French cycling is in an odd state. Parts of it are healthy, very healthy, while other parts seem to be beyond salvation, yet there’s no logic or reason as to which are the healthy bits. Just recently Pierre Boue, long-time organiser of the Grande Boucle announced that the 2009 edition was probably the last, but that he himself was writing a book entitled “When women’s cycling loses the pedals”. In between defending himself on charges dating back to when Jacques Chirac was mayor of Paris. Yet at the same time the Tour de L’Aude remains one of the two major stage races of the year, and a host of smaller stage races fill up the calendar at the end of the summer. My guess is that the problem is one of co-ordination: too many of the senior administrative posts seem to be filled by political placemen looking for their next political placing. Occasionally the sport strikes lucky and gets someone like Boue who genuinely does seem to care, but most of the time teams and riders are left to fend for themselves.

Entente Sportive Gervaisienne et Lilasienne is a long-standing bike club based in the east of Paris (their website is not to be missed, with sections for lovers of cheesy music and silly hats). In 1996 they set up a top-level women’s team, Team ESGL-GSD gestion, supported by Pierre Boue (the club website calls him the team “Parrain” which is also how the French call a certain film from the early seventies starring Marlon Brando) and this has been UCI registered for the last few years, although they rarely compete outside France because they don’t have the funds. But despite not having a single salaried rider they still put up a pretty decent showing, especially in the latter half of the long university holiday. So who should you watch out for?


Beatrice Thomas won stage 4 in the Trophée d'Or this year and only lost the leader’s jersey when her back wheel disintegrated just six kilometres from the end of the race of the race.


Christine Majérus. Three times Luxembourg TT champ and second in the RR (twice), she also scored a handful of top 10s during 2009 and still won’t be 23 until February.


Mélodie Lesueur is the current next big thing in women’s cycling. In 2009 she celebrated her 19th birthday and first year in the pro ranks with top 10s in both TT and RR, then followed that with an 8th place and the young rider jersey in the Route de France where a cracking team display took over four minutes back on then wearer Egle Zablockyte on the last day.

Siobhan Dervan (that link leads to an oldish Bebo page, so if you’ve never been to bebo before …) transfers from the Italian team Fenixs and is, I believe, the only Irish woman riding full-time in Europe, so whatever she does is likely to be picked up by Shane Stokes for Irish Cycling. At home she is a four time national champion, but abroad she is more likely to be doing domestique duties than riding for herself.

Four other riders from last years team are staying on in 2010:
Nathalie Cadol    24/02/1972
Sophie Creux    08/07/1981
Audrey Lemieux    09/05/1985
Eugenie Mermillod    27/05/1986

And there are three other new arrivals, Roxane Fournier, Marion Rousse and Elodie Hegoboru, the first two coming up from the associated junior club.

Photo from the ESGL-GSD Gestion website, and is used without permission. If they want it back, I'll give it to them ~Gav.