The Problem with Women's Cycling

This week on Cyclingnews.com, there is a blog entry discussing the current state of women’s cycling, specifically highlighting the recent loss of funding for some of the larger professional European teams. While I commend the author for trying, she doesn’t really get anywhere in terms of a true dissection of why the sport is deteriorating from the top down, or what we can do to fix it. I’ll spare you the time spent reading it and summarize if for you.

(I’m paraphrasing here)
Recently the women’s pro peloton lost a major team when sponsors pulled out at the last minute. The team in question happens to have a roster that includes some of the current top female riders in the world. Also, we lost three major UCI events from the calendar, including the Montreal World Cup, Tour of Montreal, and Tour of PEI. We need to solve this problem. The problem can be solved at the grass roots level.

If you do take the time to read the original entry, you’ll find that it’s rather disjointed in writing style and full of sentence fragments and stream of consciousness editorial statements. It also leads to no clear explanation of what is going on in our sport or how we can fix it. It’s really unfortunate that Cyclingnews.com, arguably the largest media outlet for the sport of cycling, would screw up an opportunity to discuss this issue. But then again, it’s Cyclingnews.com, so why am I not surprised?

There are definitely issues with the sport of women’s cycling at the moment. Some of those issues are financial. The loss of funding for teams and events certainly is a substantial blow, but in case the author didn’t notice, the economy really blows right now. Lots of races are being canceled and teams are losing funding, not just the women. It appears, however, that the women are significantly harder hit.

Now at this point, you may ask yourself, why are women’s teams harder hit in this economy? And to answer your question, let me explain that women’s teams make less money, receive less support or coverage in the media, etc. Although I cannot give a definitive answer to why this is the case, I can offer my own experiences after 11 years in the sport as a one sided analysis of what goes on in women’s teams and why they haven’t ascended to a higher level of financial success, or at the very least met with the success of securing long term sponsors.

One of the major differences I see between men’s funded teams and women’s funded teams is the lack of loyalty the women riders exhibit towards the team and each other. I haven’t heard of many instances with intra-squad fighting in a men’s professional team – Astana not withstanding – but on a women’s team it’s par for the course. Really. The men’s peloton is full of domestiques, riders who flog themselves day after day, selflessly sacrificing their own results for the team leader. Although many of these riders are anonymous to us, it is still possible to rise through the ranks of media darlings and gain a following as a top domestique.

Examine Exhibit A: Jens Voigt.

Can anyone name a female domestique with the reputation of Jens?
Anyone?

Ok, can you name a female domestique who perhaps doesn’t have the media following of Jens but still has made a career out of working for her teammates?

Yeah, I didn’t think so. Women, in general do not work well together to support one team leader. They may say they do, but when it comes to crunch time, the women will be the first to leave you for dead if it means giving themselves a shot at glory. Women are opportunists, but they do not sit back and wait for when it is their opportunity to win. They will take any chance they can get at winning, even if it means selling their own teammate up the river. If you want to dispute this, fine, but I have seen it happen in major stage races.

The other thing that women lack is a sense of responsibility to the job. Now, I am not talking about club level riders who buy their own equipment, pay their own entry fees, and are 100% financially responsible for their racing. I am taking about those on sponsored teams. Sure, there are different levels of sponsorship, and not all of us are making a living off of bike racing. However, there are a goodly number of teams that offer full equipment sponsorship to their athletes – everything from helmets and sunglasses to bikes and wheels are provided. As a sponsored rider, I was more than happy to use all of the available product and would pimp it out whenever possible. I guess it was just really obvious to me that as a sponsored rider, my equipment was provided to me so that I could effectively be a rolling advertisement for my sponsors. I recognized that by using the equipment and publicly promoting the stuff, I was giving back to the sponsor who was so generous to provide me with this opportunity.

I am not aware of too many situations on men’s professional/elite teams where riders refused to use the team issue equipment. However, this has happened in the women’s peloton, and on more than one occasion. I’ve been privy to seeing equipment issues debated on my own team -riders refusing to use team issue equipment because they thought it was inferior. And as Richard Sachs so eloquently put it, when you as an individual refuse to ride team issue equipment that was provided for free from a sponsor, you are jeopardizing the sponsorship opportunities of the entire team.

Now, loyalty and responsibility are both major components of what I’d like to call a work ethic. Anyone who’s ever had a job can tell you that with a paycheck comes expectations – such as, showing up on time, doing the job correctly, etc. Women’s cycling teams are often hampered by an issue related to this concept of a ‘work ethic’; specifically, it’s the ever popular ‘not wanting to show up when you are scheduled to be there’.

Example: Rider X doesn’t want to race at Local Stage Race because she’d rather attend National Level Criterium, where she believes she has a better shot at a decent placing and establishing another result for her race resume. But, Local State Race is held in the same city as the team’s Title Sponsor, and the Title Sponsor wants a strong team presence at the race. Local Stage Race, although small, is the showcase event for the team. Elite regional teams in the US are often faced with these scheduling challenges – we want to please our local sponsor by racing in our local event, which would be of the most benefit to our sponsors, the ones who make this whole team possible with money and gear. But we have riders who want to pad their resume with hopes that a good result at a big race will net them that big contract with a better team. If the team doesn’t have the budget to fund a trip to a big race, the team needs to prioritize. Now, if this were your job, and your boss said “I don’t care if you want to take the day off to go work for Company Y tomorrow because you like their project better, you have a responsibility to be here, and no you can’t get paid for it if you don’t show up,’ none of use would really argue with our boss. We recognize that if we were to blow off work every time something better came long, we’d have a rather paltry paycheck at best and would be in the unemployment line sooner or later.

And yet, I have seen on numerous occasions riders trying to rationalize blowing off a team race in order to go do something better, like a bigger, more prestigious race. And I do realize the importance of results and being at the right race against the right people to show just how good you really are. But, the moment that someone else is paying your entry fees and giving you equipment, it’s your job to race when and where they want you to. Most teams finalize the racing calendar very early on in the season – many teams discuss that prior to the signing of any contracts, to ensure that everyone involved knows the expectations for the coming season before being locked into something that they do not agree with. So, when it’s now July and you’re whining about wanting to blow off a team race to go race another event as part of a composite team, forgive us if we are a bit put off by that.

I recognize that not all professional or elite women cyclists exhibit this type of behavior. I have met many of them who would rather not race at all than race on non-team issue equipment. I have met riders who will be where you want them, when you want them, and will not even bat an eyelash if your directive to them is ‘your job today is to fetch water from the team car.’ But I have seen time and time again in the women’s peloton a certain level of disregard for the concept of a team, of loyalty, of responsibility.

There is also the the issue of “who are we working for today.” For a women’s team to have any hope or prayer of remaining even slightly cohesive, there needs to be a team director who is not currently a member of the team or is not currently sleeping with a member of the team – otherwise it’s a recipe for disaster. The team director needs to be objective and be able to decide which rider is the protected rider for any given race, and then provide clear instructions for what everyone else is supposed to do. And even then it’s a crapshoot as to whether or not the team will execute it. I don’t know how many times the plan has been for Susie, Jenny and Andrea to protect team sprinter Kelly for the final lap, covering all attacks and breaks, only to find Jenny sitting in the back doing nothing and then sprinting against Kelly at the finish line. Oh yes, it happens. Frequently, might I add.

Now, back to the Cyclingnews entry that led to this lengthy diatribe. Yes, it is unfortunate that women’s cycling has taken a huge financial blow. Yes, we need to do something about it. And yes, we need to grow the sport at the grassroots level as well. But, there grassroots level is not where things are falling apart. We have record numbers of women racing in the beginner fields. What is happening is we lose them at the regional elite level. There’s a disconnect there, and I am not sure what is causing it. Many find that it is just too difficult to remain competitive while holding down a full time job, and after they upgrade to Cat 2 they retire. I’ll admit, racing a full season and being competitive at the elite level is not easy, with or without a job. A lot of the younger elite level riders won’t understand that statement because they’ve never had one, but trust me it does wear you out. Perhaps there is a deficit in team leadership, and in place of cohesive teams we have groups of women riding around on free equipment, abandoning team plans at the drop of a hat in search of a perceived better opportunity, and chasing each other down in desperate pursuit of that lone upgrade point/podium spot/payout.

What emerges at the other side of this is a women’s peloton of spoiled, self centered prima donnas with no concept of a work ethic or loyalty. Teams rarely stay together for more than 2 seasons and rosters are constantly revolving. Sponsors lose interest, directors give up, and the sport as a whole starts to deteriorate. I’m not sure how to solve this problem – given the psychology of women, I don’t know if it can be solved completely.

To quote from the venerable Jens in the video above, “My loyalty is to my team, my leader, my boss.”