It’s back! Ella Picks Monday is our effort to share with you the best, most important or most interesting content we stumbled upon over the past week. We’re the first to admit that our attention over the last few days has been squarely on the all-exciting Giro Rosa (more on that below); yet, we’ve still managed to come across lots of other good finds. Our picks for the week include Mara Abbott’s ode to fans, training tips from Lenzerheide XCO World Cup silver medallist Lea Davison and a piece that aims to answer the question “Why don’t more women race?”. Enjoy!
Lisa Brennauer (Velocio-SRAM) is the reigning time trial world champion (and team time trial world champion, too). She spoke with SRAM about what makes her excel at the discipline.
Ella columnist Mara Abbott doubles up as a CyclingNews blogger, and in her latest piece for CyclingNews, she pens an ode to the fans that follow the sport.
My favourite passage:
From grizzled mountain folk to U Penn co-eds and everyone in between, I am incredibly grateful to anyone who shows up to watch bikes whizz by. See, competitive sports fall under the “if a tree falls in the forest” paradox - without witnesses, did you really cross the line first? I think it is a common human desire to feel that we are in some way significant to others, and honestly it can be easy to doubt that we are. I consider myself so lucky to have the fans of the sport to assure me that - even if only as a morning of entertainment - I can be.
With the 10th anniversary of the accident that claimed the life of Amy Gillett fast-approaching, Rob Arnold at RIDE speaks to the five survivors from the awful accident. This week he shares part three of the story – a Q&A with Katie Potocki.
Imogen Smith wrote an opinion piece that explored the question “Why don’t more women race?” over on MarathonMTB. It’s a nuanced issue, which was reflected in the social media discussion that followed the publication of her article.
While Carmen Small is happily settling back into the European peloton with Bigla, just three weeks ago, she was racing with the professional men at the North Start Grand Prix. A VeloNews columnist, Small wrote a journal about the three questions she gets asked most of that experience.
Helen Wyman played an integral role in the introduction of an under 23 women’s category and an increase in prize money for the women’s Cyclocross World Cup recently announced by the UCI. She spoke about the significance of these changes with Total Women’s Cycling.
We caught up with nine times National Cyclocross Champion and member of the UCI Cyclocross Commission, Helen Wyman, to find out what a difference these steps will make.
She told me: “The prize money for the overall World Cup win will be €20,000. The prize for the men’s is €30,000, and last year for women it was just €12,000. That’s fantastic. That’s a significant, life-changing sum of money.”
Helen Scott and Sophie Thornhill, British Parlaympians, feature in this Breeze program promo. The Commonwealth Game gold medallist share what they see as the benefits of the program created to get more women on bikes.
Nine things you should never say to a woman in a bike shop - this cheeky piece about female mechanics from Bike Radar made us laugh and cringe
Lea Davison scored the silver medal at Lenzerheide XCO World Cup this weekend, so we’re going to go out on a limb and suggest that the training tips she shared with Total Women’s Cycling might just be spot-on.
Team pursuit world champion Melissa Hoskins spent her track team camp rest day at the Tour de France on Saturday where she saw her boyfriend Rohan Dennis time trial to victory and into the yellow jersey. Did she watch him race? “I couldn’t watch!” she told SBS in a video interview. Hear what else she said about the momentous occasion here.
Looking for Giro Rosa content? Look no further than Ella. We’ve got your daily race reports, two daily rider diaries and the Rosa Round-up, a collection of links (similar to this one) of Giro Rosa content we’ve found beyond this website.
Pick your poison. Here:
- Giro Rosa race reports: stage two, stage one, prologue
- Lizzie Williams diary: stage two, stage one, prologue
- Tiffany Cromwell diary: stage two, stage one, prologue
- Rosa Round-up: stage one, prologue (stage two still to come!)
- Two-time Giro Rosa winner Mara Abbott Q&A
- Loren Rowney’ s’stay sane’ packing guide for the Giro Rosa
Ella Reads You Don’t Want To Miss
Here a few of my favourite (non-Giro Rosa) stories published on Ella in the last week:
- Treating and preventing saddle sores
- Weekly Wisdom: Life happens and training doesn’t tickle
- Mel Hoskins’ pasties
- Climbing tips for non-climbers
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