While I agree that women can sabotage themselves with drama and unrealistic demands, it certainly does not make for the sole reason women’s cycling does not match that of the men’s. I am no leftist feminist, but I do pay attention to history. Historically, women have been treated as unequal and in many ways, are still fighting the fight. Look at other professions today. Women still typically earn less than men for the same job performed. Why would the cycling arena treat it any different. Should it matter that we are fewer in numbers? Would more women race if it were lucrative? I don’t know. My guess is that if there were the same number of women racing as men, the problem would remain.

There was a letter sent in to Velo News last year by an angered male reader. He said he felt duped because the article lead in had Armstrong in the title. When he opened the article, it was about Kristen, not Lance. He went on to say “No one cares about women’s cycling”. My bet is his attitude is shared by many other men.

Until attitudes and beliefs change, women’s cycling will remain where it is. I appreciate your point of view and think you put an interesting twist on things. I just don’t think that is the core. Only a small part of the problem. I bet the men at the tour act like little bitches too. LOL.

In my years of racing, I found that my core of male friends respected and revered the female racers. They loved to ride with us and thought it was awesome that we were strong, fast and kicked ass. However, don’t get in their way at a race or ask for equal payout. The hemming and hawing begins. I do have to give Laird Knight from Granny Gear Productions props. Back in the early years, he did give equal prizes to the women in an effort to support and grow women’s mountain bike racing. Albeit at the prompting of a female friend, he listened, respected and did it! I can’t speak for today, but that’s how it was.

When you are born male, and white, there is a certain entitlement that is taken for granted. It is one thing to be organized and do your job, it is another to be respected just for the virtue of who you are. Until then…who knows. I would bet Lance would scoff at your idea to support a women’s race. Too bad though. Great idea. One answer would be to find more female financial sponsors who support cycling. if I had endless cash, it’s what I would do. Thanks for opening the subject! It’s a hot one!

Oh, and to Baby from Catskills…Susan Demattei!!!! Silver medalist: MTB, Olympics. One of the greatest female athletes I have known in my day. And yes, Sue H. is up there too.

I mentioned several times, salaries aren’t what they used to be, however you might be surprised that a certain USA domestic rider was offered 30k to ride for a domestic team and it wasn’t our only domestic team with a UCI license either. So you might be surprised about who is getting what. Salaries are taboo, and hard to collect info on. However, correct, salaries today worldwide probably go more like this. Top UCI, and I am only talking about a very few are probably getting anywhere from 30 to 50k. Most are probably getting 5-15K. I did say 7k, but oh well, close enough. There are certainly some riders getting more but not very many. I did mention if you read what I wrote that many are only getting a few thousand dollars both UCI and domestic. I wish I knew more and could show all the salaries in a graph without naming names and that could really spell it out for us. A lot of roadies went to MB in the old days in hopes of getting their hands on that cash like Pia Sunsteadt, but the dreams have seemed to switch to cross. Times are tough and salaries will improve once the economy picks up, that could take years. We might re-live the period of 2000-2007 again, like 2012-2018, who knows, wait and see. I learned a bit more from reading all the posts, and if there is one thing it boils down to for me, IMO, its this. Women will have to build it themselves from the ground up. There is just not enough men that really care enough, and have the power to do it. WOMEN MUST LEAD THE WAY! If you didn’t know, there is a huge crowd of men out there who could care less, and hope the women fail. They are a very selfish and greedy lot, but there are so many men who don’t care about anything except their side of the sport. A huge problem of epic unfairness across the board.

ps-on the health insurance, that’s not something I know much about. I had heard they were covered usually by the teams, but maybe that’s not true anymore in these very lean times.

Nicole Cooke won the Olympic gold medal in road racing and then got the gold in the UCI world championships a month later. Not a single company sponsored her or her team. Her most recent team (Skyter) also folded. What does that tell you about what sponsors think of the importance of a gold medal in cycling? Instead, Sky – a UK Broadcasting network – dumped 20 million Euros into a men’s team. Sky also declined to sponsor Nicole Cooke despite a personal plea from her.

So all this Olympic nonsense is ruining the sport and comes across as very selfish of the women. Besides, the Olympics is just a one day race and has little bearing on who the best cyclist in the world given the limit of the number of cyclists allowed to attend the Games. Qualifying for the Olympics has monopolized the women’s side of the sport and is ruining the way they prioritize their races. The men don’t rely on an Olympic model and neither should the women.

Besides, the TV coverage of cycling in the Olympics is not like other sports. Women cyclists think it is, but it’s not. If you were to go to your local shopping mall and ask 100 people who Kristin Armstrong is, 99 will tell you she is Lance’s wife. So Lance’s wife is more popular than a female cyclist who wins a gold medal (by a factor of 99 to 1).

Here’s a list of gold medalists in cycling:

Connie Carpenter
Mark Gorski
Alexi Grewal
Pascal Richard
Sarah Carrigan
Kathryn Watt

And here’s a list of cyclists who never won a gold medal in the Olympics:

Lance Armstrong
Greg LeMond
Mario Cipollini
Bernard Hinault

——

Out of these two lists, which group do you think are better known around the world as both athletes and cyclists? Which group are the millionaires who sponsors seek?

So your Olympic dream is not what you think it is, nor will it give you the recognition you think it will even if in the unlikely case you were to win a gold medal.

You sound like Sarah Hammer. Now that the UCI eliminated the individual pursuit in the Olympics, what is she going to do?

You shouldn’t be basing your career on the Olympics. It’s fools gold. It’s not a good sponsorship model for the future of women’s cycling. Cycling isn’t gymnastics or figure skating and women shouldn’t be trying to turn it into either.

The richest woman in cycling is Sue Haywood and not Kristin Armstrong.

Quickly, I agree. If you read again what I said, UCI salaries have been reduced significantly since the golden years between 2000 and 2007. Anyway, I got to get to those Tacos now!

Cheers!

I am going to squeeze in a quick one before making Tacos. If you notice, the Olympics cycling coverage has not just been reduced, but almost eliminated. I’m not sure about total coverage of 2008 track and road-TT games in UK or Europe, but in America is was beyond dismal. If it’s the one big ticket of exposure for women as you claim, then NBC should have covered it. What I saw of Track and the RR-TT was so minuscule and cut up into tiny slices of nothing more then 15 minutes here and there separated by hours sometimes, that not even the most hard core nerds of cycling could follow it.

The RR was like half hour total cut up in several very tiny segments over many, many hours. The TT, worse, I think it was 15 minutes on NBC. On the Internet, yeah, the RR was shown in its entirety, but there was no commentary, only video with ghostly creepy sounds of the rain and mostly distance sounds of shouting chinese fans who were regimented into their chants roadside. All Mac users without intel processors were shut out by Microsoft Silverlight software.

If the Olympics is the grand shining moment for cycling, then it should be covered, but instead I think the networks overlooked cycling became of the all the bad press from the doping scandals. It wasn’t a good ticket for network coverage. Consider this, in 2004, USA channel also had the road race in its entirely, but it was on TV, not the internet. Add to that, it had excellent commentary with Paul Sherwin and his guys, can’t remember was it Phil Ligget?, but still. On Eurosport, it was David Duffy and Russell Williams. They pulled out all the stops for the women in 2004. So what the hell happened? Well, relentless doping scandals for one, so cycling was all but cut out of the Olympics in the American household on TV. The friggin women’s triathalon has more coverage of the cycling part then the Olympic road race for crying out loud! Add to that, Maria Isabel Moreno tested positive for EPO, and it’s possible that could of hurt the coverage, I don’t know.

But Skip is right about the fields. Not only that, if you look at what countries are riding in the road race, its really a cosmopolitan field or more like a cultural extravaganza then a bike race. You have these tiny little countries with riders in there that don’t belong in there cause for one, they are not (ALL) the worlds best, and two some are dangerous to other riders. Case in point, the Korean rider who took out Jennifer Hohl and a bunch of other riders in that ditch, which was by the way, dangerous as hell.

I can’t believe the Chinese left that ditch open like that. But the road race is a one day lottery that comes every 4 years and if you look at who wins it, it hasn’t been a field sprint in many years but usually breakaways. You couldn’t predict who could win it any more then drawing sweepstakes tickets out of a hat. The idea that anyone trains 4 years to win the road race is ludicrous to me. While training for the TT is a much better gamble, which Armstrong did, the RR is very, very open to chance or luck. While Cooke put all her cards on the games and finally won it, that’s a big four year gamble.

Also the endorsements are not too great either right now for women who win the gold. I think the biggest thing about winning the Olympics is the gold medal, not the silver or bronze, and whoever wins it, that is a big dream for sure. However women’s cycling is the bigger picture worldwide and its so lacking in so many respects, and I think we should fix that first instead of putting all the hopes and dreams into this one day lottery that comes every 4 years.

Like the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, if you followed it as a little kid, then you remember it was a even changing goalpost, not a reality. I agree, the world championships is MUCH more realistic goal, and that comes every year. I agree with Skip that what Hausler did last year was worth its weight in gold, even more, just incredible! However if Track is you dream and you are already into it up to your neck, then you might as well follow it through. But if things don’t improve by 2012, then you might want to rethink your cycling career, especially if you don’t medal.

But my view on women’s road cycling at the Olympics and my view on track cycling for men and women at the Olympics are the same – they are really there to enable support for the rest of the sport. They are means rather than an end. If the Olympics got a full track programme a la athletics then I could see a case for making it the centre of track cycling prestige, although until then for me it’s all about the Worlds. But I don’t see that with the road, for me I just hope it sucks more people into the sport. An Olympic gold will never equal what Claudia Häusler achieved last season.

What I’d like to see is understanding for why pursuing the Olympics is significant but also an acknowledgment that cycling should be about *so* much more.

And that said, as a track only cyclist, we have only 1 big international race a year: the World Championships. The Olympics ARE our pinnacle race.

PB & Co. 2012, has some of the best track cyclists in the Country on their roster. If they chose to dream Olympic dreams who is anyone to take that away from them? Or any rider or athlete of any sport, no matter how small?

FYI: the salary for a UCI team need to only match the MINIMUM wage. And I know that many women sign on the dotted line knowing they will never even see that- but they want to race on a team and do the European Calendar so what more is there to do? So, YES, there are professional full time female cyclists who make less than $5,000.00 a year.

Let’s take a look at the men’s side quickly. This is how the men stack up. This is some research I gathered from the Italian Republic and also feedback from an Italian organization who supported these numbers, so they must be close. From both research papers, I put this little report together, its worth sharing here.

The six top pro cyclists in the list earn a lot but the reality for all the others is another matter. The wage minimum for a squad Pro-Tour surpasses of little more then 30,000 Euros per year, and for the squads professional and continental the minimum is under 30,000 Euros. In a squad on average, half of the pro cyclists is at the minimum that I count, not even 2000.00 Euro each month. 80% of the group earns this amount except for the few who earn 100,000 euros a year. The pro cyclists that surpass 200.000 euros a year are very few, those that surpass the 500.000 even fewer.

1. Lance Armstrong 11 million Approximate
2. Alberto Contador 11 million Approximate
3. Alejandro Valverde 2,3 million Approximate
4. Philippe Gilbert 2 million Approximate
5. Cadel Evans 1.7 million Approximate
6. Filippo Pozzato 1 million Approximate

Pro cyclists like Cunego, Petacchi, DiLuca, Nibali etc, have an income however higher (between hiring and sponsors) and that to eye consider at least fifty in the world with high income. The top 50 tennis players are millionaires in dollars, (between prizes and sponsor) the others ‘struggle’ 50-100 is fundamental struggle of survival. To look at the top 50 salaries would show the disparity between the top ten and the rest.

The article below quotes salaries from the research of the republic Italy, and this is pretty much backed up by the Italian cycling organizations I contacted.

This Research was done by by Eugenio Capodacqua from La Repubblica, Saturday, December 26, 2009.

I translated and corrected the English in my own words.

How much money does an average professional cyclist make?

Research publication in La Repubblica by Eugenio Capodacqua speaks for itself, the numbers tell us so emblematic of a paradoxical situation where the extremes of samples from live Contracts multi-millionaires and then immediately down into the vertigo of two zeros less.

(Most Pro cyclists) – (those on the Pro Tour at the top) have an average salary of 26.700 Euros and 33.000 Euros for the more experienced soldiers. That is equal to 37k US. The numbers put one hand on the bottom two zeros is higher than comfortably one million although in very rare cases. 23,000 per year is less than 2000 per month.

The 18 team Pro Tour in 2009 spent a budget total of 235 million in substantial growth compared to 165 million in 2008. The game is absurd in wages because some riders have lead sponsors to be paid, while others receive benefits over a million. The first two are above the double digits thanks to a wide range of sponsors.

Now, Missy Giove was probably the highest paid ever for women with at one point, a six figure income. Leontien never made anywhere near that much.

http://www.seattlepi.com/getaways/092696/bike26_top.html

In the early years after 2000 when women’s cycling was reaching a zenith in salaries and quality teams, Alison Dunlap, a two-time Olympian, estimates only 30 to 40 women worldwide could compete full-time in either mountain biking or road cycling and support themselves without securing part-time employment. As we know some women work jobs, and some even full time jobs.

Alison Dunlap competed in road and mountain biking. She’s also a five-time national cyclocross champion, a discipline where there’s little financial reward. She said, “I raced for five years on less than $10,000 a year when I was on the road (only) from 1992-1996, so it’s do-able,” said Dunlap, 33 at the time. “But now on the road, top women are making $35,000 to $50,000. On the mountain bike side, the top women are making $90,000 to $150,000.” Since that time, salaries have dropped off. I believe Luperini got around 50k in 2004 to ride for Let’s Go Finland.

Generally speaking, at the best of times, top women earned about half of what top men get. However to clarify, I mean not the very top men like Lance, but generally top men get around 200k or more, and top women got around 100k or more. However, many more top men got good pay, as where the top women who got 150k or 100k were very few. From there the graph would show a sharp decline in pay. Middle women I am guessing were getting around 30 to 50k, and the bottom around 7-15k. Below that, some women get no pay, but are provided with everything they need including meals and hotels, etc. Below that, some women pitch in out of pocket to pay for gas, meals and hotels, and I am guessing those would be the ones trying to break into the good teams.

However today, I am thinking top women are getting around 50-75k on top UCI teams, but they would be few of them at the very top. The middle are probably getting anywhere from 7 to 25K depending. Bottom are getting maybe only a few thousand dollars, but they are provided with everything. Below that again, we know about some of the hardships women go through to race, depending on friends and family, and I remember even Nicole Freedman slept out of her van at times to race. Some women stayed in schools during races, or had poor accommodations.

Prize money is (relatively) far more important to women than it is to men, as a glance at women’s salaries shows. A top female cyclist, such as Anna Millward or Leontien Zijlaard-van Moorsel, earns approximately $US 50-100,000 as a base salary, with an extra $US 10-20,000 in prize money. As for endorsements and advertising, this is nothing like as lucrative for women as it is for men. Unless they’re willing to pose in Playboy, as Leontien was asked to do for 100,000 Dutch guilders ($US 42,000). She declined, but accepted an interview in Penthouse doing an interview, but her clothes stayed on, as her father demanded it. Of course I don’t blame him at all at that point in her career.

Add to that here, many women work full time jobs, so perhaps in that sense, winning prize money at bike races would be a nice side hobby and a way to generate extra cash, instead of the concept of a cycling career and a paid professional. Different ball-game over here in the states. So while the men aren’t making that much either like the 12k dreamers and such, perhaps women in some ways are better off. So most men don’t make jack, and most women don’t make jack either, but at least some women make much more at regular careers jobs and make prize money on the side. Pro men who get paid 37k to race in the pro tour are doing it as full time jobs, and that isn’t even very good money for a middle class wage earner, not at the top of the middle class anyway. I had a friend who made 70k a year cleaning boats for rich people at the pier in San Diego, and he doesn’t even have a college degree. So while women don’t make much, the majority of men don’t make much either. While that is some relief for women to know, clearly men have a much better hand up in cycling if they are good. The stakes are much higher, and for the elite few, off the scale, that’s big money.

The biggest thing I think to move the sport forward for women, IMO, is TV and lots of it. In Europe they have much more coverage of women’s races on TV, and i know this to be a fact since I collect videos of women’s race. In America, its very, very slim. You have perhaps a few pieces with a few minutes on Versus or Universal Sports carried the worlds, but its pretty slim compared to the men’s with the TDF. This is where the problem is. In order for big sponsors to get on-board, you need a national televised series for the NRC calendar for starters, and then let the fans decide. Its a tough sell in a male dominated sports world with the big five sports, but if done well, and marketed well, it has a chance. Right now I see women’s cycling is on a merry go round going nowhere and it can’t grow without big TV nationwide coverage and big sponsors. Once that happens, then you will see that things should improve. Even in Europe they don’t cover the world cup, at least not all of it on TV there. Even Emma Johansson said some mogul should just go for it, and cover the whole world cup on TV. She admited the sport needs (primarily) TV as the biggest boost to its growth and success.

I think also the sport could benefit from a mogul, someone who can step up to the plate with big money and go for it! Someone who would pay for a TV series, and sponsor some teams on both a domestic and world class level. Some top UCI American teams that are on the same level with Highroad and Cervelo. We also need a superstar, which the sport hasn’t seen since Leontien, and that would also help the women’s side. Someone who has movie star presents and glamour with talent, and could really stand the sport on its head. Right now, we don’t have anyone like here in America. We have some good riders, and certainly Neben and Armstrong have been great riders, but they don’t really have the kind of charm and camera presents that turns heads and that is also lacking in the sport. For the men, they had Super Mario, and for the women, we had Leontien, but nothing since then. There are few glamour girls out there like Tiffany Cromwell and Rochelle Gilmore, but they are from Auss, and Liz Hatch, well she has done well for herself, but she has not captured the hearts of true cycling fans, at least not from what I have read cause she has no results, but that might come in time, who knows.

The UCI addressed at one time about the future of women’s cycling and moving it forward. That article is here and worth reposting:
http://www.womenscycling.net/2006/Interviews/PatMcQuaid.htm

My biggest beef is all our major domestic talent is gobbled up by Euro UCI teams. Any time a top talent pops up like Evelyn Stevens, since she’s so good and aggressive, she was quickly snapped up by HighRoad quicker then buying a lotto ticket at 7-11. That’s what happens and probably one of the biggest things that could help the image of women’s cycling in America never happens because perhaps not enough people work together or talk to each other in this business. What I mean is this. If Tibco is our top UCI team, and they should of been UCI the last two year, ideally you should of seen all our top guns on this team, which would of been the best team in the world by far. We would of whipped every UCI team out there, probably including High Road too if we had all the top US women I mentioned earlier. Same goes for Proman or any team since it doesn’t really matter what the name is. What matters is who’s on the team, and how well sponsored they are.

As mentioned, Tibco ideally should of had Armstrong, Neben, Anderson, Abbott, Stevens and half a dozen others on our top team. If this country put their best riders on one well backed UCI team, it would sweep the Euro classics, World cup, and just about everything else, but since there are so many other agendas, our best riders are spread about the world on UCI teams as domos in Europe and whatnot, not the best thing for our top riders, IMO.

However, its quite possible that Stevens is so dam good, that she might just win races on her own above and beyond the agenda of HighRoad, wait and see. Not because she is breaking the rules and team plans, but because she simply can win them, when no one else can. We will see what happens to Stevens this year.

Another part of the problem I see with women’s cycling in America are a couple of things. It seems to have a lot of older riders, or at least used to, instead of new fresh talent. There are lots of riders in their late 30′s and 40′s. I’m not bashing them cause some riders are late bloomers, but I like the AIS model for recuiting new talent. For a country of 20 millions, they produce a lot of good riders. I think if the USA could implement some kind of simliar program to seek out and find the nations best talent, we could certainly increase the number of riders with superior talent for sponsors to take a serious look at. Whatever the solution is, it’s certainly not happening despite the efforts of many people worldwide who have tried to shine a light on them. Oh well, perhaps some day.

Isn’t that funny?

The UCI addressed at one time about the future of women’s cycling and moving it forward. That article is here:
http://www.womenscycling.net/2006/Interviews/PatMcQuaid.htm

Cut…

Part 2

I think many women find cycling as a way to travel and see the world, well at least I mean the ones who can go to Europe on either the national team or some side trips sent by various teams and such. I think a lot of women enjoy the travel and outdoor experience of riding on beautiful roads in Europe, the culture, the people, languages, etc. Indeed many women call it living the dream. There seems to be a big dream in just doing it, and not so much always in winning anything, and with that, probably a naivety about what really goes on with sponsors and team agendas.

Well, knowing a little about women who race in Europe, I can tell you they aren’t getting anywhere near what they used to get. The glory days are over. UCI salaries aren’t what they used to be. True, no return on the investment. In fact, often people and organizations who support women’s cycling in Europe do it like charity projects. There are many who are just trying to work to keep the ship afloat, but the data I have is extremely disturbing. The sport has to grow from the ground up, and we need a bigger pool of seasoned talent like Kim Anderson. The number of top US women are very few, and that just won’t cut it. TV is something that is key, but without good talent, races that are otherwise boring would really have to have a lot of special effects and exciting clips to keep viewer interest. The NRC race series is not always that exciting as you know, but if a series was well done on TV, viewers might get used to seeing it, and enjoy it. I say do it well for TV, and let the public decide.

I believe women can be exciting to watch race, they certainly try hard at our races. If you build it, they will come, but it has to be built on a solid base, and that includes solid TV coverage, no way around it. Plus we need stars, on the same level as Leontien or Super Mario. It needs spice!! Leontion had the palamares, Liz Hatch does not. Classiest rider ever in my opinion for both looks, class, and abilities was Nicole Brandli, but she retired last year.

More disturbing, and i have been looking at the data for years now, I have become very disturbed about what the data and numbers tell me. That is really, what seems to be a male dominated society where blood sport, WWF, and ever increasingly stuff like Cage fighting is taking hold, akin to the days of the Romans. The number of fans for male sports is off the scale, and when I look at what my numbers show me for women, its very sad about the unfairness of it all. I believe in equality, but shit this is ridiculous. I agree with Kerry that I blame the media for a lot of it, just the way I blame rich corporations and republicans for being greedy rats, but let’s not get into politics right now.

I’ve been watching women race for many years, and I can tell you I enjoy it very much, but I don’t see it as speed or just hellish sprints like what rabid fans of the men watch. I enjoy solos and I enjoy much more, which is everything that can go on in a race, sometimes some great drama. I just think general fans are dumbed down, and are used to watching too many special effects on TV. If they are not shocked out of their chairs, they are not entertained. The sentiments about how the French used to have for bike racing and its riders I don’t think every really took hold in America, but even in France, things have been on a downward spiral, largely now due to drug use, EPO.

Women’s gene pool for great talent like Evel Stevens is very thin, compared to the men’s side, although women have turned out to race in record numbers. But remember small countries like Australia who only have about 20 million people compared to the USA with 300 million, also have a government backed AIS system that helps to churn out new talent on a regular basis. Indeed Australia has a lot of hot women pros, new ones coming all the time. While what Mike Engleman is doing is good, its not enough in terms of a real investment in the future of the sport which countries like Australia have made in both track and road cycling. Women could be tested in high school and college which would reveal who these gifted genetic freaks are out there. Certainly we have plenty that are probably working at Star Bucks and don’t even know it! Australia seems to be figuring this out, although its unclear how much you would want the government involved in a national sport like cycling. Certainly the USAC has its detractors, and they are not my heroes based on some observations I have made over the years.

It’s true, many women are weekend warriors. I used to joke with a friend that you could take almost any full time UCI women, and bring her over to a domestic crit here, and she would clean the field. Well, not quite true, but UCI women do train as full time pros, at least the top UCI teams do. Their riders are very good, and they don’t usually just get on a team the way Liz Hatch did. Also note, that some races are held like tea parties or social gatherings. Some races, especially in Europe will take you out of the race if you are dropped, especially in world cup races. I remember a women who went over last year to Alfredo Binda, and she fell off the pace and they pulled her out. Over here, many races women are allowed to be many hours down on the GC, so it becomes a social ride for some. That’s not good for bike racing. The actual number of cat -1 women in the USA is not very many. This also disturbs me.

I think Kerry’s post contained just the right amount of vinegar to give the salad some flavor, good reading and some interesting points. However there is more to this picture. I was there at the first year women raced in 1978 at Nevada City, and 77 the previous year which the men’s event had a spectacular finish. I wrote about that one. Since that time I have been back to this famous classic many times which Lemond, Hampsten and other big names have raced over the years including Armstrong last year. This year is to be their big bash 50th celebration and possibly their last year, but who knows. I have seen this race go from a grand and glorious event with countless thousands of fans lining the streets to one which almost no one came two years ago. I have seen this race decline over the years. In fact many races have seen a decline in attendance, which women enjoyed as well.

So the answer is complex and also applies to the men as well in some regards, and the men are largely responsible for a sport that remains in tatters over decades of never relenting doping scandals that still go on to this very day. Just go to CN and read about the latest EPO bust, it never ends. Would it be any surprise that fans are running away from cycling? Used to be in forums during the 90′s that people were more respectful and posted positively in-line and affirmative about cycling and everything related to it. That was the short golden age until about the time of the Festina affair. Since that time, not only has the doping never stopped on a scale never heard of before, or at least they were getting caught more and more as technology caught up, and they could no longer got away with it, but kept doing it anyway. The fallout from that is that sponsors were also running away from the sport like Leprosy, and the good fans, well many of them have become jaded and venomous, vitriolic, and down right crasp and mean. Add the economic nuclear holocaust into the equation, and yeah, women’s cycling is really hard hit right now and the image of cycling is not improving either.

Note: I do admit there is that top level marketing machine at the very top, where so much cash is on the line in the TDF with sponsors that this even eclipses doping scandals. In spite of doping, the TDF is still very popular, but when you look at the data on the graph on how doping has affected the sport over the years, and every other small fry down the latter, it can be quite disturbing.

Where does this leave the women?

I do think women want to please at the races, they certainly race their hearts out at our races, but to address some of those issues, and add a few, I will elaborate more here.

Yes, we have lost a lot of races due to economics, just heard recently that not only Etrusca was canceled, all of it, but Brissago as well. Nobody has been hit harder then California though, we lost at least 8 potential races due in part to the AmgenTOC which gutted all the women’s races. Along with doping in the men’s side, which gave the sport a black eye, sponsors were fleeing the sport in droves while some are returning now, but its no wonder women are feeling the fallout in a big way. I don’t see it as their fault of course, but partly due to these problems. While Kerry makes good points about what’s going on with women inside the teams, the biggest problems are out of their hands, which rock the very core of the sport.

Kerry wrote about the fact that women are less loyal at teamwork and domo work, sometimes traipsing off to races which might hurt the team, but might help their own personal chances. What some might fail to realize is that cycling is a sport with unique problem. It’s the only sport I know of which is called a team sport, but only one person wins! Think about it! As fans, we have our individual heroes, and when they win, we only see them as our heroes, not the whole team! Indeed, when someone wins the worlds or the Olympics, only that person receives the gold medal, and only that person is recorded as the winner in the history books. Only that person gets the palmares and recorded as the winner of a race, not the team! Nobody cares or remembers the team!! At least not regular fans anyway!

When a baseball team wins the world series, every member get a gold ring I believe, but when the Italians work hard together and get Tatiana to the finish line to win the worlds, only Tatiana gets the win and all the glory and endorsements. The team gets nothing except a few words of praise. This is a problem unique to cycling, and there are very few events called individual events, mostly are track related. Only the ITT is an individual event, but its of little consequence since that is usually part of a stage race, except the worlds and Olympics. One of the world cup races is an ITT, but it is the exception, not the rule. What you have is a sport riddled with contradictions, is it any wonder there are so many problems? Even Kristin Armstrong suggested in an article in USA-Today I believe it was or similar, that everyone on the team should receive a gold medal. I know some of the top women are aware of this unique problem cycling has as a team sport.

Riders know that in the end, 1st is what matters, 2nd and 3rd place are of course important to make the podium, as far as building market value and getting yourself known, but hardly anyone remembers 2nd or 3rd. 1st is what counts, and lots of them! So unless you are Kim Anderson and making good money year in and year out on teams like HTC as a super domo, and she has made a career out of it, your chances of making a living out of cycling are not too great unless you are a genetic freak like Evel Stevens or gifted in some unusual way. Perhaps maybe if lucky, you can obtain success some offbeat way. So in execution, it’s a team sport, but not when it comes to results and the final implications of what that means to a rider’s cycling career, and certainly is not viewed that way by the fans.

Now, lets move on.

I think a lot of what I have read has to do with two things in general. They are not paid well, the other, the teams are not professionally run.

If the teams had top riders who were paid well to do their jobs, and the teams were seriously professionally run, riders would work as professionals like in a professional environment, maybe something like the corporate workplace. If you don’t do your job, you are out! Many teams have small budgets, rider’s salaries vary, and some get paid little, or very little, sometimes nothing at all. Some riders pay out of pocket for expenses including hotels and food, gas, etc. I have talked to riders who say they have little incentive to go race without solid team support, they also need the company and comradery.

Teams that provide nice hotels, good meals, massages everyday and serious leadership from managers and coaches do well and there is a higher degree of professionalism. However, many teams here don’t even have that like they do in Europe, and worse, many are not even really teams at all. Many are just hodge podge sponsors who support riders Willy Nilly to some degree without a full team, no team website, no organization, no real mentors, coaches or managers to take the stress out of their lives. When you don’t sleep good, don’t eat right, and don’t train right, you stress levels go through the roof!

Top teams take big money, and few sponsors are willing to shell out that kind of money in this economic Holocaust, especially since cycling is equated with dopers. Women are clean for the most part and don’t dope which is great, but the bad part is the men always leave the sport in tatters in front of them, so its really disgusting what’s going on. Its shameful, and the image is something they have to deal with, which is really not their fault at all. Big money has all but wrecked the men’s side, as we know it. There is a huge incentive to cheat when you have a shot at millions. The fact that women are clean for the most part is a big moral plus, but unfortunately it has not translated into making their side of the sport shine.

Another problem is with that; women can’t make a living racing their bikes so they must work jobs. In Europe on UCI teams, women race full time, some teams used to get paid well, and they were professionally run. Certainly Cervelo and Highroad are shining examples of what women’s cycling could be, but here in the states, the best we have seem to be Tibco and Colavita, and now Proman Peanut Butter might be a good team, wait and see.

These teams are closer to a professional team, but even their budgets keep them from sending riders to some races, as noted last year. Women’s racing is lacking from a serious shortage of cash, which if spent right, can translate into good teams, good riders, managers and coaches, etc., but they need big sponsors, and there are none right now. If you look at the list of sponsors on the big teams, its scary. Dozens of small ones, but not big ones, not sure how much the company Tibco kicks in, but its always a game of getting so many small sponsors on-board, not an easy job.

Now another thing you have to remember, I have been looking at the data and stats for quite a while, is we live in a male dominated patriarchal society. The media is dominated by male sports, and in a country where baseball, basketball and football is king. It took Europe 100 years for cycling to become king, but that seems to be no longer the case. Cycling was king in America in the early part of the century until Baseball overtook it. Even the top women’s sports like Tennis, Ice Skating, are not really all that big, all things considered, and women’s cycling, well, its way down there on the list. Most women’s events take advantage of the same fans that come for the men’s events. They haven’t had a women’s tour since HP Challenge, and while Europe can support specialty women’s events like the Tour De l’Aude both with cash and a fan-base, it doesn’t exist anymore in America. The women need a Tour. Same case everywhere, there is no unique women’s tour in America. At one time, HP boasted a prize list of $150k, not bad for the women. However, women’s racing is more respected as a specialty in Europe, unique and interesting and we don’t have that mind-set here in America.

This was too long, so I had to make a part 3, but i will wait a little while.