Tour de Egalite

[Flying_Monkey]

Are any posters in the land of reality here?

With all due respect to your professional experience, oldroadman, which as you know I pay a great deal of attention to, if you get 'brickbats', it might be because you start your posts on this subject with lines like this.

I don't know how you imagine anything changes in the world (being a sociologist, it's something I think about a lot), but I can tell you that if we listened to people who said 'that's unrealistic', we'd probably still be a society in which women were unable to vote let alone race bicycles. You might also want to consider, as specific sporting examples, how women's tennis became more popular than men's, and why football is played by more new female players every year than men. And again, with all due respect, I think the originator of this petition, one of the most exciting a talented cyclists in the world, Marianne Vos, may understand a little more about women's racing and what it needs and deserves, than even you. You might even try to think about the strategic purposes of this petition and how it might not be just about the Tour de France. So perhaps you should listen to women rather than telling them what's 'realistic' by the standards of the other 'old road men' who still run global cycling.

 

[oldroadman]

Sorry if my robust style upsets you, but an article on Road.cc 26 July where Guy Elliott of Sweetspot is interviewed says it all. A bolt-on is not the correct option, what is needed are proper stand alone, marketable races by promoters who know what they are about. A major women's race should not be reduced to a side show, which is where it would be if some of the petition supporters ideas were implemented. A read of the article would be instructive for many. I've had a message from a team asking if I can help at the event, and hopefully some others, and will be happy to do so. Fingers crossed it all goes according to the organisers plan, which seems a very sensible one.

 

[deptfordmarmoset]

Sorry if my robust style upsets you, but an article on Road.cc 26 July where Guy Elliott of Sweetspot is interviewed says it all. A bolt-on is not the correct option, what is needed are proper stand alone, marketable races by promoters who know what they are about. A major women's race should not be reduced to a side show, which is where it would be if some of the petition supporters ideas were implemented. A read of the article would be instructive for many. I've had a message from a team asking if I can help at the event, and hopefully some others, and will be happy to do so. Fingers crossed it all goes according to the organisers plan, which seems a very sensible one.

http://road.cc/content/news/89427-w...ills-beans-tv-coverage-prize-money-and-venues

 

[fimm]

I think oldroadman was being sarcastic to the person who suggested that the women should race the men? I was equally blunt to someone who made the same suggestion on another forum - and I'm female...

Could anyone give a rough indication of how much slower elite women are than elite men? I haven't actually tried to find out myself - I think it could be quite difficult as they almost never race over the same courses. Something like 25 mile TT times might give an idea, but I don't know if the elites do something like that very much.

(To emphasise, I am talking about elite athletes here. I know that I can do triathlons and running races faster than some men, but that does not follow up to the elite end of the sport!)

 

[oldroadman]

At elite level quite a percentage. You have to compare apples with apples though. For example, Emma Pooley can possibly climb as well as some of the sprinters for a while, but not as well as the proper climbers, although she is an outstanding climber in women's races. Then there are no women sprinters anywhere near the sheer brute power and speed of the Kittels and Cavendishes of this world. So as I have said, the way forward is when professional promoters can see a value in running stand alone women's races which get onto TV, and it can be done as the plans for 2014 show, but putting women "against" men is pointless and anyone who thinks it through can see that running two races on the same course same day simply overwhelms the logistics.
It might work at the Wobbly Wheelers RR, but when you have to double the large support personnel (which you must do to give proper respect to the athletes) then it simply gets too big. ToB I know has 25+ police motos, about the same NEG, three direction cars, three neutral service, doctor, paramedic motos, ambulance, breakdown trucks, commentators, etc. The only commonality is the routing and finish crews. Even the start "down the route" would need a separate team. Simply getting enough people with the expertise to do all the jobs would be a challenge, and the standard has to be equal.
So, separate race with it's own identity, present and sell it well, and change might just start to happen!

 

[fimm]

Thank you, oldroadman.
That's a good point about the difference between sprinting (sheer power) and climbing (power to weight) as well, which I hadn't thought of.

 

[User169]

Ronde van Vlaanderen runs mens and womens races on the same day.

 

[oldroadman]

Ronde van Vlaanderen runs mens and womens races on the same day.[/quote
Correct, yet I have not seen it on TV, either here or in Belgie, apart from the occaisional finish shot.
As you will know living in Nederland, the way of running races is a little different in Belgie, and has a legal and cultural background which renders the whole thing a more straightforward operation.

 

[deptfordmarmoset]

So, separate race with it's own identity, present and sell it well, and change might just start to happen!

For now, that looks the only way to go. I still think that eventually the logistics of double closures could become not impossible but actually quite rational. That however is still a long way down the road.

 

[The Couch]

Personally I don't know what is possible (now or let's say within 10 years)... but I am hoping it could turn out to be like athletics (or tennis):
Same venues (sex-seperate races) with slightly different timings is - I believe - the best way to get the big public interested (or even just watching) women cycling. (I would think riding a day ahead is easiest to do, but if it's easier a couple of hours ahead.. fine by me)

FYI, like in tennis women play fewer sets, it's probably best to also start with shorter (than 3 weeks) GTs. (this can always be changed the more women cycling becomes professional/popular)

 

[Monsieur Remings]

Done, great petition.

 

[Rob3rt]

I think oldroadman was being sarcastic to the person who suggested that the women should race the men? I was equally blunt to someone who made the same suggestion on another forum - and I'm female...

Could anyone give a rough indication of how much slower elite women are than elite men? I haven't actually tried to find out myself - I think it could be quite difficult as they almost never race over the same courses. Something like 25 mile TT times might give an idea, but I don't know if the elites do something like that very much.

(To emphasise, I am talking about elite athletes here. I know that I can do triathlons and running races faster than some men, but that does not follow up to the elite end of the sport!)

To quote a post of my own re. the speed difference between elite men and women from elsewhere. As compared by considering world record times on the track.

Compare world records for the same disciplines:

Flying 200m
Men: 9.572 seconds
Women: 10.643
Winner: Men by 1.071 seconds

Flying 500m
Men: 24.758 seconds
Women: 29.655 seconds
Winner: Men by 4.897 seconds

Hour record
Men: 49.7 km
Women: 46.065 km
Winner: Men by 3.635 km

It would be good to compare over other disciplines too (just for completeness, but the picture would not change), but men and women tend not to compete over the same distances in other events such as team sprint, team pursuit, individual pursuit etc.

 

[Flying_Monkey]

The 'women in the same race' thing is a red herring. It's not what the petition is asking for and it's not the issue here. That seems to be a misunderstanding by a few people. It's about whether the major races have women's editions. I notice that this is also not uncommon in the USA - the Tour of Elk Grove, going on now, has both men's and women's races.

 

[Rob3rt]

I did not read the petition, I was responding only to what someone else asked. Let's face it, at some point, regardless of the original post, someone was going to ask "why can't the women and men race together?" or something along those lines and the whole thread was going to go off on that tangent. It is an odd query, one I would only really expect from someone who does not watch much, if any, bike racing. Once the question, or topic had been put out there, it was going to run. It usually does and there is usually very little sense in the majority responses, usually you have a load of people arguing from ignorance, a few screaming "sexism", "women can do it just as good if not better" etc and then 1 or 2 people with their heads half screwed on banging their heads up against a wall.

There are certainly a few who refuse to accept the DIFFERENCES between men and women and jump to some absurd conclusion that by separating the events there is a suggestion that women athletes are INFERIOR to the men. If you are going to run with the argument that people are asserting women are inferior to men, there is a lot stronger platforms to argue the case from than the "men and women, in seperate races, wtf, sexism" platform!

Before you ask, yes I forgot my milk when I left for work this morning, dry muesli does great things for ones desire to rant!

 

[Flying_Monkey]

Well, the new Tour of Britain organisers are doing the right thing immediately: there will be a five-day women's Tour of Britain from 2014 with the same prize money as the men's. Now, if Britain, with all its relative lack of cycling culture can do this, explain to us again, those who are opposed, why countries which have a deeper cycling culture, cannot...