So many races, in fact, that it was a struggle to fit them all on the calendar.
That year witnessed not only the first ever women’s Olympic road race but also the first ever women’s Tour de France, in which the women rode 18 stages of the men’s race on the same day as the men.įor the rest of the decade, women’s stage races flourished around the world: there was the Tour de l’Aude, Tour de la Drôme, Mi-Août Bretonne, Postgiro, Tour of Texas, Vuelta de Bisbee, Giro Donne, Emakumeen Bira, Vuelta a Colombia, Thüringen Rundfahrt. This belief has been doing the rounds for so long that most cycling fans under the age of 40 are quite unaware that women’s cycling did in fact take off, big time, in the summer of 1984.
There’s this idea that women’s cycling is like a plane that’s perennially trying to take off, yet, for one reason or another, never manages to leave the tarmac that despite a lot of noble effort, it will never be as tough, exciting or financially viable as the men’s sport.
