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Jessica and Angela attended a Women’s Cycling forum last night at Wheel & Sprocket Delafield hosted by Tour of America’s Dairlyand and Bill Koch.

As many of you may know, ToAD has added a Womens 3/4 category for 2010. By doing so they hope to attract more women to the sport so that those who currently participate can race in larger fields, be more competitive and have more fun. And so that sponsors and race venues feel good about the additional time dedicated to the races – closing streets, managing traffic, security, spectators.

The main topic of discussion was about how to introduce more local women to competitive cycling by using what we know (and love) about the sport to help to educate and attract more riders.

Women from all types of athletic backgrounds were in attendance – recreational riders, triatheletes, mountain bikers, roadies, and even a local pro, Kristin Wentworth. We talked about what made riding and competing attractive and addressed some of the things women find intimidating about road racing; the things keeping them away from the sport.

- Fear of crashing; hurting themselves or others
- Unfamiliar with race etiquette or tactics
- Not thinking they’re “good enough” to be competitive; to even try
- No way to get experience before doing your first crit (especially if you live in the Milwaukee area)

The group was enthusiastic about finding ways to organize and promote women-only group rides and race clinics to get others more comfortable with the sport. For instance, Madison seems to have more learn-to-race clinics, but there aren’t many (any) in the Milwaukee area. Creating more opportunities to ride together to help others to learn etiquette and tactics that would make their race experience less intimidating and more enjoyable and build camaraderie among women in the sport.
In coming months ToAD is proposing that a womens-only group be formed (via Facebook, email or other means) so that rides and clinics can be communicated and promoted to women who may be interested.

This should be an exciting year for women’s cycling in Wisconsin.

Photo credit:  Winterbikeleague.com

http://winterbikeleague.com/site/index.php?option=com_frontpage&Itemid=1