Over the course of their drinking and chatting, M&M cover the intervening years since Marianne had her epic victory, what she’s been doing to keep herself busy in Boulder (hint: it doesn’t involve a bicycle), her love of the sport of cycling, dancing as excellent training preparation for bike racing, and riding as a lifelong pursuit.

We hope you enjoy this intriguing conversation with a legend in women’s cycling. We certainly did.

Open Mic with Mike Creed is sponsored by The Colorado Cyclist, Mike’s very first professional cycling team in 1998. Thanks to everyone at Colorado Cyclist for their support of Mike over the years, and a big thank you to them for stepping up and sponsoring the podcast and offering $50 gift cards to our Twitter contest winners. Please visit their website at coloradocyclist.com and give them a follow on Twitter at @Co_Cyclist to show your appreciation for everything they do for us.

Be sure to call them at 1-800-688-8600 and mention the podcast for 15% off your purchase.

There were only double beds left, explained the receptionist in our hotel in Gent to us and she added she felt really sorry for us. But what did we spot, when we came back from our training ride? There was a bed in the hallway. It stood on its side. Just like that. Ready to be rolled to some room. I looked at my teammate, Kim. Shall we, I asked her, can we do that? She shrugged, with a twinkle in her eyes. Why not? Each of us, with a bed of our own, we would have a better sleep, no? And sleep would be pretty important this night. We glanced around. No one to be seen. We opened the door to our room, pushed the bed inside as quick as we could, and in doing so made a nice variant to the ‘Eat the plate of another rider first…’ quote of Hennie Kuiper: “Sleep in the bed of another rider first…” Our apologies to the hotel guest who had to spend the night on the floor.

Smelly room

The photographer of the Belgian magazine HUMO who came to our hotel to take photos of me concluded it was way too cold to go outside, to my great relief. But where would we take the photos now? Could he perhaps see my room? Maybe that would be a nice background? I spluttered something about not very interesting and pretty dull actually, but the photographer was determined. He wanted to see my room. The room which I only did one thing in after I had arrived, just before I received the text message which said I was expected in the lobby. With a growing feeling of embarrassment I showed the photographer to my room. In the meantime I was wondering if I had closed the bathroom door or not. I really didn’t remember. Would he smell it? Or would the smell have gone already? I silently prayed for the latter. I opened the door with my card. The bathroom was open. I sniffed. O shit: poo. But come on. How could I have ever predicted a photographer would want to check out my room?

Two steaks

I’m not such a big meat eater, but when I saw the pile of juicy steaks at dinner I decided to take two of them – knowing eating in the morning before the race is always difficult for me. Steak and pasta is excellent racing fuel. I was thinking this over when I shoveled the two pieces of meat onto my plate, not realising our teamleader was just behind me filling his plate. His eyes got big as saucers when he saw me taking not one, but two steaks. In only a couple of seconds he came up with a theory to explain my greediness: One steak for a good positioning before the Molenberg and the other one for the Oude Kwaremont. Right. One for the Molenberg and one for the Kwaremont: exactly the fuel you need in the Ronde.

Marijn on the Oude Kwaremont. Looks like the second steak did the trick. (Image by Kris Claeyé)

Orgasm

I was too far in the back when we hit the Kanarieberg. I rode to the front, passing lots of dropped riders and suddenly I heard a girl sighing and moaning so loud you would think you were in the middle of a bad porn film if you didn’t know better. And I, the funniest as always, asked her loudly if she was about to have an orgasm. Not nice. Not funny at all. Poor child, suffering and gasping for air on the Kanarieberg – and being yelled at like that by Miss Know-It-All. I am sorry. My apologies.

Soft policeman

The race stayed together untill we hit the Oude Kwaremont. We all knew it would happen right here. My legs felt good and I was in the front. With the first twenty riders I rode onto the cobbles. I started to pass riders immediately and decided to pass the lurching American who seemed to get stuck after every single cobble at the left side. Close to the barrier fences, I guessed she wouldn’t swing that way. Wrong guess. At the moment I started to pass her, she swished her bike to the left clumsily and I had nowhere to go anymore. Just before me I saw a policeman – or a steward, I didn’t look really closely – at our side of the fences. In the split second I had I decided to bump into him, hoping he would catch me and prevent me from crashing. I was barely going 10k an hour, so it wouldn’t be a painful encounter for any of us. But the officer only saw me at the ultimate moment. The American girl hit me at the right side, I bumped into the officer and toppled over. There I was, my feet still stuck in the pedals, so I couldn’t get up immediately. The crowd sneered and laughed. The officer helped me back on the bike. I started to chase back and rushed over the cobbles, passed the Kwaremontplein, upwards. At the end of the cobbles I was back with the riders I started the Oude Kwaremont with. But the group of nine riders was gone. A steak for the Kwaremont turned out te be a good idea, but next time I’d rather take a serving of luck.

In the end a lot of riders came back together in our chasing group. The sprint for the 10th place was a chaotic one. I finished 43rd, to my big disappointment.

Click here for the full results.

Ladies bicycle soiree, circa 1900. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

According to an interview with McQuinn last week, “The AFC is now running just fine on daises and chocolates, as promised, and we are looking forward to the upcoming season.” Unfortunately, some of the bigger promises made by the organization’s founders, such as minimum salary requirements for all female riders, seem stuck with McQuinn’s old CX Sidi’s in Bruges. A spokesperson for the new organization — an anonymous Twitter account called @VeloHoHo — announced today that some changes will have to be made to the structure of the organization due to insufficient funding.

It is not yet clear what exactly the changes will be, as @VeloHoHo spent the morning jumping back and forth between tweeting the organization’s news, taunting @JohanBruyneel, and exchanging “Women’s cycling rules!” tweets with @Vanderkitten.

What is clear is that the minimum salary requirement is teetering on the edge of unsalvageable. According to @VeloHoHo’s furious tweeting, the $20,000 per year minimum will be instituted for every team except the once-mighty Solyndra2030. The team’s title sponsor announced last week it could not meet its financial obligations (something to do with Lance Armstrong forcing the CEO to mismanage his energy business). However, the company is still committed to seeing its name on every race through the end of its contract. As the AFC no longer have sufficient funding to remake its marketing materials without Solyndra, they have decided to honor the company’s wishes — at least until they successfully petition the EU for bailout money.

Furthermore, the Solyndra team will continue to function under a Women’s World Tour license, as the AFC is somewhat dependent on the well-connected director of the team, who has made it clear that she will enslave her riders before disbanding the team. She later backtracked and said she didn’t actually want to force her riders into slavery. “I meant more like indentured servitude,” she said.

The League has decided to overlook unpaid salary minimums for that Solyndra’s riders, believing that the women are better off living on ClifBars than finding themselves unemployed in January (it was also mentioned behind closed doors that it might not look good for the new league to appear to kick some of its top talent to the curb in its first month). A Solyndra rider who asked not to be identified dismissed the controversy, noting the money had not dried up yet. “My salary has been cut since last year, but I still probably get paid more than a cycling journalist,” she added dryly.

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La Pélotone is a Cyclismas column dedicated to Shane Ferro’s not-so-serious daydreams about a world that takes women’s cycling seriously. You can follow her on Twitter @shaneferro.

So I said my opinion was that having National Teams in the World Cup series can be destructive.  I guess I should explain myself. I’m fortunate to have been in the position where I have DS’d both Professional teams and Nationals teams in World Cup races.  On top of this the pro teams have been at varying levels, I should qualify that.  So this is just from personal experience and my ideas of how I would like to see the sport in the future, it’s not a request for rule changes.

Firstly, establishing a professional team is an expensive business.  Registration fees, Salaries (despite the lack of a minimum wage) Bank Guarantee, Logistics, they all add up.  We are now getting to a period of time for the first time in many years where the top of the sport seems a little more stable and the ability levels in those teams are closer together.  A general closing of the gap to the super teams is happening in my opinion.  Yes, it’s easy to quote race win stats to show who is the best but it’s the improvement of other teams that are pushing the top of the sport forward – Performance is getting better, and that performance has a real affect on the perception of the sport by media and sponsors and fans.  That gives us the opportunity to drive the sport forward.   It’s pressure from these three areas that will ultimately lead to positive change in the sport.

I believe that if we are to encourage more teams to reach the top and at a level where they can rub shoulders with Dolmans or HiTec we need to ensure they have a clear reward.  That reward for a professional team could be part of being in an exclusive ‘World Cup Club’ where only UCI registered teams can be selected for that level of racing.  This could drive forward the top of the sport and ensure other teams below them are constantly pushing their standard to keep up.  We need more teams, that is clear and we need more places for riders at the top of the sport.  Perhaps this is one way or doing this.   So preserving the top of the sport for top riders, top teams, could have positive knock-on effects.

Another point in this argument is the image of the sport.  When you ask a fan about cycling and about their experience at a major men’s race, they are almost always impressed with the general set up of the teams.  Walking past the line of tour busses and neatly wrapped cars, you can see jaws dropping.  As I say a lot, women’s cycling is a different sport and needs to develop its own set of rules and regulations, but there are of course things we take from and learn from in men’s cycling.  Presentation image is one such area.  The image of leading teams now has been raised to a great level and they provide a great showcase for our sport.  Let’s have them shine in the sports best events and provide the right image of what we are doing.  There are still a lot of .1 and .2 races where national teams can sharpen their teeth.  They really wouldn’t be missing many events.

I have seen many cases in the past of where national teams have split ambitions within the team.  Perhaps due to personality clashes or perhaps due to performance targets that relate to funding.  I’ve also seen national teams have great riders leaders them, but number have been made up by riders who arguably shouldn’t be in a world cup.  This isn’t the case all of the time, and I’ve seen some National team that can perform at the highest level, but that always makes me question why those riders aren’t in a professional team.  If it’s due to regulation issue like age limits etc, then we need to drive regulation reform.  If its geographical issue, perhaps we need to drive globalisation.

There have also cases where National teams in World Cup races are actually full development teams.  Young riders like lambs to the slaughter, getting a real lesson in how to become demoratised in 120km short kilometres.  World Cup races are brutal, above anything else.  I personally feel those riders can better ‘develop’ in races such as Prijs Stad Roeselare rather than Fleche Wallonne. Or perhaps Drentse 8 in place of Ronde van Drenthe.  Having national teams into these events, could even have a further knock-on effect, by raising prestige of these .1 and .2 events and reduce the number of composite teams needed to make up the numbers in smaller events.

So, they are my thoughts.  They could be way off the mark, but they are from experience.  They are not selfish as my team would be one of the big losers from the reduction of composite teams.  But I’m a firm believer that driving the sport at the top will raise standards at the bottom.  It is an exciting time for the sport, 2013 looks like it could have incredible races with a new set of rivalries at the top.  I can’t wait for it all to get started.

The AFC announced they were in talks to add women’s versions of the major classics, including Milan-San Remo, Paris-Roubaix, and the Tour of Flanders, all to be broadcast on ESPN. A representative for the AFC told Cyclismas that station executives, though they publicly stated altruistic reasons for promoting women in sport, were persuaded that their base audience might tune in once the AFC explained it more slowly: “Five hours. Of women. In spandex.” According to one witness, the reaction in the boardroom included the glazed-over eyes of 11 middle-aged white men and an eye roll from the sole female executive at the meeting.

“It’s not the way we wanted to win this one,” said the AFC spokesperson, “But this is American television we’re talking about — if you don’t go for sex, you’ve got to go for violence. Unfortunately, we couldn’t find a convincing Tonya Harding in the peloton.”

Reached by phone, a top American women who wished to remain anonymous was in tears over the new $20,000 minimum salary, which will be mandated by the association. “It’s been five years since I had a day without ramen,” she said. She expressed hope that more people will tune into women’s racing once more women could afford to dedicate themselves to training full-time. “The speed of the peloton is probably going to increase by 5 mph on average, now that we’re going to be paid enough to eat.”

Asked to comment on the loss of women in the sport, UCI president Pat McQuaid responded, “What women?”

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La Pélotone is a Cyclismas column dedicated to Shane Ferro’s daydreams about a world that takes women’s cycling seriously. You can follow her on Twitter @shaneferro.

There’s no high ground to claim, I want that to be clear.  In women’s cycling, however, there doesn’t seem to be a culture of reduced sentences as a thank you for accepting ownership of cheating.  It’s also far less often that riders get a true second chance; riders often get no route back or are forced to race individually away from the professional scene.  You also certainly can’t claim it’s being done for financial gain, so why do it? Why risk your health, both physical and mental, for so little?  For those not familiar with the rewards available to female cyclists, I’ll show you a few random prizes:

3^rd Place in Tour of Flanders – 564 Euros

Winner – UCI 1.1 one day race – 379 Euros

5^th place in stage of UCI 2.1 stage race – 99 Euros

Tour Series final podium for the Matrix Prendas team

Now I have no idea what it costs to enter into a doping regime, but I’d suggest these prizes don’t justify it, and I’d hazard a guess that it would take one hell of a season to even cover the costs of basic and unsophisticated doping.  So in women’s cycling I can only assume it’s done either out of stupidity, selfishness, or in some cases, without the riders’ knowledge (Of course I’m sure these are all factors with men also).

With the UCI very much under the microscope, including its leaders, I have real worries for women’s cycling on two fronts. Firstly, who is actually in charge of women’s cycling at the moment?  Who is focused on it on a day-to day-basis, and can we expect a full and independent investigation into their conduct over a number of years to ensure our sport is in good hands?  Secondly, with all of this focus currently on defending alleged past and current actions, how much time is going to be devoted to taking our sport forward?

It’s a commonly-used phase by people at the moment that women’s cycling is at a pivotal time.  That’s actually only true if we are given the scope to develop, if we are given the ability to move forward with adjustments to how the sport is set up. Minimum salaries, minimum standards, event and team stability – all leading to increased media opportunities and return.  If these areas aren’t addressed, we could better describe our current situation as women’s cycling is sitting on a knife edge.  I personally believe that if we slip off that edge, the fall is long. The climb back up will be even longer.

The Olympics are always a major time of change for women’s cycling with team sponsorship very often being linked to the Olympic cycle.  Riders retire, teams fold, and the face of women’s cycling changes in the short winter following the Games.  For 2013 there are some legends of the sport who are bowing out, and they’ll be truly missed, make no mistake about it.  But we have some great new riders entering the elite level of the sport, like Lucy Garner, to add to the likes of Prevot, Armitstead, and Vos as young superstars who potentially hold the future of the sport in their own hands.

One thing that I have been thinking about recently is the lack of top women road riders who actually recommend getting into the sport.  How often do we hear the stars of here and now saying how wonderful the sport is and providing constructive ideas on how to make it even better?  We often hear disgruntled riders saying it’s hard (true), saying the pay is a scandal (true), saying the uncertainty wears you down year on year (true), and questioning what the future holds for the sport (again, true).  But there are some riders in women’s cycling making good money. Some of these riders have great lives, travelling the world, being paid well to do something I assume they love.  I really hope we can start to hear more of these stories.  Junior riders are ‘living the dream’ when they go away to Europe – unpaid, scared and wide-eyed for their first major racing experiences.  What happens in the intervening years; let’s hear it.  Vos leads the way on this.  She’s in love with the sport, a self-proclaimed Fulltime-hobby-cyclist, positive about change and the advancement of women’s cycling, but happy to compete and try to get on in the current environment.

My only influence is at the grassroots level of the sport.  I really feel that if we can raise the standards at this level, it’s the best way we can actually impact the top of the sport.  By raising standards within teams and at events, I hope we can, in turn, raise rider aspirations and create a ladder of opportunity that gives riders of all abilities a place to thrive within the sport.

#FanBackedWomensCycling has grown from my last article.  It could be a big boost to women’s cycling in the UK, we’ll see what 2013 brings as the conversation is still very much going on.  There have been some fantastic team announcements for 2013 (Hitec, Sengers, Argos, TIBCO, Lotto, Dolmans) that really make me feel we are in for an amazing season of professional racing.  The fact that women’s cycling news, transfers, and views are being published is already a great step.  The powerhouses are still there like Rabo and Orica, but the gap is closing with strength in depth I haven’t seen for a long time; it’s genuinely exciting to me.  For this to have occurred shows investment and sponsor stability is happening, so let’s be confident.  If we can also continue to close the gap from the ground up, the sport will be at a level that it can no longer be overlooked.  Let’s unite behind the sport and continue to give it the investment, respect and future it deserves.

But let’s remain ever vigilant. If rewards go up, let’s never allow our sport to be taken over by scandal. Let’s keep women’s cycling at the clean heart of New Cycling, where it belongs.

Part 1 – Spreading the word of women’s cycling.  There are so many great people that follow the sport already, but it seems to me the key to growing the sport from this direction is getting these fans mobilised and together.  We tend to have cyber fans. They are awesome, and proud to be following the sport… scary I know.  The biggest fan I know is Sarah Connolly (@_Pigeons_ on Twitter).  Sarah is a “British Super Dooper Über Massive Huge Slightly Barmey Snarky Passionate Sweary Wicked Awesome” fan.  Now there isn’t room in the world for many of these fans.  She rocks, and if you don’t think so, I have no time for you, period.

I’ve taken Sarah to races in Europe, and to race in the UK. Seeing how Sarah comes alive at these events and her personal battles of professionalism verses fanism are hilarious to watch and be a part of.  So it strikes me that having Sarah at more races is a key to joining a lot of dots.  ‘Sarah’ is, of course, fans in general.  We need these fans to come out to events, participate and feel (and make) the atmosphere that is women cycling.  It’s a great place to be and so accessible.  So follows Sarah’s lead and let’s get the streets lined with fans, not just for the ‘feature’ events. Let’s create our own feature events. Let’s tweet the hell out of races and make an impact. Let’s take photos and use social media, and fill it with firsthand knowledge; and let’s do it together.

To conclude part 1, if you feel the need to go to events and need event information, look within the group of existing fans and send John Orbea (@Cyclopunk on Twitter) a message. He is the man with the info and as a fan he is taking the sport forward. We need more people like him.

Part 2 – Fan-backed teams. This is a subject that had hit my email inbox HARD this week.  The general feeling is these don’t work. But, as normal, I have a slightly different feeling about that.  I feel that in the new world of social media and ease of information there is an opportunity for it to work.  As it stands (and of course I reserve the right to change my mind, be talked into different things, or be proved wrong), I feel there would need to be some simple rules if it were to run alongside my (or any) existing team:

1. It would need to not be the primary source of funding.
2. Salaries to riders would not be dependent on it.
3. It would be run by a small, but perfectly-formed, committee (I hate committee set-ups, so that really hurts me so much to say).
4. A large part of the fund would be used for promotional events for the good of growth and development, not racing cost.

Ok, so that’s a wishy-washy list, and it’s clearly not final, but at the moment they are the thoughts in my head to keep the possibility of this happening very real.

“What’s the return?” or “What do I get back?” are the common questions.  The simple answer is “satisfaction.” Know you were part of something.  You lose £1 or $1 a year or whatever you put in, but you gain the knowledge that you tried something.  You become part of a group of people that could be mobilised (As in Part 1 above) and who could raise the roof on the finish line of events.  You can be part of a group that allows a team to get real commercial backing to pay riders.  You get to feel good about yourself.

So it’s early days and maybe it can’t work. This isn’t my plan; it’s been put to me, and my email inbox. Is there the support for this kind of venture? Who knows?  You tell me.

On 1 January this year, when Matrix Fitness – Prendas started, it has 23,981 people in its Twitter community when you added the following of its riders and sponsors.  Today it has 81,042 in that community.  That shows the potential power of a small team. £1 from each of those people and we can almost change the world.

Part 3 – Fans’ innovation. I always talk on here about innovation, and it’s been a-maz-ing to see the take-off of the most exciting fan-led project in women’s cycling in the eight years I’ve been involved in it.  The aforementioned Sarah and her partner in crime, Dan (who can be found on Twitter @entendered), have launched the Unofficial Unsanctioned Social Media Jersey.  This jersey idea, which I’ll let you read all about yourselves, is basically where fans pledge some money, and from this fund, riders in real-life actual races get some money based on the votes given by fans for their performance.

Women’s races have low prize funds, women riders don’t often get paid, and many riders have to pay to get themselves to professional races with their ‘professional’ teams.  So if the UCI, organisers and teams can’t help, perhaps Dan and Sarah can.  They are real-life super heroes who may well have started something a lot bigger than they first though.  But this is the best example of fans having an immediate, and huge, impact on women’s racing right now.

So far it has raised $2,000 and in the next few days could go even higher, so please check it out and if you are feeling flush, pass on a dollar or two. Every little helps I’m sure

In many ways, women’s cycling lacks history; certainly compared to the men’s side of the sport. This era of raised interest in women’s cycling is a chance to make a new kind of history for the sport, in a new, interesting and socially inclusive way.

Above all, fans are needed, respected, and appreciated.  We, as a team, take the time to speak to them, to interact and to pass on our reasons why we do things.  We aren’t always going to agree, but we can compromise, or agree to disagree.  We are all entitled to our opinions, but above all we care about the same sport, so let’s see if together we can make an impact for 2013.

Finally, I got told yesterday “Depends how keen you are to see your sport succeed??” – The answer is VERY. But that doesn’t mean I can do everything single-handed. Fill every race with 80 riders, pay riders, provide press coverage, fill the Internet with interesting stories from riders, photos and videos.  But I try hard.

Perhaps if we work together, people won’t need to say things like that to me and save my blood boiling quite so often.

Michael Zijlaard has run his team in great style and has constantly raised the game for others. Their imposing tour bus casts shadows on lesser outfits in the tiny parking areas at women’s races.  Their steely-faced mechanics professionally ensure no speck of dust remains on the bikes before their star-studded lineup of riders challenge over every kind of terrain.  It looks like an embarrassment of riches that highlights the skills of Zijlaard as a business man as well as team manager.  It’s because of this the alarm bells chime loud and clear when people like him have issues gaining and retaining sponsors.

But perhaps it raises an important question about the structure of women’s teams.  Do they focus too much on the ‘front end’ of the team?  Are we too focused on squeezing as many result-scoring riders into the lineup, rather than adding behind-the-scenes stars that can schmooze potential sponsors and provide the VIP experience to existing partners that make backing a women’s team a no brainer?  Now I’m not suggesting it happened this way with AA Drink; Michael and Leontien (Leontien van Moorsel – Former World and Olympic Champion and original Queen of Dutch Racing) made a formidable partnership by controlling and managing their team and environment with Pro Tour efficiency.  But is this lack of back office focus by a majority of teams the reason so many only get to mediocre levels and then fizzle away?   In recent times, it’s a rare sight to see a Pro Tour team owner/manager behind the driver’s wheel of a team car.  Yes they are there and involved, but they are focused on press, partners and maybe giving an outside-in perspective on their teams’ performances.

My team is a mere morsel compared to AA Drink, but we share the same struggle. Much of our press is self-generated though our website and riders blogging.  Major cycling sites fail to pick up our releases or convey our news and performances, giving us a tough start when it comes to impressing sponsors.  Each year we have a few calm months during the spring classics where our focus is 100% on racing. We can carefully plan our riders’ seasons, their development, and even dream about their futures in this great sport – a sport that is obviously going to turn the corner and then fulfil all of our wildest fantasies.  But as the end of June approaches and we turn up to the national championships, attention has changed. We need results, we need to impress. There is a much bigger focus on the here and now.  A medal, two medals, will it be enough?  A stripey jersey backed up with some solid results in other races, surely that will take the pressure off?  The reality is it won’t, and the tough side of women’s cycling and its harsh financial realities kick in.

From 1^st June my entire focus has been on 2013.  Survival is the key, growth is a privilege.  That struggle bears a great weight on your shoulders.  My success in making this team survive, and the same for Michael, is something that we take seriously, but there comes a point where that pressure is no longer feasible.  I’m sure Michael could have gone public and ‘begged’ for help, but why should he?  Few people have ever done as much for the sport as the Zijlaard van Moorsel family.  They deserve better, they deserve to enjoy their lives and above all they need to be praised for what they have achieved.  Constantly challenging the norm and raising the bar – that respect should also go to AA Drink, who as a company have invested huge amounts of money in a sport that others shy away from – I for one tip my hat to all of them.

I also feel that hope is still there. That legacy of what has been achieved by this outstanding cycling couple quickly appears to allow the riders of the AA Drink team to continue as a unit in the coming season.  Increasing numbers of men’s team are picking up on the potential of women’s cycling and making the informed choice to back the sport. Rumours are rife of new squads backed by men’s teams in the whispering circles in managers’ meetings. In this circumstance I hope ‘the no smoke without fire’ rule of thumb is true.

The sport will go on. It has its super teams, and it has its middle ground.  It has people that care, and people that want to innovate to ensure a great and strong future.  This case is currently under the microscope, but it will soon be under the carpet.  It’s certainly highlighted to me the need for bringing in more help behind the scenes.  Keeping the knowledge of soon-to-retire riders in the sport is very important.  The mere thought of Ina Teutenberg in a managers’ meeting would raise the pulses and bring sweat to the brow of UCI Commissaires around the world.  To get these people driving team cars, leading tactical debates, and commanding the respect of young and developing riders is going to be key by inspiring future stars with their firsthand knowledge. Putting business people behind teams into an office environment and providing real-life return and unique experiences to those that choose to be partners is a priority.

We are close to something great, but the final kilometres are very steep.

All we’ve heard all month (nay, all year) has been:

“Okay, you got me, I doped, nobody loved me in high school, but now I’m hosting the coolest party in town, y’all.”

 

or

“There’s no effing way I was ever gonna dope but that’s why I never went ProTour and one day I’ll recover from the damage that did to my ego.”

 

or

“You’ll never catch me, I was clean and the cancer-fighting Guardian Angel of Texas will prove you all wrong.”

 

Then there are the endless speculations about who we think did dope and who we know didn’t….

This is professional men’s cycling at its classiest, surely. It’s the cool party every self-respecting junior, U23 rider, pro-conti rider, U.S.-based rider and retired rider wants to be at, right?

Hell, you’re only taking a job as mechanic in that shitty Conti team in the vain hope that you might one day fill in for the 3rd mechanic who’s sick from Astana and then you’re PRO TOUR BABY!!

In the midst of all these revelations, this social media gossip and inside knowledge, the oft-adored binge and purge cycle of lies and honesty, and the countless millions of dollars being spent on clearing names and cleaning the sport, we got some actual shitty news.

AA Drink announced it would not be renewing its sponsorship of the women’s team AA Drink-Leontien.nl , a team it had been involved with for nearly a decade.

Since her retirement in 2004, the highly decorated Dutch cyclist, Leontien van Moorsel (nee Zijlaard), had been vigorously involved in running women’s pro teams.

Van Moorsel won World Championships on the road and track, and Olympic gold medals in the road race, time trial, and individual pursuit, and teams under her tutelage had been, unsurprisingly, a very strong presence in the Dutch peloton over the past decade.

More recently though, AA Drink had come to the rescue of a large contingent of the Garmin Cervélo women’s team after Slipstream Sports had not bothered to find the funds to continue their hugely successful women’s program.

You know, no biggie:  teams spend tens of millions of dollars on their men’s programs, and this was one of three big teams that was running a concurrent women’s program for veritable peanuts.

(Figures can be bandied about on the actual budget of many pro women’s teams and of course, numbers vary wildly. But suffice to say, we’re talking less than 1% of the budget of a men’s pro team).

In November, 2011 we got a lame but diplomatic press release from Mr. Vaughters expressing his regret and disappointment.

Suddenly former TT World Champion Emma Pooley; former 3-time AUS road champion Carla Ryan; reigning AUS road champion Alexis Rhodes; GB workhorses Lucy Martin and Sharon Laws; GB road champion Lizzie Armitstead; and Dutch sprinting powerhouse Kirsten Wild – they were all out of a job.

With Slipstream contracted to pay out the second year of many of these riders’ contracts, AA Drink stepped in and signed Pooley, Armitstead, Laws, Martin and Ryan. They were joined by dynamic American sprinter Shelley Olds (from Diadora Pasta Zara). The roster may have been stacked with talent, but it was noticeably crowded.

By May this season, there were plenty of riders who hadn’t pinned on as many race numbers as they’d hoped. Ryan had lamented she was ‘pretty free’ in May/June and considered a stint in the U.S.

Combine that with races being cancelled and an all-important Olympic year, and it was always going to be a challenge catering to the needs of so many of these world-class riders seeking selection.

Therein lies the problem: without a consistent program of races throughout the season, without great prize money or even the chance of regularly racing for your team leader, World Championships and Olympics are the big prize.

Women’s cycling runs on a four-yearly cycle. National coaches are hired and fired every four years, federations fund their programs based on medals won, and riders have one opportunity to perform on a world stage. One chance where all their hard work , sacrifice, effort, talent, skill and determination is demonstrated.

The broader cycling audience, composed of fans, riders, journalists, team staff and administration, all say publicly that they want a level playing field. Yet we obsequiously follow the ridiculous soap opera of scandal, supposed cheating, and high drama of the ‘cool party.’

We crave the dramatic Ricco-style attacks in stage races and get ‘bored’ when pelotons just ramble along at 40km/h for days on end.

Why are we so hard to impress? Does it only take supreme acts of strength and speed for us to get up of the couch and cheer? Is that why male cyclists don’t watch women’s cycling, because they can ride as fast (or faster) as we can?

Perhaps if were able to enjoy the battles for what they are:  human competition, with all its human flaws like fatigue and mistakes and ‘failures,’ then we would value the extraordinary stories and performances that our women cyclists would have to offer.

When Alyson Felix (USA) won the women’s 200m in London, it was an inspired, graceful, and dominant performance. Not one commentator needed to compare her to Usain Bolt and his ‘faster’ time.

Women’s cycling doesn’t need to apologise for being a smaller, slower, less dramatic version of the ProTour. I realise now I was wrong in my ideas a few months back about instilling the help of important men, when they don’t give a crap. We don’t need the scandals, the lies, the drama and the bullshit.

We want to keep all the fabulous committed staff we have, to race the way we do, and show the world how awesome it can be. Every staff member of U.S. and European women’s teams are there because they love it, not because they’re waiting to get a better gig in a ProTour team.

Thankfully, on July 27 this year, we witnessed what was arguably the most exciting, dramatic and challenging one-day race of the season:  the Olympic Women’s Road Race. World number one, Marianne Vos, lived out her dream of winning gold over those tense, waterlogged final kilometres – and more people watched on television than the men’s race the previous day.

Against the backdrop of the biggest global sporting event in the world, sports fans were reminded what it was they love about sport:  the battle itself.

We just made our own party, baby.

Firstly, it’s amazing to have so many people calling for a Team Sky for women.  It shows the sport has backing from fans and followers who all contribute to make the sport great.  These people actually hold the power to take the sport forward, to lift the riders and to show sponsors the value of our sport.  However, as I have alluded to in my previous ramblings, Women’s Cycling is its own animal and this means it has its own special requirements for development.   There are so many calls for a ‘Team Sky’ for women and I always question, “Why?”

Annie Simpson at the National Criterium Championships (photo by Chris Walker)

Firstly, I personally don’t think ‘Sky’ are the people at which these calls of frustration are aimed;  it’s actually either directed at British Cycling or men’s teams in general (to add a women’s team).  BC and Sky get confused a lot, and people have strong opinions on this and their connections, and it’s something I seriously do not want to get involved in; everyone has a right to dislike.  The campaign for a Facebook “dislike” button has as much support as the campaign of “BC don’t back women.”  Not my department.

So, now to my point of why I say “no” to a Sky women’s team.  I need to look at this initially from a commercial point of view and I’ll explain this before I go on.  For women’s cycling to get taken seriously, we need top-level races, high-end media, quality commercial returns, and professionally-run well-structured teams.  This dreamy women’s cycling circus will take the sport forward to new heights. But having World Cup races that are increasing globalised and packed with national teams and mis-matched teams isn’t helping.  Yes, national teams play their part in the development of riders, as they do predominantly with under-23 riders in the men’s side of the sport, but you don’t see them fighting it out any longer in the Tour or Giro.  The sport for men has moved forward and sponsors and the governing body see the value of commercialisation.

So this is one area where women’s cycling needs to mirror the men.  No more national teams in World Cups, and there is even a call for age-limited national teams in higher-end professional races, certainly in line with the regulations for pro teams.  Riding for your national team should be an honour. Something the lucky few get to do.  Getting your national team kit should a proud moment, where you feel nervous and feel expectation to represent your nation.  It’s not a right, it’s a privilege.

So many more commercial teams are needed, that’s clear.  But why do so many people want a sponsor who hasn’t yet seen the commercial value in women’s cycling to back it?  Why do they want a sponsor who maybe hasn’t got the resources to do it correctly to back women’s cycling?  Why do people want under-motivated marketing executives looking at a women’s team as a side project?  I’m not suggesting any of these questions relate to Sky, they relate to general issues about who sponsors women’s cycling.  This is the moment in time we need to take the spotlight for ourselves.  Women’s cycling is a great sport, providing great commercial returns to sponsors who are prepared to be in for the long haul and innovate.

Of course if the head of Sky gave me a call today, I’d be listening.  But I’d want to know that they believed in the sport, that they’d listen to what we have achieved already and how we have done it, and how they see themselves being able to help us.  I think that when Team Sky was put together they had a vision of what was possible in men’s cycling. To be honest it seemed pretty farfetched at the time to me, but they have more than done it. A one-two finish in the Tour is fantastic, and it’s so good to see them talking about how they are going to innovate to try to dominate the sport and back this up.  It’s not just a tick in a box and they’ll move on.  I have a vision for this team, based on knowledge and involvement in the sport for a long time, and I am sure it’s a very different set of goals to Team Sky.  So if we look at a direct comparison, let’s say I target winning the Giro.  The solution right now isn’t too hard really; get money, buy Vos.  Wow, what a fulfilling victory that would be?

I believe the sport needs committed backers to give both riders and the sport a different way of approaching things.  We need to be making this sport bigger and better.  We need to be making it harder for Vos with team structures and development programs that give us tactically well-drilled riders, who understand the sport in tiny details.  We need to be able to back outstanding riders like I have on my team – Annie Simpson and Penny Rowson – to give them the realistic chance of getting to Rio in 2016.  Why should it all be about Vos and Lizzie in Rio?  Let’s make them fight for their places, let’s make their support network bigger, lets add real competition for places.

This sport is on the edge of a boom, but it is fragile in many ways.  Team Sky came into a hugely competitive environment; they innovated and learnt to thrive.  We need to not only take ourselves to the top, but we need to consider how we get there and what extra activities we engage in to do our service to the sport. Race promotion, media advancements, junior teams, sustainability…the list goes on.

We don’t need a super team at the top, bossing things.  We have AA Drink, GreenEdge, HiTech, Rabobank, and Specialized Lululemon who seem to have understood the sport.  We need more teams at this level and the name of the sponsor doesn’t matter.  Just because a women’s team is called Team Sky, it doesn’t mean you’ll have Lizzie and Nicole riding in that team.  We need to give riders a structure they believe will make them better riders.  They need to believe in the process.  They need to be in it for the long haul, the team needs to benefit the sport and provide a truly first-class commercial return, not be a sideshow.

So let’s change our calls – no more “where is Team Sky for Women?” – and start a positive campaign to back women’s cycling.  I believe, and I mean really believe, that a big campaign of support for women’s cycling could be what gets Sky interested in backing a team like Matrix Fitness – Prendas.  I also feel that constant berating of Sky and Team Sky will cause terminal harm to the chance of that ever happening.