down to treat women like normal people instead of marginalizing them, and be welcoming and inviting. I do not claim to know everything. I am a woman, but I am very different from other women, so not everything written below will apply to all women. These suggestions are, however, based on my real world experiences, and are just a few ideas I’ve thought of that can maybe jump start some ideas of your own.’

It’s a lovely article and full of good tips and ideas for how everyone can support womens cycling in a small way, and encourage women into the sport, and what a great attitude and refreshing to read something from someone acknowledging at last that we aren’t all the same! She also mentions this article which I also think is really great and funny http://takingthelane.com/2012/09/17/is-this-thing-sexist-introducing-the-bike-test/ about bike and cycling related adverts and sexism.

4) http://velociosports.com/team/ The Specialized Lululemon team website, because its so lovely and smiley and great. There’s tons of videos to watch and photos and it’s entertaining and awesome and I could waste a lot of time there!

5) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JRpuzakd57M&feature=player_embedded This video of the Ronde van Drenthe, in particular from about 8.55 onwards, just watch Vos climbing like she really means it, makes my legs hurt watching but so coool!

6) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-moQ-GxWBlY&feature=player_embedded and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHx73wrBY1c&feature=player_embedded Stages 3 and 4 of last years Giro Donne. I really enjoy watching Emma Pooley attack, and Vos chase and descend, brilliant, exciting races to watch.

7) http://www.cyclingweekly.co.uk/news/latest/537383/emma-pooley-calls-for-women-s-tour-de-france.html Yeah I’d totally watch that!!

Well that’s probably enough to keep anyone occupied until we start racing, but by no means an exhaustive list of the stuff that’s cool. I hope it makes someone else as happy as it made me. I take no credit at all for making or even finding anything on this list, there’s tons of great womens cycling fans out there compiling brilliant video lists and blogs and I can’t wait to find them all! Now I’m going to go and watch one of the Giro stages in full on the rollers and dream of sunshine and Italian mountains J

Sarah xx