The most bizarre thing happened on my ride this past Sunday and I’ve got a great video to go with the story thanks to my friend Howard Brown. I was doing what I do most Sundays and enjoying a bunch ride on Sunday morning around Homebush with the guys from my bike club LACC. For those who know the area we had come along Hill Road and turned left into Pondage Link and I was on the front. The next thing I heard and felt this soft thud which I later realised was a low flying black bird with really
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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. 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
Read moreCycling changed my life
When I first made this bold claim about six months ago (fittingly at the post-ride café stop) I thought I could be exaggerating a little but it sounded good. I’ve since decided that it’s not so bold after all and completely sums up how I feel about the pastime of cycling for me. A wonderful benefit of writing this blog is that it leads me to meet some wonderful women (most of the time only via email and phone) and hear how cycling has had an impact on their lives. Pro cyclist Bridie O’Donnell told me that she sees cycling
Read moreSanta’s on his way – last minute gift ideas
I know a lot of men leave their Christmas shopping to the last minute. I’ve had first hand experience of this for the last 20 years so to help you guys out here’s a few tips for last minute Christmas gift ideas for the female riders in your life. Gloves All road girls like proper road cycling gloves that are made for women’s smaller hands. My favourites are Specialized BG Gel women’s gloves (size small for me in case any of my family or friends are reading this). You can buy them at Specialized dealers like Ashfield Cycles or Northside
Read moreKate Bates – the next phase begins
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
Read moreMeet SBS’ Sophie Smith – a woman making her mark in cycling
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
Read moreGreenedge 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
Read moreNicola a woman who cycles
I’m honoured to have been interviewed by fellow blogger Niamh Griffin. Niamh is Irish and has a fantastic blog called ‘Inspiring Sports Women’ and she’s just posted an interview with me. Check out the interview and Niamh’s great blog.
Read moreWhat type of bike for me?
I hope you don’t think from reading this blog on a regular basis that I’m an elitist road bike snob because although I’m a very keen road-biker I’m also keen to get women to ride bikes of any type. I ultimately believe if they catch the bug they’ll end up on a road bike, but really any riding is good in my view. Last weekend I did a few laps around the block on my sister’s new comfort style bike. It was sort of fun rolling along with my seven year old nephew in tow and his father right behind
Read moreRebecca Domange – making a contribution to women’s cycling
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
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