In a big step for Women’s Cycling, Epic Cycles-Scott Women’s Race Team announced yesterday their plans to help move the sport and their team forward. Here’s what’s in store for 2015:
Over the past three seasons Epic Cycles and Scott Sports have been the two main sponsors for the successful Epic Cycles-Scott Women’s Race Team. Going into 2015 we will see one or two changes in sponsorship, but with the same team management and owners. A new team name will also be announced soon.
One feature of the team over the past three years has been its evolving terms of reference – in years one and two the emphasis was very much on the development of junior riders, while in year three the focus has been on bringing together a balanced and talented group of senior riders with the aim of riding together as a cohesive team, rather than as a collection of individuals.
This evolution will continue in year four, with renewed focus on rider development and a primary aim to act as a path into the professional ranks and/or competing in UCI races for those with ambitions to do so.
To support this aim we are working closely with the newly announced Matrix-Vulpine UCI Team. Our joint expectation is that a number of our riders will have the opportunity through this relationship to ride with the Matrix team as stagiaires in UCI races during the 2015 season, offering them the chance both to race in the pro peloton and to demonstrate what they could offer to a UCI pro team.
We also aim to build on our successes in the area of team work, and will be targeting key events in the UK domestic road racing scene, with a view to building on our list of 2014 victories and podium places.
The team will, as in 2014, be managed in a professional manner and we hope to further contribute to raising the standard of women’s race team management in the UK.
Key Aims
To provide team environment and structure in which riders can develop and progress, either to riding at a higher level within the UK scene or to a career as a professional cyclist.
To build on the number of podium places achieved in key UK races during 2014.
To provide opportunities to take part in UCI races and gain exposure within the pro peloton.
To raise the profile of our riders, team, and sponsors.
The Team
While we anticipate that some of this year’s line-up will be moving on to new teams, we are hoping to retain a number of our existing riders for 2015.
In signing new riders we are aiming, as in 2014, to assemble a strong and ambitious team who have complementary strengths and skills, so that we are able to enter races with different leaders and tactics according to the nature and timing of each race.
As in previous years, the team will not been built around a single star rider or to specialise in a particular type of race. Instead, we will aim to perform consistently well in all types of road racing, throughout the entire season.
Our planned team size of around 10 riders should provide sufficient cover for key events, while maximising the opportunity for individual riders to participate in a full programme of races without too many occasions where we have more riders than places available.
Our preference is for the team to be made up of a mix of over and under 23 seniors, but we do not have a rigid age or experience profile in mind. It is anticipated that most/all will be in some form of employment or education – full time availability to race is not a requirement.
A track record of participation and progression in road racing is essential. Previous race success (in terms of podium spots) is secondary to a positive attitude and a commitment to team work.
Hayley Davies
Writer
Riding since Feb 2011 Hayley is a 30 year old female who loves adventures. If she’s not on one of her many bikes or in the water on a bodyboard/surfboard, then Hayley is probably out looking for something new to keep the adrenaline pumping! Website: www.hjdonline.co.uk
Raleigh, Condor, Hope, Pivot, Ridley and Kinesis in attendance with latest products
Opening its doors from the 26th-28th September, The Cycle Show returns to the NEC Birmingham, and new for 2014 will be a series of cyclocross races on the Sunday [28th September].
Organised by the Derby Cyclocross team, the races will include categories for elite men and elite women, plus a mixed industry race for staff from bike shops, distributors and cycle media. What makes the stakes even higher is the large ￡1000 prize pot on offer for both the men’s and women’s elite races.
The course will start and finish inside the show with outdoor sections taking in parts of the woodlands at the NEC. The course will be a suitably tough challenge for top riders and guarantee some great racing to showcase the sport to visitors.
Chris Holman, Event Director at organisers Upper Street Events, said: “It’s really exciting to be hosting cyclocross races at the show and arguably it’s long overdue given the growth in interest in the sport here over the past few years. Hopefully by showcasing cyclocross to a wider cycling audience we’ll help to develop that interest even more.”
Exhibitors including Condor, Hope, Raleigh, Kinesis and Pivot will all be showing their latest cyclocross bikes and kit, as well as having experts on-hand to give advice about the sport in what is set to be an exciting line-up for cyclocross fans and enthusiasts.
Condor will be showcasing their Bivio-X and the championship-winning Terra-X framesets, which have all been tested by the Rapha-Condor JLT pro riders. The frames are hand-built in Italy, disc brake-ready and feature internal cabling and a tapered head tube for easier shoulder carrying. The company provide their expertise in helping customers choose the componentry that makes up the full bike – offering truly bespoke machines for their customers.
Lancashire based Hope Technology is exhibiting at the show with particular focus on their range of disc-brake compatible 700c wheels, all of which feature sealed- cartridge bearing hubs. Keen to show off more of its British innovation, visitors will also see the V-Twin hydraulic disc brake conversion kit that enables riders with cable discs to easily and economically upgrade to hydraulic discs, and their Retainer Ring – a narrow-ride ring – specifically designed for use on cyclocross cranks. The brand will be represented in the Sunday races by a strong team lead by National Series Champion Paul Oldham.
Additionally, famous British marque Raleigh will also have several riders taking part in Sunday’s event, including Jake Poole and Matthieu Boulo. It will be demonstrating all of its 127 years of experience from humble beginnings in Nottingham, with the RX Pro – an aluminium model featuring a lightweight frame, all-carbon 15mm thru-axle fork and SRAM’s powerful Rival 22 HRD hydraulic brake. Alongside that will be the top line RX Team model featuring ‘speed blend’ direct-connect carbon frame and fork, Cole tubular wheels and SRAM’s new cyclocross-specific Force CX1 groupset – which will also be displayed in its own right by Fisher Outdoor.
Kinesis UK are demonstrating the exceptional value and versatility that cyclocross machines can bring to the rider; it believes that its Crosslight Pro6 frameset with cutting edge, disc-ready technology teamed with quality branded components makes for great package of functionality and value. It will also bring the Crosslight FiveT model, which offers superb versatility with clearance for 3 rings, twin bottle mounts, rack and mudguard eyelets making it suitable for touring or commuting.
Ridley pride themselves on being the worldwide leader in the cyclocross market, which is reflected in their large range of cyclocross bikes. The standout model for us this year is the X-Night 20 Disc. This is built around their lightest CX frameset, the X-Night but brought up to date with Ultegra Di2 and the new Shimano R785 hydraulic disc brakes.
American brand Pivot Cycles will also be on-site giving visitors the chance to get up close to their Vault bike, which shares DNA with their LES MTB model. The full carbon frame offers the latest innovative cyclocross geometry with a lower bottom bracket height, slightly shorter chain stays and an overall fit and finish that the brand believe to be the “ultimate cross and gravel crushing design”.
Adult tickets for The Cycle Show are priced at ￡13 per person when booked in advance – offering attendees a saving of over ￡3 per ticket – while children aged 14 and under can attend for just ￡1 each with an accompanying adult. Concession prices are also available to students and those over 65.
To buy tickets or for more information on The Cycle Show 2014 and for more information about the cyclocross racing, please visit www.cycleshow.co.uk
Team Wiggle Honda retained the Prudential RideLondon Grand Prix title this evening thanks to Giorgia Bronzini who pipped the world and Olympic road race champion Marianne Vos in a thrilling sprint finish on The Mall in central London at the end of the greatest women’s criterium ever held in the UK.
The Italian timed her effort to perfection to snatch victory by less than a quarter of a wheel over the Dutchwoman who won Olympic gold on the same street two years ago.
Vos led off the final corner from Horse Guards Parade at the end of 15 laps of the 1.3-mile circuit around St James’s Park, but Bronzini was dragged into contention by her teammates Laura Trott and Peta Mullens, and launched herself to the line alongside the world number one.
Bronzini threw her arms in the air and Vos stretched out her hand in congratulations, but it was so close that at first the announcers weren’t sure who would get the verdict.
When the result was confirmed, Bronzini beamed with delight, relieved that she had made amends for her last appearance in London when her chances of an Olympic medal were ruined by a flat tyre.
“That felt so good,” said Bronzini [a former world champion] who celebrated her 31st birthday last Sunday. “Any time you beat Marianne in a sprint you know you’re going to win.”
Twelve months ago it was Trott who snatched victory for Wiggle Honda, but this time the 22-year-old Londoner played a supporting role, aiding Bronzini’s last-lap bid for the line, an effort the Italian was swift to acknowledge after the race.
“In the middle of the race I asked my teammates to make it hard and put in attacks to take the sting from Vos,” said Bronzini. “What I did today was because of the support of my team.”
“I think we made her tired by attacking as a team. That was our tactic today, and in the end it was a great sprint into a headwind.”
“She was ahead until 100 metres to go when I passed her, but she came back and I had to push hard in the final 50 and lunge for the line.”
“The last time I was here for the Olympics it was not a good day, so this time I wanted to win badly. It is so amazing to win here in such a historic city and in front of these amazing buildings.”
“I really like racing in the sun, and today was a beautiful day.”
Vos had come to London in great form after winning the Women’s Tour of Britain in May and the La Course race for women at the Tour de France last month. Wearing number one on her jersey, the team Rabo Liv rider was the pre-race favourite and looked a certain winner when she kicked off the final bend at the head of a large bunch, but later admitted that she couldn’t respond to Wiggle Honda’s determined teamwork.
“It was a hard race with a lot of breaks,” agreed the much-medalled 27-year-old. “On the last lap I was in the right position but you never know in a bunch sprint and I just couldn’t hold it at the end. I launched my attack early, maybe too early, but I am happy with second.”
“Today Giorgia was faster on the line. I knew I couldn’t make any mistakes so it was always going to be close. At the end she was just very fast.”
“It was so amazing to race here again, especially in such a great race,” she added. “To be part of a criterium with all the world’s top riders was an amazing feeling.”
Behind the two tearaway leaders, Lizzie Armitstead stole third place for Boels Dolmans from Eileen Roe of Starley Primal Pro Cycling as Trott took fifth ahead of her arch rival, Hannah Barnes of UnitedHealthcare Pro Cycling, last year’s runner-up.
Many had predicted Armitstead would be Vos’s closest rival, but the Briton admitted she was happy with third just a week after winning the Comonwealth Games road race gold in Glasgow.
“I had not really prepared for this because I’ve been concentrating on road races,” said the 26-year-old from Yorkshire. “For me it was not about winning today but about having some fun.”
The first day of the world’s greatest festival of cycling came to a fitting end with two criterium races for youth riders, the next generation of cycling champions racing over the same iconic course as the pros.
Ethan Hayter produced an impressive home win in the boys’ race for London, winning a sprint finish ahead of the South region’s Alex Joliffe after what he described as the perfect lead-out from his teammates.
“That was the greatest win of my life,” said the 15-year-old from the VCL club. “I didn’t expect to win because I wasn’t feeling that well but I knew if we worked it out I would have a chance.”
“It was great to race on these streets though. It was so noisy with loads of people all the way round the course.”
Tom Pidcock from Yorkshire was third.
Sophie Capewell from the West Midlands came out on top after a dramatic end to the girls’ race, the 15-year-old edging out Eleanor Dickinson from the North West by centimetres on the line with another North West rider, Henrietta Colborne, third.
“I loved the ride,” said Capewell, a member of the Lichfield City Cycling club. “It was a massive opportunity to come down here and race on The Mall where so many great champions have raced before.”
“It was a tough race with a lot of good girls in it. It was very fast but I felt quite strong at the end. The roar from the crowds was amazing pushing us on and when I saw the finish I just went for it.”
I read something recently about how women’s cycling is in excellent health in the UK and I have to say that I was very surprised by that statement. Yes, there has been an increase in the number of races available, but there have also been a few races which have been cancelled due to low rider numbers and other races practically begging riders to support events (I am guilty of the latter), so you may be able to see why I am surprised.
At the beginning of this year, I was one of three coaches who saw nearly 100 female riders attend novice race training sessions in the North West and North Wales. My aim was to inspire at least 20% of those attending to try road racing, which kind of worked with the first event that I am involved in having 74 entries in advance, nearly doubling the number of entries for the same event the year earlier.
However, as the season progressed, there came the inevitable drop off in numbers, and now I have two events in August which have just 17 and 15 riders entered in advance at present. These are the CDNW events at Oakenclough on 10 August and Great Budworth on 23 August. These are events which are restricted to second, third and fourth category riders, there is an overall league and a league for those who started this year as fourth category riders (currently unique in the UK, I believe, and something that I devised to try and encourage women to have a go at road racing without having to worry about more experienced riders in the race).
Back in May this year, prompted by another article about women’s cycling, I wrote about the sport from a grassroots’ perspective where I urged female riders to enter in advance to show the organiser that his/her race was being supported to prevent them being cancelled, especially where road racing was concerned due to the cost of putting an event on. Unfortunately, there now seems to be a few issues which are making cancellations more prevalent:
There are more races being held which leads to a dilution in rider numbers;
Women don’t seem to support road races, for a variety of reasons, possibly because they are more expensive, harder to win licence points and tend to lead to riders having to take a leap of faith to try something different;
There is still a massive issue with rider retention – of the 70 women who registered for the CDNW league last year, only around 40 of them have registered this season, with even less actively taking part;
Racing is expensive, especially when you find yourself in a crash;
Cycling is actually a hard sport, which leads to many riders becoming disillusioned early on and then giving up practically straight away because “it isn’t for them”.
I have to say that organisers don’t help sometimes. There seems to be a misconception that there are similar numbers of men and women racing, which is totally untrue. Mid-week races are especially difficult for women as there are probably less than 100 women who race regularly in the UK and have the time, money and inclination to travel to all of the races, but as the majority of these have to take time off work to attend, there are only so many days’ holiday you can afford to take to use to attend a bike race. Many organisers then complain that their races aren’t being supported by the riders, and those who do support events then get irritated because it is the same people attending the events, and the riders then feel like they are being treated unfairly just because they don’t have the time or money available to attend.
Prize money can sometimes hinder race entry numbers too, unfortunately. If there is a significant cash prize for the winner, the race tends to attract the better riders (who may not have as many commitments as other riders), so those riders who end up making the numbers up never get a look in for prize money and are less likely to enter just so someone who is practically a full time rider can win the race. Which makes sense to me – I have a career (outside of cycling) and I often don’t have time to do any training during the week, so I don’t need to pay £20 to enter a race to be dropped on the start line because I am still recovering from working, when others in the race are as fresh as a daisy. That may seem like a negative comment to make, but it’s a reality that many female riders face, I’m afraid.
Having said that, Tickhill Grand Prix on 24 August is leading the way by having an elite women’s race (E/1/2/3) and a women’s support race (3/4 categories only), both of which have sponsorship from Giant Sheffield, so if there are any readers out there who want to have a go at town centre racing but want to do it without racing against the top domestic riders, why not enter the support race, which you can do by clicking here.
I always try to be positive and look for solutions to resolve issues rather than just complaining about the problem and doing nothing about it. British Cycling is now looking at women’s cycling in an attempt to resolve the position, but even I am struggling at the moment to see how the sport can move forward. Only with more opportunities can the sport of women’s cycling in the UK hope to develop properly, but there does seem to be a fair few people who don’t want the sport to progress. There are good points to social media, but just because you get 40 re-tweets to a link to a website doesn’t mean that you will get any more entries. Neither does complaining about riders not entering an event – they’re even less likely to support an event if they feel that they are being coerced into riding.
Women’s cycling is still years away from achieving equality with the men’s sport; how can it when the numbers participating are nowhere near to the number of men racing? Sport should be aspirational, a means for people to achieve outside of their everyday lives, but women’s cycling is anything but that at the moment. Most domestic races are run by local clubs who have to have an event break even as they don’t have reserves to fall back on, so it usually means that in order for a race to go ahead, there will be a minimum number of riders required to meet the costs of running it. Unfortunately, road racing has additional costs to circuit races, especially if you have accredited marshals, which means that you tend to need at least 20 entrants in order for an event to go ahead, and that’s without prize money. If a race is lucky enough to have a sponsor, then the organiser will want to protect the sponsor’s investment by ensuring that there is a decent field – it doesn’t look good if somebody has put up £1000 in prize money and then 10 people turn up, so if you find yourself being annoyed that an organiser of a sponsored event is complaining about the lack of entries, think twice before making a comment.
I guess in conclusion there are a few things that everybody needs to bear in mind about women’s cycling – there is a long way to go before it can be described as being in excellent condition, it needs rider support to develop and, I am afraid ladies, that if you want businesses to sponsor an event that you are riding in, then you need to enter in advance to support the organiser’s attempts to offer as near to equal opportunity as he/she can provide.
To celebrate stage 1 of the 2014 Grand Depart, The Stephen Neal Group hosted a Grand De-Party at Platform North, The Factory Building, Victoria Avenue, Harrogate, HG1 1DX.
Yes, OK, so I bought another cycling T-shirt, and cap, and wristband… It was all for a couple of great causes.
This astonishing pop-up exhibition displayed beautifully a collection of vintage and modern bicycles. There were some true legends beautifully displayed here…
Let’s start with…
Tom Simpson
Tommy Simpson: 30th November 1937 – 13th July 1967. The first British rider to wear the yellow jersey – 1962. Bike frame number 286.
The display was perfect and very peaceful. People stayed with Tom’s bike for long time, often lost in thought.
Barry Hoban
No records exist for bikes built by Woodrup Cycles before 1973 due to a fire, however both Barry Hoban – the rider, and Ian McLean – the frame builder, have verified it’a authenticity as one of those from the 1960’s finished in Mercier team colours for the Tour de France. Damaged and returned to Woodrup Cycles to be repaired, Jim, an employee at the time, rode it until it was sold to Chris Forbes in Otley. Restored to it’s present glory by Chris it was eventually sold to Bob Garside – who was very generous with his time and told me so much about the history of this beautiful bike and his astonishing collection – in 2010, its current owner. When can I visit, Bob?
Here’s Barry Hoban, dispelling a few myths, interviewed by Ned Boulting in 2012…
Beryl Burton
Jackson: frame info needed!
Beryl Burton dominated women’s cycle racing in the UK, setting numerous domestic records and as well as winning more than 90 domestic championships along with seven world titles. She set a women’s record for the 12-hour time-trial which exceeded the men’s record for two years!
Burton won the women’s world road race championship in 1960 and 1967, and was runner-up in 1961. On the track she specialised in in the individual pursuit, winning world championship medals almost annually across three decades. She was World Champion five times (1959, 1960, 1962, 1963 and 1966), silver-medallist three times (1961, 1964, and 1968) and took bronze in 1967, 1970 and 1973.
In domestic time-trial competitions, Beryl Burton was almost unbeatable. She won the Road Time Trials Council’s British Best All-Rounder (BBAR) Competition for an astonishing 25 consecutive years from 1959 to 1983. In total she won 72 national individual time-trial titles.
In 1967, she set a new 12-hour time trial record of 277.25 miles – a mark that surpassed the men’s record of the time by 0.73 mile, and was not superseded by a man until 1969! In the process of setting this record she caught and passed Mike McNamara who was on his way to setting the men’s record at 276.52 miles and winning that year’s men’s BBAR!
Beryl Burton also set about 50 new national records at 10, 15, 25, 30, 50 and 100-mile distances; her final 10, 25 and 50 mile records each lasted 20 years before being broken, her 100-mile record lasted 28 years, and her 12-hour record still stands today.
Her prowess led to the rare distinction, for a woman, of an invitation to compete in the Grand Prix des Nations in 1967.
“I don’t feel that I’ve got anything special about me. I’ve just got two legs, two arms and a body, and a heart and lungs.”
7 times World Champion – Beryl Burton, OBE.
Another installment to come, including the legendary and utterly charming Ken Russell, winner of the 1952 Tour of Britain whilst riding as an ‘independent’ (no team), and his Ellis Briggs racing bike.
1952 Tour of Britain winning bike by Ellis-Briggs
Ken, 84 & Renee, Harrogate, July 2014
Ken’s Ellis-Briggs with his 1952 Tour of Britain Winners jersey.
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