Chloe Hosking was unable to return to the Women’s WorldTour for a 14th year of top-level road racing in 2023, instead she refocused on a more diverse schedule of racing, building her own bike brand and making her voice loud as an advocate for women’s cycling.
The Australian sprinter took to social media and her personal blog earlier in December to express displeasure with precedents set for pro cyclists’ salaries, safety and data protection when the men's Cyclistes Professionnels Associés rider association agreed to a new Joint Agreement with the International Association of Professional Cycling Teams (AIGCP).
Hosking called the agreement a “missed opportunity for riders” and explained why.
The president of the CPA, Adam Hansen, responded on X , formerly Twitter, to say her blog post was a “nice article”, but pointed out a few details related to the women’s peloton and where solutions could be found.
Hansen added: “You have my number. Call me and we can work together to move forwards”.
“The sad thing is, I reached out to many women teams and gave them flyers to pass on to their teammates to contact us so we can create the women's joint agreement together. Unfortunately, we did not get a single response,” Hansen said in his long response.
Hosking, who is completing advanced studies to earn a law degree, spent 13 seasons as a pro on several UCI Continental and top-tier teams,before making an abrupt change to pursue racing ambitions in 2023 with her own team.
Her pro contract for 2023-2024 “evaporated into thin air” when the B&B Hotels squad collapsed.
In January of this season, the veteran sprinter rode to third overall in Bay Crits and fourth in the criterium nationals in Ballarat, but did not ride for a major team.
She then joined UniSA-Australia, a domestic team sponsored by the University of South Australia, to compete at the WorldTour’s Cadel Evan Great Ocean Road Race, an event she won in 2018. But there was no continuation with a steady paycheck from a big team on the horizon.
“I have had some conversations with teams and contract offers which I have said no to," said Hosking in January.
"I think I have been pretty vocal about women deserving a minimum salary and not having to race for less and I think my career also warrants a salary that is not just me scraping by on the poverty line. I don’t know why I should have to settle for anything less."
Hosking created her own team, Hosking Bikes, so she could continue racing, and became vocal about the rights of athletes, especially in the women’s peloton. In particular, she was concerned about the CPA agreeing to a lower minimum wage for riders, which she called ‘salary stagnation’ and omissions to help athletes protect their data, privacy and personal brands.
“Riders, especially those hovering around the minimum wage, women, and those early in their career, should critically examine the agreement,” she wrote on her blog.
“Riders should ask, does this agreement represent fair wage growth? Do I get a piece of cycling's growing financial pie? And, why, in the aftermath of Gino Mader's tragic passing, are there no new safety measures to safeguard my well-being?
“As a group, riders have the power to take this agreement back to the drawing board and ask for a CBA [collective bargaining agreement] that appropriately protects their rights, interests and importantly safety - both short and long term - as professional athletes.”
Hansen addressed a few of these questions in his social media reply, noting: “I was at Paris Roubaix for women, stating to the women that we want the women to also have a joint agreement. I expressed I want them to be involved and we get ahead and start on this topic. Because if we don't, the UCI will, and then it's us fighting against them, and we would be on a back end playing catch up”
This summer in the USA, Hosking returned to criterium racing at the week-long Tour of America’s Dairyland series, where she took a victory at a stop in Milwaukee, Wisconsin with support from an Australian-based team. A US road trip allowed her race local crits in Utah, with two top 25s. She also competed at FNLD GRVL in Europe.
It appeared that Hosking would continue to mix interests in 2024 in the same way, creating affordable racing and multi-surface bicycles and racing them around the world. But her ‘journey of change’ was also headed toward the business side of cycling with sports law.
