Fortune and misfortune for Marianne Vos at the Women's Tour

This week one of the key events in women's professional cycle racing has been taking place, the OVO Energy Women's Tour. The event, which first started in 2014, has grown over its six-year history, and many professional riders have called out the Women's Tour as one of the top races on the international racing calendar.

The World's best women racers at the Cyclopark

So its good for us as it means we get the top racers gracing our shores for a week. For the first time, one of the stages was held at the Cyclopark, near Gravesend. 

Earlier this year the Cyclopark was the setting for the top cyclocross racers in the country for the National Championships, and on Tuesday it hosted the top women racers in the world.

Racing was fast - at times, in excess of 30 miles per hour. So I guess that for local fast amateur riders they're going to be a little gutted that their Strava QOMs have been annihilated!

The race was won by the most successful women's racer in history, Marianne Vos (CCC-Liv), ahead of Lizzie Deignan (Trek-Segafredo) and Sarah Roy (Mitchelton-Scott).

Although a win for Lizzie would have made a good news story for the home girl, I was so pleased to Marianne Vos's win. This win subsequently put her in the lead in the general classification.

Marianne is such a brilliant racer to watch in action, even down to the smooth slick way she effected her bike change when she got a puncture.

Marianne Vos wins Stage 2 of the Women's Tour (only to crash out on Stage 3)

As someone who has interviewed Marianne Vos several times over the last few years, I think she is such a lovely friendly woman, who is a great ambassador for women's cycling, and who always has time for the fans, and for journalists too!

Sadly, the following day Marianne crashed out of the Women's Tour following a cut to the head after a crashing heavily. The crash looked like the stuff of nightmares - the sort of thing that scares me when I used to be in a peloton.

The riders were in full speed contesting an intermediate sprint near Didcot, Oxfordshire when one of Marianne Vos's lead-out riders, Jeanne Korevaar, lost her handlebars when she went over a pot-hole.

Marianne had no where to go and crashed into a verge, and collided with a post in the process. A domino effect ensued and a massive chunk of the peloton went down, with riders scattered across the width of the road.

At the Stage 2  press conference looking to the rest of the race 

As well as Vos and her two of her team-mates being out of the race there were around 10 other DNF's among them big names like Barbara Guarischi (Virtu Cycling) and Elena Cecchini (Canyon-SRAM). 

Thankfully, Marianne was not badly injured in the crash and just needed stitches for the cuts to her head. However, she says her face looks like she's just been in a boxing match. I also imagine that her morale would have taken more of a hit than the physical wounds as the Women's Tour had been a target race for her, and she probably would have been wanting to go one better than her second place achievement last year.
The crash did put a downer on the event, especially after having had a great time at the Cyclopark the day before. I know crashes are part of cycle racing, but it's still sad to see, particularly when it's the race leader who crashes out. Lisa Brennauer (WNT-ROTOR) the new race leader at the end of the Oxfordshire stage, had mixed emotions and was not especially joyous at taking the leader's jersey in those circumstances.

Wishing all the best and speedy recovery to all the riders and looking forward to seeing them back racing soon.

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Ride London - my favourite biking event

A winning weekend: Podium for the Ride London Classique (Lotte Lepisto, Coryn Rivera, Lisa Brennauer)

So we've just had Prudential Ride London a few weeks ago, and before I even had time to say "Can I get a post-race massage" the ballot opened for the 2018 event, and thousands have already applied for a place!

I must say this is my favourite cycling event. It's a great weekend of biking in London - highly convenient for someone like me who is getting lazier with age, and less willing to travel too far events.

These days I much prefer signing up for events that I can cycle to. This year my ride up to the start of the Ride London 100, at the Olympic Park was straightforward, if a little wet, and really early. (I set off at 4.30 am to make my 6.48 start time.)

I love the ride in as I spot more and more people along the way - leaving from Anerley, then up through Penge, Catford, Lewisham, Greenwich. It's like a snowflake of bikers that gradually grows into a snowball that rolls through the foot tunnel and comes out at the Isle of Dogs. I tend to get a bit hazy about which way to go once I am in East London, but there are no worries as all I need to do is to follow the peloton as it winds its way up through Poplar, Mile End, Hackney and Stratford.

Considering that I'm going to be among 28,000 other cyclists, the start area is always pretty quiet and civilised. You hand your bag into the truck, carry out any last minute bike adjustments with the provided tools and bike pump, then go to the loo. And there's hardly even any queue for that either.

Then we get going to the sound of some motivational music. The MC gives our wave a choice of tunes - either "Walking on Sunshine" or "Mr Blue Sky". It seems that the organisers didn't get the chance to make any last minute changes to their playlist in light of the weather, as the choices are all around sunny days even though the skies are look grey and angry on this July morning! We end up setting off to the sound of the Electric Light Orchestra song, which I guess gives you an idea of the demographic of the riders - not so much MAMILs but MOMILs (much older men in Lycra)! The people in the wave ahead of us had "Start me Up", so I am guessing that must have been full of VOMILs (very old men in Lycra) - albeit folks with a decent taste in music!

Then we speed through the empty streets on our day-long odyssey from the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park to the Queen Elizabeth central London residence (aka Buckingham Palace) via South-west London and the Surrey Hills.

My ride, like last year, was largely fun, with people out cheering us on along the roadside, bunting in towns like Dorking, Leatherhead, and Kingston-on-Thames. Also what hadn't changed was how tough it was to climb up Leith Hill, and also how I crawled up Box Hill compared to the other times when I ride that slope.

The feedstation at Westcott is always a great relief, and it was very tempting to stay and sit on one of the deckchairs and watch the giant screen. There was even life-size chess to play as well. But I have to push on, and get back to The Mall in time to interview people and do my journalism work.

All smiles at the finish line

Also, this year, like last year I wore eye-catching kit care of Primal Europe, and I got a lot of cheers from like Go Girl, love the armwarmers etc.

So yes, nothing changes when I do this event, even that cramp in legs that I get as I try and charge down the Mall to the finish line! It's always an enjoyable day out. The only real change for me was that my time was half an hour quicker than last year. Maybe next year I will be a little quicker and cramp free.

My media pass for the weekend

Other things to do on that weekend are the Free Cycle on the Saturday, which is one of the most pleasant 10 miles you can do around Central London as there are lots of bike hub stops with sound systems, refreshments, and different demos of cycling to try out.

Then of course there are the pro races - I usually report on the elite race (The Ride London Classique) for Cycling Weekly or Total Women's Cycling on the Saturday, and then on Sunday I go and say hi to the other journos who are down for the weekend, then hang back to see the end of the men's race (Ride London Classic).

This year I was also able to attend the press conferences for the pro races. The conference for the Classique was held at Imperial College and I was able to grab a few words with two of my favourite pro racers, Marianne Vos and Jolien d'Hoore.

Matt Barbet interviews Michael Matthews

The following day I was in Docklands to see if I could speak to Michael Matthews, who was there along with Elia Viviani. It wasn't quite so easy to speak to them, but it was good to at least introduce myself to the Sunweb Team. It was also nice to catch up with Matt Barbet, Channel 5 news anchorman, and cycling presenter/enthusiast.

The Ride London weekend is always a nice time to be in London. There's a fun carefree, and car-free atmosphere, you can catch up with loads of biking enthusiasts, and something about having traffic-free roads allows you to appreciate the beauty of central London.


I would definitely recommend bringing your bike down for it, even if it's just for the Free Cycle.


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10 soundbites from.....the Aviva Women's Tour

So the Women's Tour has been and gone. I wasn't able to follow the first edition of the race last year, but I managed to follow the different stages this year. Trying to second guess how the race would unfold each day, and who would be the overall winner was pretty exciting, and there was some exciting racing throughout the week. This has become a great event on the women's pro cycling calendar. I caught up with some of the riders and they were very positive about how their week had been.


Stefan Wyman (Director Sportive, Matrix Pro Cycling): "We had a few goals in the race and to be in the feature break was one of them, and to be on the podium either with a stage or a jersey was the key goal for us, so we did it. Elinor [Barker] is an unsung hero, and it is really difficult to transition from the track to the road so it was nice that she had the best British rider jersey for a time. It wasn’t all Laura [Trott] and it took the pressure off Laura. I think they did really well as a team so they should be really happy."



Dame Sarah Storey: "The first four stages were very samey, but the last stage was a lot more interesting. We need to get to a point where we don’t have five bunch sprints. It’s quite exciting potentially for watching, but as riders it’s nice to have another opportunity to put other types of riders up to win a stage. I would have liked to have seen long hilly climbs. They are the races I tend to target. The support we got from the side of the road was absolutely phenomenal, so to the people who supported us, I can’t thank them enough."


Lisa Brennauer (Yellow Jersey): "This is the biggest victory of my career so far. I have really enjoyed the racing here in the UK and it was great to see so many crowds when we were racing."


Melissa Hoskins (Queen of the Mountains): "I came into the QOM competition for a bit of fun and something for the team to do, but then I decided to do everything I could to defend it. It was something unexpected, even for myself. It’s been brilliant racing in England. The crowds have been fantastic.  I was overwhelmed with how many people were so interested in what we are doing. We don’t get that anywhere else in Europe. It’s a nice change to feel important for what you are doing, and inspiring young kids to do cycling."


Helen Wyman: "I have found the week fun, with really safe riding. There’s not been very many crashes. This is fantastic training for the 'cross season. You need to be as fit as you can be to train hard for 'cross. These are just really great base miles."   


Hannah Barnes (Best British Rider/Stage 5 winner): "In America we are one of the biggest teams, but here we are one of the small teams so we wanted to get stuck in and not be afraid to show our face. I’ve been focussing on my climbing this winter and my coach Jenny Gretton has helped me improve a lot this year. I always made sure I was in a good position when going into the bottom of the climb and I was on the right side of the split. In the last stage I just stayed near the front and hoped for it to come down to a sprint. I love following Alexis’s [Ryan] wheel during the race. She’s really nice to follow. I call her the Alexis bubble! The roads are wider in the States. So in terms of positioning you get a bit lazy because you know that in two seconds you can be at the front, whereas here it can take you an hour to get to the front, and less than a minute to drop to the back!"



Rachel Heal (Director Sportive, UnitedHealthcare Procycling): "With Hannah being at home and with the race being local to her she has had a lot of other pressures to deal with so the last couple of days we tried to kind of relax Hannah so she could be able to just focus on bike racing. Hannah has been sprinting really well all week and she had got top 5 a few times so we knew that she was fast enough
to get a win. To put it all together, and to be in the right place and to sprint at the right time, is just fantastic, especially on the last day." 



Sue Barnes (Hannah Barnes's mum): "It was so close, and I didn’t realise Hannah had won until they said so on the tannoy, and I was just jumping up and down. I am very proud of her right now. I work in a stationery shop – Colemans in Arundel. I did a Hannah window in the shop. It’s gone a bit viral on Twitter and the takings have gone up massively this week! I am keeping it there until the end of the National Championships where my other daughter, Alice will be racing too. We all do a bit of cycling but the girls' granddad was a very good time triallist in his day so they must get that from him as well. I have been to all the stages, and Hannah's gran, who is 87,
has been to three of the stages with me. We were at the start, the finish and lots of different parts of he course. It has meant a lot to Hannah to have her family there."


Will Mangar (Race doctor): "I have felt the racing has been faster this year and more flowing and more seamless. There's been a palpable shift in quality and skill level with the ladies' riding this year. It was difficult last year, with the rain. We had so many girls spinning off and there was lots and lots of road rash, This year everyone's been good. What I've noticed is there's less injuries but to be honest, these girls are tough. They are really made of strong stuff and it takes a lot for them to not want to get back on the bike."





Marianne Vos: "The crowd support has been fantastic! It's really cool to see all the schoolkids around and coming out of their schools, supporting, cheering for the riders and cheering for the Tour. You really feel that cycling is really popular in Britain."




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