It's been a weird week 🫠

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Nov 18, 2022

Hello! Welcome to Women’s Cycling Weekly! 🚴‍♀️

I hope everyone’s had a good week because we’ve had, well, a not-so-good one.

Not much has changed here at WCW Towers™, but our Real Jobs have taken a bit of a turn as many of you probably know about already.

With the turmoil of this week we are even more grateful for the support that WCW has from you, our lovely subscribers, that allows us to keep promoting and writing and talking about and sharing how amazing women’s cycling is every week. So THANK YOU for being here.

A lot of you are here through CyclingTips where this newsletter was hosted for a while which brought a lot of support and where most of my (Amy’s) written work goes nowadays. I will forever be grateful to Caley Fretz for both of these opportunities

It’s also through CT that I was at the inaugural Tour de France Femmes this summer, alongside the wonderful Matt de Neef, who was truly the best colleague to share my first Tour experience with (big agree from Tilds). Matt is a fantastic writer with insane grammatical precision, and also a huge supporter of women’s cycling.

CT’s founder, Wade, left a while ago, of course, but if you are here through the recommendations on his new Substack (thank you, Wade!) then HELLO! I hope you enjoy our little corner of the internet.

There’s not much left to say about this whole debacle that hasn’t already been said by the likes of Iain Treloar and James Huang who are also aboard the now-partially wrecked ship known as HMS CT 🚢🏳️ so I’ll hand over to Tilda.

Mention must also go to gossip-gatherer, siren-emoji-purveyor and now-former (💔) VeloNews EIC Daniel Benson. In the last year, Benson has brought a renewed commitment to women’s cycling to VN, always wanting to cover the sport with depth and respect, including giving me a place to learn the craft and even trusting me with a few opinion pieces (thank u for always taking me seriously DB). He’s one of our faves and we hope he won’t be missing from the cycling world for too long.

Last week we mentioned that this week marks the TWO YEAR anniversary of WCW (🤯) and while I think I made it sound like we would be doing a ✨special edition✨today when I wrote last week’s intro it’s been a WEEK and, anyway, Sunday is the actual anniversary.

SO for next week’s edition we will be answering your questions! So, please pop them in the comments section below or reply to this email, or @ us on socials and ask us LITERALLY ANYTHING you like.

Until then,

Amy x

P.s if you haven’t already tuned in to our podcast then why not start now? For this week’s episode we spoke to Kara Lilly, founder of the Undaunted Project, a mentorship programme for aspiring female racers!

Listen on Spotify

Listen on Apple Podcasts

News 📰

SD Worx have had several bikes stolen in a burglary. The theft is currently being investigated by the police.

Team SD Worx @teamsdworx

Team SD Worx is the victim of a brutal burglary. Please be on the lookout for our TT-bikes, road-bikes and Roubaix-bikes, which has been stolen. Please share this message! Thx a lot for your help!

Jumbo Visma have signed a crop of new talent, picking up 2021 Zwift Academy winner Maud Oudeman, as well as 18-year-olds Nienke Veenhoven and Rosita Reijnhout.
Le Col-Wahoo have taken a blow to their plans for 2023 after one of their title sponsors pulled out, leaving a €400k gap in their planned €1 million budget.
Trek Factory Racing have signed worlds bronze medallist Gwendalyn Gibson to their XC program, where she’ll join the likes of Evie Richards and Jolanda Neff.
Details of the second season of the gravel series the Life Time Grand Prix have been announced. 35 women will race seven rounds in 2023, and a $250,000 prize pot will be shared equally amongst the best men and women at its conclusions.
Despite ongoing uncertainty surrounding the rumoured B&B Hotels women’s squad, team owner Jerome Pineau has said that he has not released the female riders currently signed - which includes Audrey Cordon-Ragot - or told them to look for other teams.
The organisers of the Women’s Tour have inked a four-year deal with the Welsh government to host ‘key stages’ in Wales for the next four editions.

Read 🗞️

Silvia Persico thought she was a Classics specialist, now she wants to win the Tour de France Femmes.
Sarah Gigante on the ups and downs of her first WWT season.
For the tech heads: Chloe Dygert’s Canyon Speedmax track bike.
Five Women’s WorldTour rookies to watch in 2023.
Kasia Niewiadoma on how Canyon-SRAM will race differently to win in 2023.
Imagine being a DS and trying to out-smart your own two daughters. That’s what life will be like for Magnus Bäckstedt as he steps into the car at Canyon-SRAM.
After signing three new teenage talents, who are Jumbo Visma digging at when they said ‘success must be earned not purchased’?
How virtual platforms are changing pro cycling for riders like Neve Bradbury and Ashleigh Moolman Pasio.
Juliette Labous looks ahead to a new year and a new vibe at Team DSM.
A new paper is calling for endofibrosis to be classified as an ‘occupational disease’ for pro cyclists.

Watch 📺

Ella Harris vlogged her way through her final race with Canyon//SRAM at Tour de Romandie

Adventure cyclist extraordinaire, Lael Wilcox, founded the ‘Women’s Rally’ bikepacking events alongside Komoot. This short film documents how the first few got on!