Lizzie Deignan left with blood stained handlebars after brutal first edition of Paris-Roubaix Femmes

sparrowlegs wrote:

Sounds to me like there's a valid argument to keep the womens races to a shorter format. Hopefully the excitement will attract more sponsors and support. 

I don't think it really matters what the arguments are out here. If the riders want it the way it is, leave it the way it is, if they want the distances/times to be more like the men's races then the change needs to happen.

Equality is about treating men and women equally and giving them equal power and opportunity in the situation, not just making everything exactly the same for both (that is equivalence not equality). 

Markus_k wrote:

Would be cool if there was something invented, that would be able to protect ones hands during a ride. Maybe something like a shoe or a sock, but for the hands?

As Magnus said on the commentary, some people's hands will bleed with or without gloves. I've stopped wearing gloves off road because I find the chafing of the material under constant vibration more likely to raise blisters, especially when wet. LD is just a little bit experienced, I'm sure if gloves would have prevented the bleeding she would have worn them, she obviously knew they wouldn't.

all the time, but they have to fight to get the races, fight to get the races shown live on tv, fight to get the fair rewards for racing it, fight to get the sponsors, fight to be taken seriously sometimes, distances are just another on the list of things that need to be tackled at some point.

the women are absolutely capable of riding the longer distances, but you have to bear in mind the teams and riders are setup for the races weve got now. Lizzies team has only 14 riders, its half the size of the mens team, if you suddenly doubled the length of races alot of teams would struggle to support them with the numbers to make it good racing, I mean you have teams below WWT level who cant even afford to pay riders a minimum wage even now and its just an expenses only race for the passion, train in your own time set up, telling those teams theyd need to expand their rosters and get those riders to train more for nothing just wouldnt work imo.

Such a shame. They are kind of stuck between a rock and hard place really? I suppose with extra exposure then hopefully extra money will enter the womens scene and then they can increase the prize money as well as the distances and hopefully get equality with the men.

This is all part of cycling as a whole really. As a business/sports model it's massively flawed as you can't charge people to watch it so you're basically relying on sponsorship or a rich person who's a cycling fanatic to give you money. Sponsorship on the mens side of things is precarious at best so getting sponsorship for the women is probably 10x harder.

It's still a fledgling sport but from what I've witnessed it's no less than exciting than the mens and things can only get better but it will need a lot more hard work and breaking down barriers. 

I'm sure extra media exposure is all that's needed.

Sponsors want (positive) media exposure, the more they get the more they're willing to pay.

I'd love to see road.cc giving some more coverage to women's racing, that alone could be a big help to the sport in general.

The comment makes no sense to me. They aren't paid to cycle a long way. They are paid to race fast.
Otherwise Mo Farah would get paid a lot more than Eusain Bolt.
No they aren't as fast as the men - yes they are faster than almost all men ever. I think pay should be equal, they suffer the same.

Are you saying the extra 140 km is nothing then if you think they suffer equally ?

Does anyone watch the long parade in Milan San Remo ?  It's only when it gets to the hills that it gets interesting. 

I think a lot of bike races are far too long to be interesting all of the time. 

I think this is a bit of a silly comment. The suffering isn't even in the same ball-park and that is clearly and visibly obvious. The women weren't given the opportunity to ride anything more than a taster of a real Paris- Roubaix and its a big shame.

Equally your comment doesn't make any sense to me. The distances Mo Farah ran were boring to most people, whereas the 100 metres was exciting. It comes down to which one people want to watch the most.

I get what you are saying but if equality is required then equality should be given. If funding/logistics is the only thing holding back the women from riding the same distances then that's fine. I think what you are referring to is equity, which is something different entirely.

Women's cycling has, and always will be, shorter than the men. It is like this in cyclocross and mountain bike as well. While it is true the teams are much smaller, and that is a valid reason, it is not the main reason. The main reason is simply physiological difference, whether people wish to admit it aloud or not. It took just over 6 hours for the men's winning group today. If the women rode the same exact course and conditions, it would be closer to an 8 hour race. Now, I'm not excusing the shameful 3 hour inaugural race the women participated in yesterday, but it's clear they will not be riding the same distances.

In mountain biking, the women ride a shorter distance, but due to the speed differential, actually end up with a very similar overall time as the men.

In cycloross, Ryan Trebon once asked outspoken female rider Ellen Noble why she doesn't fight for equal length races and field size, and her response was very PC: It is clear that some women do not actually want to ride the farther distances. I'm sure there will be other unintended consequences, like lifestyle changes where women are going to be committing more time to training if race distances overall increase.

The bottom line is there needs to be a happy median, and that's something that will take time to find...

I read a comment by one woman racer (not regarding Paris-Roubaix) that of course women are capable of covering the same distances as men, but she liked having shorter, faster races for women as a way to differentiate women's racing from men's.

The women can only race what's in front of them and they do, awesomely.
If they are paid by units of suffering should the rider who finished last be paid most? Pretty sure they suffer more. Or should the women who just won the race across America and the trans Europe be paid more because they suffered for longer, in harder races?
You race what's in front of you and pay should be equal.

Nikolai wrote:

This race was 117km and the mens race is 257km. To say the efforts involved are comparable is false unfortunately, the gulf between them is far larger than it need be.

I can't understand why the Women's race is much less demanding, and may be due to a hidden sexism in the race organisers. Or, they won't go to the logistical effort of organising a race long enough to properly test the female athletes.

In the meantime, to say that the women are racing as hard as the men is a trite falsehood.

Whilst I wish the racing was equal distance, as others have pointed out the commercials of women's cycling are still way behind where they need to be, and this will gradually change at best.

But less distance doesn't mean less hard racing - it's just different. By your measure, is Joss Lowden's hour record worth less because it's shorter still? Is Mark Beaumont the best cyclist there is?

The womens tour of Britain 2021isn't a tour of Britain at all. It is a tour of East Anglia with a trip to the midlands.

I think they should at least be given the opportunity to race through England, Scotland and Wales, not just mainly one county.

They are coming to Essex and the route is embarrassing. There is no way it is a proper challenge to the riders. It's only 95 km on pretty flat roads. It's as if the riders are being told "wouldn't you like a little break after 50km ?"

but these races at the moment, are very much a buyers market rather than a sellers, in that I mean they are invariably designed to give the collection of local sponsors who pay for the race to exist, the biggest bang for their buck, as opposed to the best cycling challenge it represents to the riders

And invariably that means a route that ends in a bunch sprint for the finishes, rather than lone breakaway with epic cycling tactics & cycling hardness to do it, because bunch sprints look more exciting to the majority of onlookers, have more drama, inevitably have crashes, are the things that boost all the media coverage.

so yep they start in a location the sponsors want to promote, and finish somewhere with a higher than average probability of a bunch sprint to the line, and the stuff in between is just about occupying the riders for long enough between the start and finish. In a normal year they might have had enough option to make the routes a bit more interesting, but they seem very much caught this year post covid with barely any sponsorship to talk of, not even a best British rider jersey anymore, and there are no stages that finish in counties they didnt start in.

because the Tour de France is well known to be a complete circumnavigation of France in every edition.

Look the Women's tour just as the mens edition follows the money for its routing, if money was no object Im sure Sweetspot would make every edition of these races a total top ten best cycling routes of the UK style race every year.

But it isnt, because they need money from sponsors to survive & continue as a race, look at the Tour de Yorkshire to see how quickly it can all go wrong, and local councils that are willing to fund hosting stages invariably means the race follows those who are willing to pay for it and isnt a pick the best cycling route kind of race.

This years race is very reminiscent of the first edition, its compact because it means its easier and cheaper to manage, teams like it because there arent massive long transfers between stages, which actually was something this years ToB route some of the pro-conti teams complained about, and its closer to most teams European bases, so its easier for them to commit the resource to travel to.

@Nikolai , 

Without feeling that I'm feeding some one who is being deliberately "troll-like" the first 100+km on the men's race was on flat smooth tarmac and lets face it 100km is a piece of cake for a chubby MaMil let alone pro-riders so that really adds little the epic that is P-R.  It is the brutal cobbled sections that define this race, otherwise it'd be Paris Tours Mk II.  

But I'm sure you knew that and understand the difference of riding on tarmac vs cobbles.

I think you are missing the point that the first 100km+ on roads is merely a softener - it means the riders already have that 100km+ in their legs before they tackle the brutal cobble sectors. Without it you wouldn't have the same fatigue setting in later in the race where the winning selections are made. There is absolutely a point to having that 100km+ on roads to begin with.

I'm a little surprised you can't see the difference between your chubby mamil being easily able to ride 100km, at his pace, then having a shower and telling war stories about how 'epic' his ride was, and pros who will be doing it at around 45km/h BEFORE doing a further 160km with 30 cobbled sectors.

But I'm sure you knew that and understood the difference between a mamil riding 100km and pros riding 260km, so I'm not quite sure what your analogy was trying to demonstrate. The total 260km of Paris Roubaix make it epic. The last 160km make it brutally epic.

By your logic, every Ventoux stage of the Tour should start in Bedoin and end at the summit, because any "chubby MAMIL" could ride the preceding 150kms from Montpelier across the flatlands.