Pro Women's Cycling

I have always been a fan of how women bike riders have made their own media, so I was really excited when two American riders started their separate, and very different podcasts. Abby Mickey, who rides for Colavita-Bianchi, has been interviewing riders she's raced alongside, and with; while Lindsay Bayer, who's the co-owner, manager and rider for Hagens Berman-Supermint, is talking to people involved in women's cycling in different ways, and a different setting (mostly involving alcohol). I wanted to know more about them both - so I invited them on for probably my most meta podcast ever - podcasting about podcasting! We talk about a lot more too - why Bayer started her own team, how both of them have almost always ridden for female-run teams, how to spot Mickey's mother at races, and much more. Have a listen - it's only half an hour long! Click through to my blog to find all the links to where you can find Bayer, Mickey, and most importantly, their podcasts: https://prowomenscycling.com/2017/03/14/lindsa

This week we celebrate our vindication for having such lofty expectations of Strade Bianche. It was such an exciting and gripping race with one of the most exciting finales we've seen in recent years. Once we're done recapping that (it takes a while)we take a look ahead at the Ronde van Drenthe, and then we get into an interesting and maybe controversial proposal for a new race series.

This week we catch up on the opening races of the classics season. The Omloops (het Nieuwsblad and van het Hageland aka Tielt-Winge), and Le Samyn des Dames. It's been a great opening to European racing with diverse pelotons and results! There's a lot to unpack and enjoy, there's also track racing to catch up on and some other news from around the traps. Remember to park for a clean getaway and then settle in for a hell of a listen.

This week we preview the first of the Spring Classics! Omloop Het Nieuwsblad and Tielt-Winge are on this weekend (the weather looks horrendous!!! Yay!). We review the Cali Track World Cup and the results from the last cyclocross race of the season in Leuven. There's some tougher news that we need to talk about, but it's positive in the sense that good journos like Laura Weislo are doing some great work in following up on these stories. Most importantly it's time for round two of our kit vote, so make sure to get in and vote for your favourites!

This week we talk through the last few cyclocross races of the season. We also take a quick look at all the track racing that's coming up soon, including the paracycling world championships. We take some time to kick off the great team kit voting challenge for 2017, so make sure to visit the post to see the pictures, videos and (of course) to vote! We do talk about some of the tougher stories to have come out recently regarding the types of abuse that have been uncovered in the sport. It's tough reading and listening, but it is good for the sport to bring these problems to light.

The 2016/17 cyclocross season has been an amazing one for Ellen Noble, the 21-year-old American rider who not only won the U23 Cyclocross World Cup series (and came 6th overall in the elite women's series), but finished the season coming second in the U23 Cyclocross World Championships, with some incredible descending skills. She tells me all about how it's been, what's helped her get here, and where she wants to go next, with a lot more - including how she felt when the USA cycling media said there was no chance of an American getting onto the podium at the U23 Worlds! Click through to my website for the links of things we talked about: https://prowomenscycling.com/2017/02/10/sarah-interviews-ellen-noble/

This week we talk about all the racing that's happened in the last couple of weeks from the Deakin Women's Race as part of the Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race through to the Cyclocross World Championships in Luxembourg. There's been some amazing racing and even more to discuss! There's also been some disappointing news from around the traps and we cover those important events as well. We finish on a high note though, with Sarah's wrap up of how you can help women's cycling in practical ways!

Seven-time Cyclocross World Champion Marianne Vos talks about the 2017 CX Worlds, and how her season has been. You can also read the transcript of this on my site, with some more rider interviews: https://prowomenscycling.com/2017/01/28/2017-cyclocross-world-championships-marianne-vos-sophie-de-boer-and-christine-majerus/

This week we catch up on all the Australian nationals results, the cyclocross nationals and the Women's Tour Down Under along with a detailed and robust conversation about how hard it is (or isn't) to provide race highlights. Sarah's been suffering with a terrible lung infection and manages to only cough up parts of her internal organs, while keeping the entire episode actually within reasonable bounds. It's the unicorn episode kid. Links and videos from things we talked about this week: https://prowomenscycling.com/2017/01/20/podcast-2017-episode-2-race-coverage-and-podium-presenters/

It's the first week of 2017 and we're already knees deep in a whole bunch of racing, it's been fantastic! Dan anoints another honorary Australian and we celebrate the joys of the diversity of Orica Scott tactics. There's a new Australian national criterium champion and there's a HUGE amount of changes in the 2017 UCI Racing Calendar to discuss. There's also some cyclocross, some Vos and some other goss to cover. It's a big and exciting start to the new year. Videos from the week's racing, and more links we liked, on our website: http://prowomenscycling.com/2017/01/04/podcast-2017-episode-1-is-the-world-tour-less-worldly/

Following on from last week's episode we round out our review of the 2016 season and talk a little more about how we think things will shape up in 2017. There's been a fair bit of movement among the teams, with some really interesting new line ups. Can Boels Dolmans dominate again? Will they achieve the same level of winning as their astonishing 2016? Will some other team step up to challenge their dominance? What will Marianne Vos' new team look like? And how will other teams find their feet? We discuss all of this and more, including the important new investigation from the Dutch federation. There's lots to cover, just in time to round out the year!

It's time for our review of the 2016 season, what the first year of the Women's World Tour brought us and some speculation around what we can expect for 2017. There's some really interesting things that have happened. We get into some of the bigger questions about how the WWT has (or hasn't) changed things, and we take a bit of a look at the Zwift and Canyon project along with heaps more. In our classic style, what we planned for one podcast is now a part one, so enjoy your Christmas and we'll be back next week with a part two!

Anne Loes Kokhuis works for the KNWU, the Dutch Cycling Federation, and talks about the research project they're starting, looking into bullying, intimidation and harassment (including sexual harrassment) in Dutch cycling. The Federation is passionate about preventing all these, and she talks about the background, and the next steps.

2016 has been tough for a lot of people, and what with politics, the economy, Daylight Savings Times in the northern hemisphere, and so on, a lot of people are feeling bleak right now. So when Emily Chappell suggested we podcast on how the women's cycling world is changing for the better, and how we can all have positive impacts on that, I jumped at the chance. We talked about Emily's own year - winning the women's TransContinental race (read her blog about that!), and her other successes (including having her book published) and also about the Adventure Syndicate. I can't quote believe it hasn't been around for even a year, but wow, those women have done so many great things. All this, and more - including Emily's and my pledges for our own 2017 cycling challenges (Emily says she'll try cyclocross, if someone will show her how, so if that's you, get in touch with her!). Click through to my blog for the usual ton of links.

Hey remember that time a few days ago when Sarah and Dan started talking about all the Best of the Year categories and it took them an hour to get through the first category? Well they're back! And this time they're determined to get through all of the other categories (including the two extra ones that Sarah made up so that she could fit everyone in that she wanted to) no matter how long it takes! Look, we're not gonna lie, this podcast is EPIC (that's a technical term). It's huge. It's long enough to be a Hollywood blockbuster, but it's got more plot, more drama and more action than your standard Hollywood blockbuster, so there's that! So make sure you're stocked up on time and refreshments, this one's perfect for that long drive to see all your extended family for the holidays. Here goes...

Our friends at VeloVoices are preparing their end of year voting and asked Sarah to help them come up with a short list of nominees in a whole raft of categories, from Rider of the Year to Best Race Finish of the Year to Breakout Performance of the Year (and a whole bunch more). Of course, to make it challenging the inimitable @kittyfondue told Sarah she needed to keep it to a list of 5 finalists per category. Sarah dutifully stuck to that requirement (and simply invented new categories when she needed to go over ;) no really) and so here we are with the first instalment where we discuss our nominees for Rider of the Year, including a couple of honourable mentions and a couple of riders we considered, but ultimately couldn't include. We review their seasons, the highs, the lows and the reasons for and against. Will our top pick be the same as yours?

This week we catch up on everything that happened in the Junior Women's and Elite Women's World Championship Road Races, including all of the things that surprised and delighted us. We do a bit of a wrap up of the latest news in UCI rule changes (there have been a lot of them for track in particular) and there are a couple of points of unavoidable controversy. We do our best to tackle them from a glass half full perspective but we'll let you decide how well me managed to pull that off.

This week we talk about all of the worlds time-trialling in Doha. The heat in Qatar showed up in full force and played havoc with the Team Time Trial. There was plenty of riders suffering from heatstroke and heat related stress which was deeply concerning. We also talk about how this impacted on the results. There's the Junior and Elite women's Individual Time Trials to discuss as well, with some interesting and surprising results there. Although fortunately with less dramatic heat. We catch up on the latest cyclocross and mountainbike news and round the episode out with a bit of gossip

This week we preview the TTT, the ITT and the Road Races in Qatar for the Junior and Elite women (would it surprise you if we said there was controversy?). We also took a look at all the latest transfer news and who is confirmed to be going where for 2017.

This week we take a deep breath as Qatar's World Championships is just around the corner. We've got a few races to talk about in the Giro dell'Emilia and Gran Premio Bruno Beghelli. There's also been the latest US leg of the Cyclocross World Cups and in classic fashion we manage to find heaps of controversy to discuss along the way. This includes everything from the latest UCI publicity around the Women's World Tour, the TTT event in Qatar, TUEs, hacking and more. Dan also potentially manages to offend entire states in both Australia and the US. Just another week on the podcast!