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Category Archive: Professional cycling
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Specialized lululemon women’s pro cycling team – raising the bar
Team owner Kristy Scrymgeour
I had the pleasure of meeting the owner of the new Specialized lululemon women’s cycling team yesterday. We enjoyed a cafe visit overlooking the lovely Bronte beach in Sydney’s east. Kristy Scrymgeour was previously the Marketing and Communication Director at the high profile HTC Highroad team that folded last year.
Kristy is quite humble about how she started the new team almost overnight late last year. The timing was quite good for her because she was ready to move on to other things and the team’s demise gave her that push. Interestingly it was the female team members who didn’t want to be separated and approached Kristy for help. They all agreed that it would have to happen quickly so that the women wouldn’t miss out on opportunities with other teams if it didn’t work, so they gave themselves an ambitious deadline of only two weeks.
Kristy approached bike company Specialized because she had an existing relationship with them through HTC Highroad. They agreed almost immediately and suggested she also approach activewear company lululemon. lululemon also agreed really quickly and the base was set. She’s also managed to attract a group of other minor sponsors to the team. Plus some of the support staff from HTC Highroad have also joined the team.
Secret Women Cyclists’ Business
'How to pee' for women from Marijn de Vries
When I first started riding a little over three years ago, many of my non cycling girlfriends would say to me “You must get such a sore backside after riding so far on that little seat”. But the truth is that it wasn’t my bum that was sore but my more vulnerable ‘girl bits’ that really suffered when I first started riding. After three years I’m pleased to say that I rarely get any soreness or pain down there so I assume I’ve just ‘hardened up’ so to speak.
I also noticed that not many women spoke about this problem that plagues so many of us particularly when we start riding, so I thought I’d write a blog about what I’ve learned. There is one exception and that’s a cycling girlfriend of mine who said to me not long after we’d met “Does your fanny hurt from riding?” and of course my answer was a resounding yes or at least sometimes.
In her book Every Woman’s Guide to Cycling: Everything you need to know, Selene Yeager explains that the tender tissue of the vagina (let’s call a spade a spade here) is sitting precariously close to our outsides so can suffer easily from tenderness and once aggravated it will “pipe up pretty loudly”. She recommends high quality, women-specific bike knicks that have a moulded one piece chamois and you don’t wear undies underneath them. She also suggests a women’s specific saddle which is wider to support a women’s pelvis and usually has cut-outs to relieve pressure where it counts.
Specialized supports women’s cycling
The Specialized Women SA team
If you’re a regular reader of this blog then you’ll know by now that I’m a fan of the US bike company Specialized. It’s partly because I really love their products which so far for me includes my bike, shoes, socks and gloves but also because they are great supporters of women’s cycling teams.
Many of you would have probably heard of the European based Specialized Lululemon team which is a spin-off from the ill-fated HTC Highroad team that disbanded last year (a blog post coming on that one soon) but Specialized is also working with women’s cycling in Australia at a lower level of the sport.
This includes a South Australian team called ‘Specialized Women SA’ which is led by one of its team members Liz Phillipou. They are racing a selected schedule over the next year which will include some National Road Series (NRS) races. I saw them race at the Women’s Cup run by Cycling South Australia during the recent Tour Down Under. The team won the opening race with team member Bec Werner and I was lucky enough to meet Bec the next day at the Specialized stand at the Tour Down Under village. If you want to know more about the team you can read a longer article on Cycling Central.
My Tour Down Under experience
There's nothing like crossing the finish line - Bupa Challenge
I’ve just returned home after a great holiday to watch the Tour Down Under (TDU) in South Australia and I thought I’d share some of my experiences with you.
The TDU has become a bit of an annual pilgrimage for Phillip and I because we were visiting for the fifth time in 2012. But like most cycling activities our interest and time spent has grown exponentially in the TDU. Our first in 2008 centred around Phillip’s participation in his first charity ride – the JDRF Ride to Cure Diabetes. We probably watched a stage or two of the TDU but it was really just a sideline to our trip.
This year we fully embraced it and rode around the streets of Adelaide like so many other cyclists and soaked it all up. Our trip was divided into three parts – the JDRF ride which is the subject of the previous blog post, the TDU itself and then a couple of extra nights catching up with some friends.
For the duration of the TDU we stayed in an apartment in Adelaide’s CBD with our good friends Stu & Shiona who are equally keen on all things cycling.
Working together will help raise the profile of women’s cycling
The low profile of women’s cycling has come to fore again in recent days following some rather controversial comments by Chloe Hosking at the start of the Bay Crits racing inVictoria. Calling the head of the UCI ‘a dick’ is probably not the right way to go but I do agree with her sentiment. To her credit she has come out and said her choice of words was not great but she stands by the comments.
Manager of women's team Specialized Lululemon Kristy Scrymgeour
I’m at outsider to this situation and have only recently started following the women’s professional cycling scene so I’m in a unique position to put my hat in the ring on this subject.
I’m a public relations consultant by day and so am not completely ignorant about how you build a profile.
Firstly, it’s a slow process. But I believe that there are many women working behind the scenes who are having an impact. I really like the comments by Australian road cycling coach Donna Rae-Szalinski who says in a report on SBS Cycling Central that women need to work with the system rather than against it. She definitely supports the slow process idea and sees it happening step-by-step.
Kate Bates – the next phase begins
Kate in the NSW IS kit racing at Parramatta last December (note the lovely bike she's riding - same as mine)
One thing I’m beginning to learn as I dabble in the world of professional sport which is something I haven’t really done before is that things can change quickly. A sponsor pulls out unexpectedly, an injury occurs or in Kate Bate’s case an injury reoccurs. I originally spoke to Kate a couple of weeks ago and she told me all about how her focus was on the London Olympics.
So I wrote my blog post and as I sometimes do I sent it to Kate to fact check to make sure I’d got all the details right. I got a surprising and apologetic email back about 12 hours later to say everything had changed and Kate would be announcing her retirement the next day. Kate’s a very humble and kind women and she was actually apologising to me that she’d messed up my story. But never mind, I’ve salvaged it with a new angle. Easy done.
Meet SBS’ Sophie Smith – a woman making her mark in cycling
Sophie with my favourite cyclist at a recent awards night
From the womenwhocycle.com perspective it’s great to see women achieving great things in cycling and it’s also great to see a woman reporting on those achievements. Of course, the talented Sophie Smith has not been recruited by SBS Cycling Central to report on just women’s cycling but her mere presence will help raise the profile of women involved in cycling.
Sophie’s own interest and knowledge of professional cycling has grown exponentially and it certainly wasn’t her ambition straight out of a Monash Uni to land a job at SBS. After graduating she took her first journalism job at the Geelong Advertiser, known locally as ‘The Addy’. She started with news, then sport and gradually increased her cycling coverage until 12 months out from the World Championships, which were held in October 2010 in Geelong, her editor gave her a weekly cycling page to write and produce . It seemed like an ambitious project at the time and put Sophie on a steep learning curve. Up until then most of her stories had been about local talents Leigh Howard and Cadel Evans, who lived locally so readers wanted to know what they were up to.
Greenedge women’s team announcement at last
It was great to see the Greenedge women’s team unveiled today. It will certainly help raise the profile of women’s cycling in Australia and help tell the world that we have many talented women cyclists in Australia.
The team announcement lists Cycling Australia (CA) and the Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) as joint venture partners and in fact the team will be called Greenedge AIS. I can’t help but feel that it’s a bit strange that a government body is involved with a privately owned team. I also think it’s odd that a certain caravan company is so heavily intertwined with both CA and the AIS. I’d love to know the views of others on this one. Am I being overly critical?
I’d also like to join the bandwagon and congratulate Greenedge for receiving their UCI Protour licence. It’s a great step for Australian cycling and I’m sure I will enjoy watching the team make their debut at the Tour Down Under and also cheer them on at the Tour de France in 2012 (that’s of course after I cheer on Cadel and his BMC team). I did however enjoy Rupert Guinness’ article on smh.com.au which cautions us all about getting too excited about a team that has barely begun. Well done Rupert of some balanced journalism.
Rebecca Domange – making a contribution to women’s cycling
Bec Domange (white jersey) racing in the NSW Grand Prix Series in December 2010
I recently met (at least by phone) yet another women who is passionate about cycling – Rebecca Domange. Bec has been racing for just a few years and now wants to pass on what she’s learnt by mentoring other women and even starting her own team in the future.
Melbourne-based Bec Domange took up cycling about five years ago after injuries from running and basketball forced her to find a new sport and form of exercise and in her own words soon became addicted. She joined her local club – Caulfield-Carnegie and started racing E grade against the 10 and 11 year olds (I can definitely relate to this) which she found very frustrating. She soon overtook the youngsters and headed up the grades to mix it with the older guys and within two years was racing B grade.
Great to see a new sponsor supporting women’s cycling
Rochelle Gilmore on SBS Cycling Central
It’s great to see new sponsor bikeexchange.com.au stepping up to support a women’s professional cycling team as reported on SBS Cycling Central. Look out for the team at this weekend’s NSW Grand Prix in Wollongong and Cronulla. Go girls.