I know precious little about college basketball. Or basketball in general. I wasn’t entirely sure what March Madness was until I was sitting at the bar in a dive with a friend who explained the broad strokes about the two teams we were watching on the big screen in front of us. Their strategies, the trademarks of their playing, their stories, who he thought would win, who had historically always won.
He said the women’s tournament had been more exciting than the men’s this year. He had some thoughtful explanations as to why.
It all reminded me of what’s happening in women’s pro cycling right now. People are finally figuring out how good it is.
A few hours after Mathieu van der Poel destroyed Paris-Roubaix this year, Bicycling contributing writer Whit Yost and I were bullshitting over text about bike racing in general and this edition of Roubaix in particular.
“My hot takes: This has been another instance of the women’s race being more exciting than the men’s. And Lidl-Trek is bringing it this season and is going to make SD Worx work hard for the money,” I wrote. “Was just saying the same thing to a friend. Men’s cycling is boring. Dominance isn’t fun to watch—at least not in this manner. Like, I don’t even wanna watch anymore,” he responded.
“Which was the exact criticism being thrown at women’s pro cycling circa 2021—that it was just all long solo breakaways with a field that couldn’t respond. That it was boring,” I replied. “And it’s the opposite now in just a few short years.”
In its four-year existence, the Paris-Roubaix Femmes race is an encapsulated parallel to the explosive progress of the sport of women’s pro cycling itself during that same span of time.
2021: The first-ever edition of Paris- Roubaix Femmes—the first women’s edition of a race that men have raced for 121 years. Lizzie Deignan dropped the hammer and took off, and the field didn’t yet possess the depth needed to properly give chase, let alone reel her in. She soloed to the historic win, covered in mud. She wept, and so did everyone else. (Critics called the race boring to watch.)
2022: Disqualification drama and a breakaway of favorites that the peloton caught and reabsorbed. Elisa Longo Borghini counterattacked on the Templeuve sector of Pavé, and despite a strong chase group in pursuit, was able to hold her gap and solo to the win.
(Critics called the race less boring to watch than 2021’s.)
2023: Strong group breakaway, legendary sprint finish in the velodrome, a surprise victory of a dark horse named Alison Jackson, who also happens to be a fabulous, contagiously welcoming ambassador for the sport.
(Nobody can criticize Alison Jackson; it’s just not possible. And nobody did.)
Incidentally, this was also the season women’s cycling got her Goliath in the form of her first bona fide super team, SD Worx.
2024: World champion Lotte Kopecky won Roubaix while wearing the rainbow bands. The first woman to ever do so. (MVDP achieved the same feat the following day. Guess who got more press? But I digress.) Kopecky is showing the world that she is one of the champions of her generation.
Another harbinger of the maturation of women’s pro cycling as a whole is just how much aggressive racing Lidl-Trek brought to the Paris-Roubaix Femmes party. Lidl-Trek rider Ellen van Dijk stretched the rubberband again and again and again and then once more, trying to exhaust the chase group.
Van Dijk knew the peloton would chase because they could chase—there is enough strength in the field now, and she is too strong a rider to let get up the road even a little bit. The five-time world champion, who has just returned to racing six months after giving birth, continued the measured onslaughts until she delivered her team captain, Elisa Balsamo, to her final sprint in the historic Roubaix velodrome.
Then, in the blink of an eye, there were four. The battle of four to the line between Elisa Balsamo, Marianne Vos, Pfeiffer Georgi, and Lotte Kopecky left absolutely no doubt that we were witnessing the prowess of some of the best athletes in the world. It was the stunning finale to an exciting race.
This time is really just the beginning. Women’s professional cycling, in many ways still in its infancy, is entering its first prime. Not the only prime—there will undoubtedly be more—but now, right now, it’s in the midst of an iconic era. What we’re witnessing is history in the making.
History in the making in professional sports, especially pro cycling, is incredibly rare. And it’s happening before our eyes.
So, don’t miss it. Watch women’s professional cycling. Watch the Femmes. Watch them with your daughters. With your sisters. With your moms. Watch them make history. We will never have this moment again.
