Georgia Williams: Kiwi champion riding a wind of change in women’s pro cycling

National Champion Georgia Williams raced the first ever women’s Paris-Roubaix. Image: Getty Images

Women’s professional cycling has always battled the headwinds of a male-dominated sport. Here in New Zealand there’s no coverage of women’s racing.  There’s been no real women’s equivalent to the Tour de France (but more on that in a moment) and ordinary punters would have to look hard to get past the idea that cycling is run by men, for men. But those headwinds are starting to shift and the bastions of a male dominated sport are starting to crumble. There’s a long road ahead, but an increasing number of women cyclists are chasing their sporting dreams on the professional circuit.

First ever women’s Paris-Roubaix was a cracker, and a long awaited step in the right direction.

First ever women’s Paris Roubaix winner, Lizzie Deignan. From here

It’s been an historic week for cycling.  This weekend just gone saw the 118^th running of the men’s Paris-Roubaix and – and this is the truly historic and awesome bit – the first ever running of the women’s Paris-Roubaix.  Yep, a race that has been running since 1896 has for the first time allowed for a women’s race.  But park your outrage about that for just a minute (we’ll get back to it later…) and revel in what was one of the greatest editions of the greatest bike races of all time.

The Tour starts this weekend, and it’s all of a sudden much more interesting…

I’ve only just done the maths, but this year will be the first since 2016 that I won’t be in France for at least a part of the Tour. It feels hard to believe, but I got to stand at the side of French roads and see the Yellow Jersey whizz past for five consecutive Tours. You’d think that might have started to make me a bit jaded. But no! The Tour is a gift that keeps giving, and this year that gift has surprisingly taken the form of a certain Mark Cavendish. After what seems like a few years in Tour wilderness he’s set to make what’s feeling like a redemptive comeback. That’s making this year’s Tour a whole lot more interesting. Here’s why.

Is the Giro d’Italia better than the Tour?

To call these fans is an understatement. I don’t know who took this photo of this year’s Giro, but let me know if you do so I can give him or her credit.

The Giro d’Italia – Italy’s three week Grand Tour – has been done and dusted for over a week now. To say “this year’s Giro was a cracker” feels a bit redundant, because the Giro is always a cracker. It produces unpredictable racing (mostly), tales of heartbreak and redemption, the craziest fans, and stunning food and scenery in equal measure. While the Tour de France will always get the most attention, I’m increasingly of the view that for fans of cycling the Giro is better than the Tour. Here’s why.

I have a bit of sympathy for the UCI, but sometimes they just seem like the fun police.

From the sidelines it’s easy to pick on administrators, managers, and people that run things. Especially in sports. They need to make up, arbitrate, and enforce the rules of the game – literally and figuratively – and sometimes those rules can seem to have little to do with actual sports, and more to do with politics. So it is with Cycling’s governing body – the UCI.

If this is the 100th post of Thousandth Fastest, does this make me the hundred-thousandth fastest? Based on my ride up l’Alpe d’Huez the answer is “Yes. Yes it does”.

In one of those weirdly symmetrical you-couldn’t-have-scripted-it life moments, this is the 100th post of my blog. It’s also the one that I describe – finally – the attainment of the feat that motivated this whole thing. Yes, after what amounts to probably years of procrastination and chickening out, I finally dragged my sorry arse the up the 1099 vertical meters and 21 famous hairpin bends of the official Tour de France course up l’Alpe d’Huez. It very nearly did me in. But by crikey it was wonderful.

A new Elite National Road Series?

The iconic Tour of Southland.  Image borrowed from here. 

A few weeks ago, inspired by some fantastic historic photos of cycle races in New Zealand (and a small amount of Covid-lockdown daydreaming) I floated the idea that New Zealand might be ready for a new elite men’s and women’s National Road Series.  I set out some of my thinking in a blog post, and shared it quietly around.  As I’d more-or-less hoped, it sparked a bit of interest, and so a small group of us have started to kick a few ideas around to see if we can’t make it work.  We could do with a hand though, so I thought it would be worth posting an update, and see if we can get a bit of momentum behind it.

10 things I’ve learned watching pro cycling #1: We’re not as fast as we think we are.

Thursday Throwdown at Longchamps

If we’re honest with ourselves a lot of us who cycle in Lycra harbour the idea that we could – if we only had more time to train! – turn pro. Or could have, if we had had a go at it when we were younger.   This is very clearly bollocks and, if we’re honest with ourselves, we know that.  But that gap between secret-dream and oh-so-obvious reality speaks eloquently and delightfully of the things that make us human: we strive for things that we know are out of our reach. For one of the most important lessons I’ve learned watching pro cycling is that we’re not as fast as we think we are.

What’s the price of loyalty? 500 Swiss Francs and a shot at the maillot jaune

Watching it on the telly is almost as good as being there.  Almost.  George Bennett ripping-it up the Tourmalet

The sports pages back home last week were full of the ‘almost but not quite’ stories that make sports watching great. First there was the cricket, then the kiwi netball team kept the theme by losing thrilling semi-final game at the Netball World Cup.  (They dished out some impressive redemption by winning the thing overall, so there’s that.)   But the one that I’ve been keeping my eye on has of course been George Bennett’s  brush with awesomeness at the Tour.  George almost had a hand on the coveted yellow jersey, but stage 10 was a stark reminder of what the “professional” in “professional cycling” is all about.

Even when you catch it on an off-day, the Tour de France is still pretty awesome.

Me, George Bennett and Tom Scully at the start of Stage 4 in Reims

The Tour really is (men’s) cycling at its most ridiculous and wonderful best.  It’s a rolling circus that has no parallel in any sport: if it takes a village to raise a child, it for sure takes a village to run the Tour.  The last couple of years we’ve been able to play the #EmbassyOfCycling card, and get some great backstage access to the Tour to give our kiwi riders some support and a social media shout-out.  This year though the security has been beefed up, and we couldn’t quite get across the barriers.  But we still managed to catch up with the New Zealanders riding the Tour and give them a hearty “kia kaha!” on behalf of our fellow kiwis.

How cool is BMX? Very. Get into it.

Cycling is a wonderful thing, and I’m super happy that I’ve been able to experience quite a bit of it at the highest level. Obviously, by “experience” I mean “watch”, but this weekend I managed to fill in a glaring gap in the my cycling-experience bucket list by heading to the outskirts of Paris to support a group of kiwi riders in the latest round of the UCI BMX Supercross World Cup.  BMX is on the fringes of my cycling universe, but I’ve gotta say, based on my experience over the weekend, I’ll be paying a lot more attention. It’s a wonderful, intense, spectacular, gateway-drug of cycling and we should all be more into it.

Paris-Roubaix 2019: this time I am going to sugar coat it. Because I watched it with a bunch of cycling-mad Belgians and it was brilliant.

There nothing like a bunch of cycling-mad Belgians to give you a deeper appreciation of just how fantastic bike racing is. Those guys really know their craft, and aren’t afraid to show it.  There’s nothing like going off the deep end with full immersion cycling experiences. So when the chance to watch the 2019 Paris-Roubaix with a group of friendly and well-connected Belgian (and kiwi) bike fans, of course I jumped right in.

In cycling, as in life, sometimes crashes happen. Fortunately, for most of us, just not very often.

This photo by Chris Auld has nothing at all to do with this blog post but it is hands-down my favourite bike crash photo of all time so I like to use it as often as I can.

There’s a saying in pro cycling that if you’re not crashing, you’re either about to crash, or recovering from a crash. Now, I don’t know if that’s true, but based on what you see from the Tour de France it sure sounds about right. There are some spectacular crashes in pro cycling, and they happen quite often. Fortunately, back over here in the Real World, the cycling that most of us do is actually pretty safe, and the huge majority of crashes are uneventful. But sometimes, yeah, you crash.

From the front seat of a team car, pro cycling looks like a tough gig

 

This last weekend I ticked another item off my bucket list, and got to spend a day in the co-pilot seat of the team car of a pro team at a UCI World Tour stage race.  I’m not going to lie – it was brilliant, and I’m deeply grateful to Craig Geater, Dave McPartland, and the rest of the team at Greenedge Cycling for giving me a peek backstage at the craziness of cycling’s men’s premier league. From where I was sitting it was a great afternoon. But for the riders, crosswinds and crashes meant for a tough day in the office; pro-cycling might be cool, but crikey it can be a hard way to make a living.