Make This What You Want
Women are not a novelty
I’m not sure when International Women’s Day (IWD) actually debuted (quick Wikipedia search reveals this has been going on for a long time!), but I only became aware of it when I started working at VeloNews. When I came on board in early 2020, the magazine had been male-run for, well forever, so with my presence came a new opportunity to capitalize on more stories about women and themes like IWD. While I embraced it and am proud of our collective effort to put women’s stories in the spotlight on that day, I always felt conflicted. Of course I wanted more stories about women in the marquee spots on our website and in the magazine. And of course I want more equity and equality in cycling. But, doesn’t the very existence of a holiday celebrating women reduce them to a novelty or a cause, rather than equals?
Two weeks ago I was invited to attend a women’s team camp with Rapha in Santa Barbara, California. I eagerly accepted — I had been laid off, laid up with the flu, and was jonesing to be back on my bike with my journalism cap on. I was curious, too, what the folks at Rapha were up to, putting their dollars into this new sponsorship of 10 off-road female cyclists, with pedigrees as disparate as former downhill world champ to the current Around the World champ.
On a Friday afternoon, we all met up at a gorgeous ranch about 20 miles away from the coast (sorry, sworn to secrecy on actual location), had an amazing lunch of dips and nibbly things prepared by Lentine Alexis, and then set out on a group ride in the late afternoon sunshine. None was the wiser about the actual schedule of events for the weekend - we knew there was a ride each day and that we were camping on the ranch and getting spoiled by Lentine all weekend, but that was about it. As someone who doesn’t love being over-programmed or stereotyped (like, yes I like wine and yoga, but but why do I have to like them at the same time, in Costa Rica or Bali?), I was struck by the open-endedness of the weekend. I think the girls, most of them used to the predictable and often rigid schedules of the race season, were also a bit flummoxed. But everyone went with it, which was quite beautiful to witness.
The only moment when there emerged some resistance to the weekend’s programming was at about 9pm on Friday when we were told to gather in the living room after dinner. All 14 of us - the two photographers and two journalists included - tucked into saggy leather couches in front of a wood-burning fire. Sophie and Christina, both in from London representing Rapha, were bright-eyed as they handed out little slips of paper and pens to everyone. I think that all of us - normally getting ready for bed at that time of night - groaned a bit. Lael even said it - I don’t want to do this! But ‘this’ turned out to be one of the most poignant parts of the weekend.
For the next hour everyone went around the circle, sharing what moment had defined them in cycling, what they hoped for in the season to come, and what they wanted to get rid of (we burned those). Sure, maybe they do stuff like this at yoga and wine retreats in Costa Rica or Bali, but for these women it was a powerful moment of solidarity. United under the Rapha banner but not really on a team in the traditional sense, everyone’s responses to the prompts were unsurprisingly different and unique. Yet taken together, they were the like the threads of the rustic barn blankets we were snuggled under: indispensable parts of a whole.
I wrote about the weekend for Rapha, and the takeaway was that we don’t need traditional teams to foster camaraderie, support, and motivation. If you bring a group of people together who have similar goals, even if their processes - or in this case, disciplines - are very different, they can still form a team. Sometimes people on the team - like Ellen, Sarah, Anna, and Maude - will even compete against one another. More importantly, though, they are each other’s cheerleaders long after the competition is over.
Rapha published my piece on Saturday, March 8 - International Women’s Day. Despite my reservations about the ‘holiday,’ it’s pretty hard not to celebrate, well, women. The truth is that while things are better for us than they were 20, 50, 100 years ago, inequity, inequality, and injustice persist. It’s why Kate is racing for a foundation called She Sends. Why Dominque only wants to shoot women in cycling. Why Rapha brought them all together in the first place.
For me, that sunwashed weekend in the Santa Ynez mountains served as a powerful reminder that women are not a novelty or a cause and should never be treated as such. The folks at Rapha who masterminded the weekend didn’t do that. They didn’t wine and yoga us. In fact, they pretty much sent us off every day with nothing more than a line on a map.
It was fucking brilliant.
And Anna said it best:
“That’s how you elevate women in sport. You just give them the space to do what they want. It’s like, ‘Here’s the route — you go. Make this what you want.’”
