Amgen Tour of California Women’s Time Trial: A Comment

I think I only said fuck once. So that’s good anyway.

Are you listening ToC?

it’s nice to get a little insight into the mind of Gav. usually you’re more or less reporting fact, but the personal stuff is even better. GAV SMASH!

If by “great” you mean “ridiculously patronizing.”

I really hope this a twisted publicity stunt dreamed up by stoned intern marketers for April Fool’s Day though it’s sadly come too late for anyone to laugh about.

both for the great article and for acknowledging the plight of us frustrated working stiffs. I’m the guy with the three kids (part-time single dad, as well) , running a business, just happy to get in an “epic” 3 hour ride once in a while. Now I don’t feel so bad getting worked over by chicks. I thought I was just a girly man :)

Seriously, one of your best pieces. I hope the right people read this one and come to their senses.

I had started hearing rumors about this, but really hadn’t gotten it straight in my mind.

Your piece is well written and articulated, and right on (despite the lack of colorful language). I totally agree with you, and would love to see the women’s race taken on its own terms… and receive the recognition it deserves.

I’ve always thought it is the level of work and pain endured that makes anything worthy. Not how fast it was. Dude winning the Cat 5 crit deserves credit just like the dude who smoked the 1/2/3 crit because they both suffered, a lot. Racing against your peers does that, go figure. Same applies to any other distinction. Just because a race was shorter or slower doesn’t mean the experience was any less from inside or outside the race.

I was in a TTT at a collegiate race weekend a few weeks ago. My team, second slowest in the top mens category, passed our 1, 2, and 3 minute teams, which were all from the top women category. I was able (barely!) to glance over at them when we passed them and their faces said it all – they were suffering just as much as we were. I felt a lot of kinship with them when that happened because we all knew what each other were experiencing. If you really want to get into details, they deserve more credit because they endured the pain longer than we did, but that’s not the larger point…

Just like you said, in racing, in riding, we’re equal. The person or team that wins is the one that works the hardest, races the smartest, or suffers the most. That’s a beautiful sight to behold every single time regardless of any other factor. That big hill on your local loop, it hurts everyone equally. That’s why i stood on the road, gasping and cheering on the same teams we passed with just as much gusto as I put into our ride.

Thanks again Gav. Hope this gets noticed outside our community.

Knowing these guys, they will not back down now. But they may try to save face by adding another, more normal prize money structure base entirely on the women’s times. Also, I have a couple of factual corrections. 1) I only have three kids. 2) I never work 60 hours a week (fuck that), and 3) I had a cold that Saturday.

Not only does this make you look unserious about women’s cycling, it makes you look unserious about the ATOC too. Not exactly how you get to be the fourth grand tour, treating cycling like a fucking circus act.

I do have mixed feelings about the number of times you said “fuck” or derivations of it. I feel that with just a little bit of effort you could have worked a lot more swearing in.

that Susanne Ljungskog raced against the men once, in Scandinavian Open 2004 (back then the biggest race in Sweden) and she finished with the bunch. Not that it matters that much, she did it purely for training, this was a week or so before the Olympics in Athens. Here’s an article in Swedish about it.

Anyway, I agree totally with Gav’s post.

Laura Van Gilder wins Tour of Denville 2001, a pro(?)/1 race in NJ.

I think it’s sad that we’re supposed to be so pleased that there will be a chance to race (after Cali dropped the women’s crit) that we’re expected to just shut up about the conditions etc.

Jim Miller’s comments are especially depressing, to me – he’s a senior dude in USA Cycling, and this is how he thinks women’s racing should be promoted. So depressing! Especially looking at the success of the USA women riders on the world circuits!

On his Cervélo blog

In the alleged proposal the bar is put so low (i.e. their expectation of the women’s performances are so low) that if for example Emma Pooley were to show up at this event, she alone would blow most of that prize purse out of the water. Two, three women would be enough to reach the maximum prize purse that they think may not even be reached with 10 riders!
 
It’d be funny if it wasn’t so sad. That said, I am fairly sure this is actually not a serious proposal within the organization. Instead either this year or next, there will be a full-fledged women’s race – maybe not the same format as the men’s race, but of the same level of excellence.

Gav’s post is also a reminder of the complexity of any given race, what with all the roles riders play on a team. The ITT is known as the “race of truth” but each rider comes through with her or his own truth, her or his own struggle within the boundaries of physiology and team strategy.

As few comments:

1. I am that 30-something-year-old guy with kids that you smoked on the climb that day. And you’re right, there was no glory in it. Every time that happens to me—and it happens every time I race—I always pat myself on the back for even being in the conversation.

2. I also used to swim. And now I ride! But I also still swim.

3. I’ll NEVER understand why ESPN (much less Vs.) don’t cover Women’s Cycling. Most people watch like 20 minutes of Sports Center a day because why would you watch more? They only ever say the same things over and over again. And this in a world where a lot of really interesting sports go completely uncovered. Which is especially weird considering the kinds of things ESPN became famous for covering in the first place.

4. I’ll bet Amgen split the purse this way as a way of holding two races without actually changing the prize money, period. So… the women are essentially racing for a share of the men’s purse, not racing for their own purse. Or, to put it another way, the men’s race is subsidizing the women’s race, and the real losers are the guys who won’t now get anything at all. Because their prize money is going to women who are, as Gav noted, racing under totally different circumstances.

5. Totally unrelated: I love Bike Talk Radio. Gav, why aren’t you ever on?

    We shouldn’t forget about the Aspen Women’s Stage Race.

“No one wanted to attempt to put on a women’s race. We read the press release about the men’s race and how cycling in Colorado is such a big deal. Women are always saying it’s not fair that they don’t have a women’s race, so instead of just complaining about it I just said, ’I’m going to work really hard on putting together a women’s race.” – Jessica Phillips

    “They are working on a real plan for real racing in Colorado.”: http://specialevents.aspenpitkin.com/details.cfm?eventID=588 They have a men’s race in the area at the same time that is planning on an average of 3.5 hours of TV coverage every day. Why not try and convince other race organizers and the TV networks that providing race coverage of women’s racing for the sake of watching women’s racing is worth their while.
    In my fanshot a few days ago there seemed to be support for the idea that Podium Cafe could do something positive for the race. Since then a “Cafe Chat” with the friends of Paris-Roubaix has been posted and a poster has started a donation drive to help preserve the cobbles within a few hours. So I guess I’m saying do we want to be the kind of people who support the people who are doing what we want them to or just be pissed at the ones who aren’t doing it the way we would have them do it. I think we could make a bigger and more positive difference if we focused on helping bring attention to the people doing the type of good work we can all admire.

P.S. Hell yeah No doubt AEG deserved a tongue lashing for that lame shit. I just think now they need to have it shown to them how it can and should be done.

well said g – but aren’t there uci rules governing prize money?

On her FemmeVelo blog

Your story reminds me of something I heard in the tv commentary for the 1991 New York City marathon, and have recalled many times since.

10,000 meter world champion Liz McColgan, running what I believe was her first marathon, was about to win the women’s race. I think it may be done differently now, but in those days, the men’s and women’s fields started at the same time. When McColgan entered the final mile, the commentator said something like, “The men you see around McColgan now will finish in a time similar to hers. But in this last mile, you’ll see her pass a lot of men, and you won’t see any men pass her. Because the difference between Liz McColgan and a man who runs a 2:27 marathon is that she’s a world-class athlete, and they’re not.”

The commentator was right, of course, about McColgan passing several men and none passing her, but more importantly, he was correct to distinguish her from the men finishing with her. Liz McColgan’s accomplishment that day wasn’t comparable to that of the men who finished ten seconds behind her, or ten seconds ahead of her. The only comparable athlete to her in the marathon that day was the winner of the men’s race.

It’s not like they can draw more people to the area to generate increased tourism dollars as every hotel within 60 miles is already full…Solvang is small enough that it really cannot handle more people than will be there already. To me that means they are purely doing it for some media value that they perceive will benefit them. If this is true then they were given very bad information unless it is a deliberate attempt to stir the pot and get any kind of attention they can. Either way BAD idea. My take is that it was a knee jerk reaction to “Hey lets placate the Get Women Involved folks by throwing in a Time Trial to a place we already have the roads locked down”….“What…we don’t have any money??….how can we arrange it so they don’t get much?”….“Compete against the men to earn the money!!!”….“Brilliant!!”…..a total of about 10 seconds thought put into something that deserves so much more.

nothing really to add. But hey, if it makes you feel any better, the Giro will be going on during this!(revolutionary info…I know). Really I don’t know WTF the organizers are thinking, they are as out of touch of reality as a politician.

is that if they had proposed holding the race with no prize money at all, just a trophy or sash or basket of local produce for the winner, there would have been no negative reaction at all as this is pretty standard for women’s racing. Instead there would have been a whole bunch of happy people who were pleased that they were running a women’s race at all.

They have misread the situation so badly that I almost feel sorry for them.

In motor racing, Formula 1 is faster than Nascar. Nascar is faster than touring cars. GT is faster than Nascar but goes for longer. Drag Racing is fastest of all but goes for shorter. All vastly different forms of car racing that generate 100s of millions dollars worth of revenue each. Ive never seen Mens Pro Racing as similar to Womens Pro Racing. Two disticnt sports that make the debate over radio v non radio racing a piss in the park.

Pro Womens Teams and Pro Womens Teams sponsors spend an incredible amount of time, investment and effort in creating a professional product that pits the best athletes in cycling in the world on a global platform. This Amgen TOC decision trivialises Women’s Pro Cycling beyond belief. Its like if you raced an F1 car against a NASCAR, to prove the closed wheeled sedan was an inferior vehicle (despite being a simliarly marketable product), and all of a sudden destroyed millions of dollars of investment, a growing fan base and marketability potential for a new generation of up and coming athletes.

Id give anything to have my team take the start for 20 minutes of televised racing. But i wont do that.

Bicycling piece on the Sea Otter Classic kerfuffle

(That’s a great piece – celebrating the glorious success in freeing men from the tyranny of sexism in the cycling world – no snark at all, of course!)

So if there are only 12 riders, the 20 mins of tv time seems VERY generous – and the whole thing seems even more insane…