Recently in Women Category

Dave Brailsford in a BBC interview says that the Team Sky project is all about inspiring participation.

But I keep on coming back to the same question I asked back at the Worlds in September: where are the women?

It's not like there aren't great squads that could do with a sponsor and come ready formed. Say, for example, Equipe NÜRNBERGER Versicherung who have just folded due to their new sponsor running away at the last moment.

Take a look at some of the riders on their 2009 team roster and factor in that Nicole Cooke was due to ride for them in 2010.

Actually, let's go back to the basics of a team with a British core: Lizzie Armitstead has moved teams this season, along with Sharon Laws, to join Emma Pooley at Cervelo.

Pooley's pretty happy where she is, but if you say the other two were on the market along with Cooke and all the riders in her now defunct Vision 1 Racing team, then it's not hard to assemble a race-winning roster of a dozen or so riders without having to look too hard.

Throw in a good handful of young British riders who could benefit from the development opportunity with 2012 in mind and it's looking pretty progressive.

But given that both Vision 1 and Nurnberger have gone under for want of a sponsor, perhaps women's cycling is still at an awkward chicken/egg stage where it needs a raised profile to attract committed sponsors but can't raise that profile without committed sponsors.

I've spent the last year or so trying to do something about the profile by writing about women's cycling where I can but it's tough to get race information without being at the races, something no one is currently willing to pay me to do.

One solution would be more races organised alongside the higher profile men's ones, like they do at the Tour of Flanders and Amstel Gold. Then there'd be no excuse for journalists not having access and the ability to cover the races.

So what are your thoughts on the lack of a Team Sky women's squad and how women's cycling can raise its profile?

Last week, during the World Championships, Sky News ran the news package below, about the Call For Sexual Equality In Sport, based on the news that the UCI is to insist on parity between men's and women's events at London 2012.

Brendan Gallagher in The Telegraph has a good overview: Read London 2012: Victoria Pendleton to be given chance of triple Olympic cycling gold

Today Lizzie Armitstead signed for Cervelo Test Team for the next two seasons. She's currently the most promising British woman riding and joins Emma Pooley at a team with a good pedigree. As Stage Hopper points out on twitter:

"It was only 4 years or so back that Nicole Cooke was questioned for joining the same team (when they were called Univega ProCycling)"

"Thanks to her efforts they topped the world rankings in both the seasons she was there laying the foundation for the Cervelo we see today."

More's the pity that they couldn't keep Cooke, but it's not like they've gone wanting. A glance at the season's results has them and Columbia-HTC as placing riders in the front group of almost every race of note this season, be it for stages or overall.

I have to say I feel sorry for Nicole Cooke whose season as World and Olympic champion has been more cursed than most.

Setting up Vision 1 Racing was an ambitious project, more so given the lack of a headline sponsor from the outset. But you don't do a unique double like hers without pushing outside your comfort zone and being ambitious in your goals.

It clearly seems to have taken its toll on her racing form which hardly seems surprising now. It can't be easy trying to get a team off the ground with the weight of expectation entirely on your own shoulders?

Increasingly I've been questioning the levels of equality in the British side of the sport, especially given the establishment of Team Sky. Here's what the press release said about its aims:

Team Sky will aim to:

• Create the first British winner of the Tour de France, within five years.


• Inspire people of all ages and abilities to get on their bikes, through the team's positive profile, attitude and success.


• Add further support to competitive cycling in Great Britain.

OK, aim number one is the shoot for the stars headline, but the other two are the meat of what this about, right?

I don't see any support for women's cycle sport in anything announced to date.

Could an Olympic and World Champion not be an inspiration to the roughly 50% of the population who are female? Or the hugely personable Pooley and Armitstead?

Or the countless other young talents who are apparently having to make their own way along the road while their male counterparts can see a clear transition from U23/Espoirs to the seniors, potentially on a British team? where's that path for the women?

I'm not trying to start a fight here, I just think that this is a really important part of the strategy that is missing. And I've yet to hear it properly addressed.

Let's dispatch a few of the obvious get-outs:

No one else is doing it - you mean apart from Columbia-HTC and Cervelo Test Team. British Cycling managed to come up with a deal to run Halfords Bikehut to ensure Nicole Cooke's double in 2008.

There's not the depth of talent there - Italy's women looked pretty deep on talent, likewise The Netherlands and GB isn't short either with Cooke/Pooley/Armitstead. And if you're going to develop the talent, as GB have done, where are they meant to go?

There's seems to be an increasingly long list of British women coming through with serious talent and no English-speaking team to go into. Rosters aren't big, 13 seems about average, and the pool is getting big enough to support another team.

They race a busy calendar but at half the size of the men's team, the costs are lower. Plus economies of scale mean that run in the same setup they can use many of the same resources.

So anyone got any answers, or am I going to have to go out and get them myself?

If you're following the Giro D'Italia then in my opinion there really is one writer who you have to read: Juliet Macur of The New York Times. In our house she's the first report we read when looking for perspective on what's happening.

You can read her work on The New York Times site or subscribe to her RSS feed. She's also on twitter where you can follow her at twitter.com/julietmacur.

What I love is that her style is precise, informative and understated. It's the sort of punchy news style that I struggle to do and which there is not enough of these days.

The other writers I'd recommend are riders.

You can read Freewheeling with Chris Horner on Oregon Live. I'd skip past the bits not written by Chris as they're not the best bit. Horner's view from inside the Astana camp, and of riding alongside Lance Armstrong is packed with the little of nuggets of information that could only come from a rider: the routines, the mood on the road, the expectations and the unity of a team.

Ted King of Cervelo Test Team is one of two riders writing Giro diaries for Velonews.com. King's witty, goofy and suitably informal which makes a nice counterpoint to the more earnest formality of Columbia's Michael Barry. You can read both in the Velonews.com/diaries section. You can also follow Ted on twitter at iamtedking.

One thing that I've just noticed about Ted King's pieces is that they are filed from a blackberry which just shows how times have moved on. It's an idea device for this sort of writing from the field and so portable that it's almost the case that a reporter shouldn't need much more to file copy and pictures.

I'm not writing about my racing this week as it was dispiriting at best. My legs are going before my lungs which isn't the way it usually happens.

Quick note that there's still entries going for the Women's race at the Smithfield Nocturne. The bigger the field the better the race so if you are a woman who races and are even contemplating it, get your name on the start sheet. Sign up now at http://www.nocturneseries.com/smithfield/elitewomen.php

A women's race has been one of the big missing components from the Smithfield Nocturne's first two editions. But in 2009 that is set to change with the announcement of the Women's Elite Criterium in the programme.

Having recently started writing about that side of the sport I think it's fair to say that its omission was as much a reflection of the likely numbers as anything. A couple of years ago you would perhaps have been pushed to get a decent sized field.

This year, from what I've seen, there should be more than enough competitive women in London and the South East to make up the required numbers. My understanding is that they need 30 entries for it to take place. It says E123, which might miss out a huge swathe of women who are just coming into the sport this season as 4th Cats, but if you've got the points, make it a date.

Here's what the course looks like

And here's my top reasons why you should sign up to ride it:

1. It is the most fantastic atmosphere to ride in. Having ridden the folding bike and Press/All-Star races the last two years I can safely say that there a few occasions when a lumper like me gets to feel like a pro and hear the massive roar of people packed in all round the course.

2. It's a fantastic course to ride. It may not look much on paper but the bottom corners on Snow Hill are fast and the sort of thing that gives you butterflies. In fact all the corners are exciting to ride and it's so fast that you are buzzing all the way round, totally ignoring how much it hurts to be riding that fast.

3. You owe it to yourself to ride. Charlie Easton has been a big agitator for getting it to happen and credit to James Pope at Face Partnership for responding in the right way to the criticisms about the lack of a women's race. It's now up to you to make sure it happens.

So if you know a woman who races and holds an E123 licence, then sign up. The price tag is, in my opinion, a good reflection of what it costs to make races like this happen. It's also a good reflection of how good racing at Smithfield is.

I might not get the chance to show my lack of speed this year but if it means that women's racing has a place at this high profile event, then I'm more than happy to cede my place on the circuit.

So make sure you sign up for the Women's Elite Criterium at the Smithfield Nocturne