This 46 second video from Steve Jobs is a must watch!

“Everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you and you can change it, you can influence it, you can build your own things that other people can use. Once you learn that, you’ll never be the same again.” Steve Jobs

Femme Velo shares Steve Jobs’ vision of the world.

Femme Velo believes that in order for women to be embraced into the culture of cycling globally, the attitude of the women’s cycling peloton needs to change. We need to liberate ourselves from the social norm of sub ordinance and embrace an enlightened consciousness. We need to transcend the separation of egoist conditioning, individually and collectively.

We need to actively stand together to influence change!

*photo courtesy of CJ Farquharson from www.womenscycling.net

Recently I’ve come across a few interviews with fellow woman cyclists talking out about the state of women’s cycling. Don’t get me wrong, I think this is great, however I don’t like the way many are making unrealistic demands. There has been a lot of media activity recently advocating the introduction of minimum wages in women’s cycling. However, I feel this is very premature.

Realistically we can’t be making these kinds of demands from the UCI or anyone else for that matter, if the fundamental problem hasn’t yet been addressed. We need to attract media attention and television coverage to our ever growing and very exciting sport first and foremost!

My question to many woman cyclists out there is, what are you actively doing to improve the state of women’s cycling?

Do you have a webpage? More importantly, are you actively blogging?

Do you have a twitter account and are you tweeting regularly?

Are you active on facebook?

We are living in the twentieth century, where a large percentage of the world’s population is online and this number is growing rapidly. Now more than ever, we have a voice!

Why rely on others to promote our sport, when we could be doing it ourselves at very little expense and effort. Internet marketing and social media is the way of the future and I encourage my fellow women cyclists to embrace this fact and take a stand to promote our beautiful sport.

Already there is a huge increase in exposure of women’s cycling online. There is a great series of You Tube video’s giving the highlights of every stage of the Giro d’Italia Femminile 2011.

People like Sarah Connolly write regular articles on Podium Cafe sharing information about women’s cycling. The UK based team Horizon Fitness has a strong online presence. Photographer CJ Farquharson is at almost all our races and posts great pictures of the racing on her website. Many women cyclists are on twitter actively promoting our sport.

This is great, but I feel that as cyclists ourselves, we need to do more!

In my opinion it is not good enough to have a static website or to do the odd interview with other cycling websites. More woman cyclists need to be actively blogging to educate the general public about women’s cycling and to promote our sport!

Once we have generated a fan base and attracted enough interest to our sport, then we can take the next step to make demands about contracts and salaries to the UCI.

The beauty of women’s cycling is that a huge majority have not only secondary, but tertiary educations as well. Many have come into the sport later in their lives and most have very interesting stories to tell. I encourage women cyclists to share these stories. Let’s make women’s cycling something of it’s own!

Yes, we need to ride off the men’s teams and exposure to some extent, but I truly feel women’s cycling is an untapped market and let’s take advantage of that.

Let’s actively stand for change! As Mahtma Gandhi said: “You must be the change you wish to see in the world.”

Currently I’m busy working on an online campaign to promote women’s cycling via Femme Velo. If anyone is interested in getting involved, please feel free to contact me on ashleigh@femmevelo.com.

Yesterday I did a 4 hour endurance ride along the three lakes; Lago di Varese, Lago di Maggiore and Lago di Lugano in Varese Province, Northern Italy.

This ride also takes you into Switzerland for a while. We cross the border to Switzerland at Ponte Tresa and then return to Italy just before Porto Ceresio. There is something very cool about cycling in two different countries on one training ride!

This is a perfect Sunday ride! The roads are quiet, there are lots of cyclists out on the road and the little lake side villages are bustling with people drinking cafe and eating out!

It is alwasy nice to do an endurance ride along a scenic route. The beautiful scenery makes the time pass by so quickly!

Here are some of the views along the way.

A beautiful view of Laveno Mombello on Lago di Maggiore, Italy

Riding along the beautiful Lago di Lugano

The village of Porto Ceresio on Lago di Lugano

It has recently been brought to my attention that the 2011 Amgen Tour of California might stage a professional women’s individual time trial, where the prize money will be paid based on how many men the top women beat.

When asked what I think of this idea, it got me thinking….

My initial reaction was one of excitement! How cool would it be to see the top women time trial specialists taking on some of the world’s best men? Let’s show them what we made of!

However, when thinking a bit longer on the matter my opinion changed somewhat…..

I feel that women’s cycling is not the same as men’s cycling, not because of superiority/inferiority, but by tribute to the fact that it is a different discipline.

Would a competition of this nature really do anything positive for the sport of women’s cycling?

Would it not just sexualise the sport, where I feel men and women should be treated equally, not based on which sex is the strongest or the fastest, but on merit that each discipline is unique?

In my opinion, whether some of the top women beat the men or not, is not important! Women’s cycling should be supported because it is exciting and entertaining in its own right!

The Ronde van Vlaanderen has been described by Belgium’s as more than a race; it is a sociological phenomenon, a cultural and national event!

On the day of De Ronde, everything comes to a stand still in the Vlaanderen, as millions of Belgians gather on the streetside along route to watch their cycling hero’s pass by up the challenging cobble climbs!

For most professional cyclists, but especially the Belgium’s, this is THE RACE to win! It is one of the biggest classics on the calendar and gets plenty of media coverage and support!

Yesterday, Dutch women and Nederland Bloeit cyclist, Annemiek van Vleuten finished on tops!Here are some post Ronde van Vlaanderen tweets from the women’s peloton:

@sarahduester: 2 km to long…Tour of Flanders but I am happy Annemiek won and Marianne gets 3.

by Sarah Duester, Nederland Bloeit cyclist, she was away in a solo break for much of the race and was caught 2km from the finish!  

@mariannevos: Back home from Flanders; great day for #NederlandBloeit! Tough racing by @sarahduester & strong win of @AvVleuten- also leader in World Cup!

by Marianne Vos, Nederland Bloeit cyclist and former world champion. She finished 3rd on the day!

@martinebras: I proved it again! Cobbles can be done without gloves! Now the day after back to reality! It feels weird that RVV is behind. Up to the next!

by Martine Bras, Dolmans Ladies team.

@Bridie_OD: I know impatience is a character flaw, but I can’t wait to be skilled, strong, experienced and racing Flanders on the same day! Please?

by Bridie O’Donnell, Australian cycling for Fasso Bortolo team.

@RochelleGilmore: Lotto Honda’s Ludivine Henrion came close, 50km in a 2 person break to be caught in final 10k. 2min gap with 20km + 2 hills to go!

by Rochelle Gilmore, Lotto Honda Ladies team, describing her team mate Ludivine Henrion’s heroic effort on the day!

@emmaprocyclist: 4th – Shit! Now I have to wait another year

by Emma Johansson, Team Hitec Products.

And last but not least……

@AvVleuten: Nagenieten van een super mooie dag! #rvv #waaaahhhh!!

by Annemiek van Vleuten, Nederland Bloeit cyclist and Ronde van Vlaanderen champion for 2011!

Congrats to all who took part and finished this very tough and beautiful race!

Today was a beautiful spring day in Varese province, Italy!

It was a perfect day for some hill repeats up the Sacre Monte climb, just outside Varese city centre.

I am currently doing some specific training for the Fleche Wallone World Cup in Wallone region Belgium on 20 April. This World Cup race is awesome, because it finishes on the top of the Muur de Huy, a 1.3km climb with an average gradient of 13%, but it kicks up to 26% at times.

Today I did 10 minute hill repeats up the Sacre Monte climb. This climb is steep and about 4km long. It is a perfect climb to simulate the Muur de Huy in the Fleche Wallone race!

Apparently many professional males use this climb for training. I read a blog that said Nicolas Roche used this climb in his preparation for the 2010 Fleche Wallone.

I started off my session with a good warm up of 2 hours before hitting the Sacre Monte climb.

This session is particularly valuable to build strength endurance. It is important to try to push above your threshold power zone (L4) and into your VO2 max power zone (L5). Pushing into your VO2 max zone is what makes this session particularly hard, but doing this is valuable as it works to increase your threshold power, VO2 max and strength endurance!

The intervals were hard, but I was lucky to be treated to a beautiful view at the top every time

Some good footage of the 2011 Trofeo Binda Women’s World Cup!

Congratulations to Emma Pooley (Garmin-Cervelo) on her victory!

Trofeo Binda is the first race of eight in the UCI Women’s World Cup series. The Tour of Flanders is the next World Cup and takes place this Sunday 3 April in Flanders, Belgium.

My European cycling season took off to a rather bumpy start, to say the least!  

Yesterday saw the start of the UCI Women’s World Cup series with the 13th Trofeo Binda World Cup race in Cittiglio, Varese, Italy.

The race consisted of a challenging route, with lots of climbing, over a distance of 124km in “home” territory. Varese province is where I base myself whilst in Europe and I know the climbs and roads very well from training. 

This was just up my ally and having come from a training camp in Tuscany the week before, I was feeling super strong and confident. I really felt this race was my opportunity to make a break through in Europe! Unfortunately, this was not meant to be! 

From feeling on top of the world after a recy of the route and major climbs on Friday afternoon, to the bathroom floor all Friday night, feeling like death warmed up, the race had disaster written all over it!

After suffering a terrible stomach bug Friday night, I spent my entire Saturday in bed sleeping and not eating much at all. I woke up on Sunday morning feeling better and managed to eat a good breakfast, so I decided to race. I felt that World Cup’s don’t come around that often and since the race only started at 13:00, I was not willing to give up without a fight. However, a fight it became quite literally!

As we left the hotel to ride to the start of the race, the weather turned for the worst! After being sunny all day, at 12:00 it started to rain! I should have seen the signs, but I didn’t and continued ahead to the start of the race.

The roads were wet, it was cold and as a result the racing became dangerous. The race started on a flat loop through Luino before hitting the first climb at about 35km. I held a good position near the front of the bunch thinking I would be safest there. 

Alas, at 32km into the race, whilst taking a gradual corner, the girl in front of me slid out and took me down with her. I got up as quickly as I could. Luckily there was not much damage to the bike and no serious injuries, so I got back on my bike to start the chase.

I managed to get back into the convoy quite quickily, only to find that the climb was about to start. As I rejoined the bunch, it had already splintered as a result of the climb. I fought hard, climbing as hard as my body would allow! Too my surprise I managed to rejoin the front split of about 20 girls, 500m from the summit of the first climb. I was relieved and thought I was in with a chance!

As we started to descend I decided to take a bit of a rest near the back of the group. This was obviously not a good decision! Not long after I rejoined the front split I found myself hitting the tar once again. The girl in front of me fell and I had no where to go, but straight into the back of her. This time I did a tumble over the handle bars. I took quite a knock to my head, and as a result it took me a few seconds to make sense of what had happened.

This time my team car was not around to help. Dany, my team manager, hadn’t realised that I had managed to make it back to the front split and had no idea that I had fallen. With some help from the neutral support vehicle, I managed to get back on my bike, but this time I lost too much time on the front split. I found myself on my own and could not believe what was happening?!?! 

Eventually the second group caught me from behind. In the second group I had two team mates, Ludivine Henrion and Tiffany Cromwell. They were very supportive and together we tried to chase back. At one stage, when the gap came down to about 30 seconds, it seemed possible! I had a flicker of hope, but unfortunately the climb just wasn’t long enough to make contact with the front split.

With 40km to go, my race was over! The gap grew too big on the descent with HTC-Highroad chasing Emma Pooley who was off the front. With no co-operation in the bunch too chase, I decided to take the rest of the race as a training ride!

I finished my first World Cup for 2011 feeling very disappointed! Despite my will to succeed irrespective of the circumstances, good fortune was not on my side! The Trofeo Binda World Cup was not meant to be!

Although I am incredibly disappointed, at least I know that it is only the beginning of the season and there is still lots of racing to come!

As I’ve said before, it takes many wrongs to get it right, but once you get it right once, you’ll get it right always!

In my training blogs, I often refer to threshold power.

Some might be asking, what is threshold power, why is it important and how do I measure it?

Your functional threshold power (FTP) is the exercise intensity at which lactate begins to accumulate in your blood, otherwise known as your lactic threshold (LT).

FTP is important, as it is a powerful predictor of your endurance performance ability.

Knowing your FTP is not only important to predict your endurance performance ability, but it is also a very important training tool, specifically useful in interval training.

If you know you FTP, you can determine your power levels, which can then be used to determine the power you should be holding in specific interval sessions or during regular training rides.

Power levels:

• L1 – Active recovery (0% – 55.6% of FTP)
• L2 – Endurance (56% – 75.6% of FTP)
• L3 – Tempo (76% – 90.8% of FTP)
• L4 – Threshold (91.2% to 105.6% of FTP)
• L5 – VO2 max (106% to 120.8% of FTP)
• L6 – Anaerobic capacity (121.2% of FTP and above)

There are numerous methods of measuring FTP, ranging from lab tests to specific training tests.

However, the most direct estimate of your FTP will be obtained by simply doing a 1 hour time trial. Your average power for this hour effort is then your FTP.

As it is generally quite hard for the average person to pace themselves well over a 1 hour of hard effort, the most common method of determining your FTP is to do a full out 2o minute time trial. This time trial can be performed on any terrain, however a 20min climb is advised as it is easier to hold high power while climbing.

The average power over the 20 minute effort is then multiplied by a factor of 0.95 to more accurately predict your FTP.

This sounds very technical, but mastering it is well worth the effort. The benefits of specific power training definitely outweighs the effort.

A quick look at the progress of Women’s Cycling since Road cycling started as an organized sport in 1868.

1888 – Women join bi(cycling) clubs in Chicago

1892 – The journal “Physical Education” (a publication of the YMCA) devoted an issue to women, saying that women need physical strength and endurance and dismiss the popular idea that women are too weak to exercise

11893 – 1900 – The “Golden Age of the Bicycle” saw many improvements to the modern day bicycle. A side effect was more common-sense cycling clothing for women.

1894 – Anne “Londonderry” Kopchovsky, 23, sets out to become the first woman to bicycle around the world, a journey that lasted 15 months and earned her $5000 along the way

1895 – Mrs Frank Sittig exhibits her new duplex riding skirts which the New York Times judges to be “An ideal suit for cycling, to which even the most prudish could not object.”

1896 – Women are buying 25 – 30 % of all new bicycles

1896 – The first women’s 6 day bicycle race starts in Madison Square Gardens, New York City

A giant leap for women cyclists……….

1958 – Women are admitted to the international cycling championships.

1974 – The first issue of Women’s Sports magazine is published.

1984 – Connie Carpenter wins the first women’s cycling event in Olympic history at the Los Angeles Games.

1984 – Grande Boucle or Women’s Tour De France also known as the Tour De Feminin started

1988 – Giro d’Italia Femminile started

1990 – Juli Furtado wins the world mountain bike cross-country championship.

1192 – Juli Furtado wins the world downhill championships

1992 – Velo News names Juli Furtado Cyclist of the Year, making her the first woman to earn that honor. At her retirement in 1997, she was a two-time world champion, three-time World Cup champion and five time national champion in mountain biking .

1994 – The first UCI women’s rankings actually started with Monica Valvik-Valen leading the final rankings under what was at the time called UCI World Classments, or UCI World Challenge. Today they are simply known as UCI World Rankings, and the UCI World Cup Rankings.

1998 – The first Women’s World Cup started

1999 – The first UCI women’s trade teams were formed

………but maybe not big enough.

Today while earnings pale in comparison to the men’s salaries, things have improved a lot in the last five years. The Top women of the world today can earn as much as 100000 euro a year. Good salaries start around 36000 euro a year, and that’s not bad at all, but some are getting as little as 10000 euro a year, or nothing at all.

Women are equally as fun to watch as the men, even more since they are underdogs of the sport. The men enjoy the best sponsors and pay worldwide, as well as many more races to compete in, however women suffer and bleed, cry, laugh and rejoice just as much as the men do!

Women’s racing is no longer a social event, but a real serious business where the lungs are bursting and legs are burning. It’s no longer the case where they circle lap after lap chatting like friends out on a social ride. That might of been the case so many years ago at some races, but today’s top women are 100% serious about what they do.

It’s all a science now, and on the cutting edge.