Cyclingnews Women's Week: A post-ride recap
An overview of the exclusive interviews, features, tech, and advice that made up Women's Week
You may have noticed by now that each month, we have a dedicated themed week here at Cyclingnews. Some of these are chosen to coincide with a season or trend, such as November's Winter Week or January's Travel Week, but others are chosen based more on the topic itself. Gravel Week, which came in June, is an example of the latter; it doesn't really have a 'season' and we cover it year-round, but it's a subject worth focussing on with lots to discuss. Women's Week was the same.
From March 6 - 12 (conveniently coinciding with International Women's Day on March 8) Cyclingnews welcomed our readers to Women's Week. Throughout the week, we ran a series of exclusive interviews, features, blogs, tech, advice and more.
Of course, Women's Week wasn't - isn't - the only time we cover women's cycling here at Cyclingnews; hopefully that much is a given. We've been dedicated to women's cycling since 1995, we even have a dedicated Women's Cycling homepage. Our tech and racing teams cover women's cycling and the news from the women's peloton with unequalled levels of tenacity and commitment.
But there's no reason why we can't focus on it more than usual, so that's what we did. Scroll down to find just some of the articles that formed part of the week, we hope you enjoy them.
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To kick things off, here's a closer look at Lotte Kopecky's bike, the S-Works Tarmac SL7. The Belgian's season has got off to a flyer, with a win at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad ahead of teammate Lorena Wiebes and 2nd at Strade Bianche behind teammate Demi Vollering, will the 2022 Tour of Flanders winner regain her crown this year?
We also took a look at Zoe Backstedt's bike last week - the junior road world champion shows huge promise in her debut season at WorldTour level, and she's doing it aboard the brand new Cannondale SuperSix Evo 4.
Next up, "you don't start a family to break boundaries," says Lizzie Deignan. We've been speaking to the Paris-Roubaix winner about a variety of topics including motherhood, unexpectedly becoming a role model and her 2023 return to racing.
More tech next, and this time it's the World Champion, Annemiek Van Vleuten's bike at the end of our camera lens.
We photographed this bike at the busy paddock ahead of Omloop Het Nieuwsblad and luckily found a very brief break in the crowds to get our gallery. To prove how popular the Dutchwoman is, within minutes the bike was swarmed with fans taking selfies with it.
We also spent time talking to EF Education-TIBCO-SVB's new Canadian, Alison Jackson, about her Spring Classics aspirations.
Jackson, who has earned a following for making "silly videos" on her social channels, also talks about the pressures of bike racing and how her balance of "silliness and serious" helps to "keep the heart happy."
For anyone new to cycling, it can be a fairly daunting and complex sport, with endless lists of equipment, safety concerns to contend with and all sorts of jargon to decipher. To help, one of our esteemed contributors, Issy Ronald, took a look at some of the common challenges that women face when new to cycling, and provided a heap of tips to overcome them.
Elsewhere, Dan Challis has focussed attentions on Africa. More specifically, 16 of the incredible women cyclists transforming the sport on the continent. These women, hailing from seven different nations, are facing the highest of glass ceilings in their bid for sporting success, and here are each of their stories.
If you came here for buying advice, this next pair of articles are just the ticket. Our experienced tech contributor, Mildred Locke, who has held full time roles at a variety of major cycling publications including here at Cyclingnews, has spent time diving into the world of women's bikes. She previously wrote an excellent feature pondering 'can women ride men's bikes?' and has this week been looking at the best bikes for women.
The first of those was hybrid bikes, the halfway-happies between road and mountain bikes, often with fast tyres, comfortable geometry, and flat handlebars for maximum comfort and control.
Check out her roundup of the best women's hybrid bikes available this year.
Next came electric bikes, the motor-driven pedelecs that boost your pedalling input. Here, she looked at electric road bikes, electric hybrids, and even electric mountain bikes, to cater to everyone's motorised cycling desires.
Check out the best women's electric bikes now.
A question that a lot of women face when getting into cycling is what to do when their period arrives. Luckily, it doesn't have to be arduous, as Mildred says in her detailed 'cycling on your period' explainer. There, she answers whether you can exercise at all (the answer is yes), how menstruation works, how to work with your hormones, and how to troubleshoot common symptoms. There's also some excellent expert insight from pro mountain biking coach Rachael Wight.
Some brands make women's specific helmets, and others don't, but why? Do you actually need a women's helmet at all or is a unisex one just fine? To answer the question, Charlotte Broughton spoke to a neuroscientist.
Read do women need women's specific helmets to find out the answer.
In July 1956, Nancy Neiman Baranet of Detroit rode as the lone American in the eight-day Criterium Cycliste Féminin Lyonaise-Auvergne in hilly central France.
In March 2023, aged 90, she spoke to Cyclingnews to recount her experience. The resulting feature is, quite frankly, a must read.
Finally, a bit of good luck on our part, and some excellent news on Ellen van Dijk's part helps us to wrap up Women's Week with a smile.
“Me and Benjamin are super excited to share the news that we are expecting our first child in September. It has always been our wish to start a family, and so to have this wish come true still feels a bit unreal right now,” explained The current time trial World Champion and UCI Hour Record holder.
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Josh is Associate Editor of Cyclingnews – leading our content on the best bikes, kit and the latest breaking tech stories from the pro peloton. He has been with us since the summer of 2019 and throughout that time he's covered everything from buyer's guides and deals to the latest tech news and reviews.
On the bike, Josh has been riding and racing for over 15 years. He started out racing cross country in his teens back when 26-inch wheels and triple chainsets were still mainstream, but he found favour in road racing in his early 20s, racing at a local and national level for Somerset-based Team Tor 2000. These days he rides indoors for convenience and fitness, and outdoors for fun on road, gravel, 'cross and cross-country bikes, the latter usually with his two dogs in tow.