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Mission Statement: In short, Procyclingwomen is mixed bag, progressive hybrid of both historical content, photos and race reports, interviews, etc. The format is not impersonal, but a mix of perspectives as both a fan, writer and reporter in real time events. We also hope to maintain a newsfeed of all road events worldwide. Procyclingwomen has no tracking cookies or hidden scripts, but the robots.txt blocks these spiders. The site generally loads well, navigation is simple and straightforward. There are no ads or gimmicks. This is pure 100 percent content, non profit which works to put a positive yet realistic face on Pro Women's Road Cycling Worldwide.
This site is very much backward compatible as we could possibly make it so much older browsers and computers from 3rd world countries could access this site. The only thing that is not backward compatible would be the occasional embedded youtube video in some articles. Women's resources are so few and scattered that the idea was to get them all in one place as a hitching post, while also adding our own. This site is a gateway of sorts to a thousand points of light.
My grammar, spelling and style of writing and getting my point across in a compelling manner is so-so. I'm not here to compete in the rat race of writing in any number of literary and creative writing styles. I am here to pretty much tell it as it is, or should be told. What I do have is more of a historical background and perspective to add to new current themes. I'm not trying to attract a following based on creative pieces, but just true hardened women's cycling fans who want the facts, and a regular dose of the pro road cycling scene.
In the past, I have had offers to work at CN, Daily Peloton, San Francisco Examiner, and various other smaller news entities out there in the publishing world related to cycling. In the end, I thought my best gig was to continue what I started here, which allows me to write what I want, when I want, as long or short as I want, and in any style I want, no matter if it's strictly non personal, in the first person, or a hybrid mixed viewpoint of a fan/reporter/writer/historian/photojournalist/etc. This allows me to write things in the way I feel best puts a refreshing touch on any such articles.
I'm not too serious about writing styles and formalities and I don't have a degree in English writing either, so my goal is just to write straight-forward fun and interesting articles which hopefully will contain enough facts and details to fill the void for now in women's cycling. In the end, my hope is that solid journalism will return to many such sites and wonderful stories and articles will emerge about the pro women's road scene. When that happens, as I said before, my job will be done, and I can ride into the sunset with a book, glass of tea, and complete my archives.
Cheers!

Here is down and dirty Q&A, FAQ's on this site.
Q: What is this site about?
A: This site is a mixed bag. I started out to do more historical work then field work, but I have since moved more toward field work and working with others to help move the sport forward a bit. I'll still in time hopefully plan to finish the historical work I started out to do. In the future, I would like to continue to do field work, but at a reasonable level or scope. I never intended to dragnet the NRC or UCI scene as that would be extremely expensive but also not productive. I never have believed in quanity, but always quality. Don't bite off too much, and always try to do the best job according to your means.
I don't believe in one big site trying to be the Centre of Cycling, but I do believe in a thousand points of light. With women's pro road cycling, that's what we need is a thousands points of light, where people in their unique part of the world are the best equipped and most familiar with the customs, the language, and the lay of the land to be able to go out and do some great work to share with the rest of the world. Sharing and working together is what will move women's pro road cycling forward because it's a smaller specialty side of cycling that often gets ignored.
As once demonstrated on a old episode of Bonanza, one stick can easily be broken by two hands. However when you put a bundle of sticks together, they cannot be broken. I think if everyone who believes in fairness and would like to move women's cycling forward would put aside their differences and work together to move the sport forward, then there would be better equity between the pro men and women today instead of the men getting all the attention and women getting almost nothing. However, it's not just the press or field workers job either to make things better, the players have to help as well, or it's really all for nothing. Everyone must work together, and if that ever happens, you will see wonderful things happen!
Q: Is this strictly a roadie site?
A: Yes, 99 percent roadie, with a tiny bit of track, but mostly roadie.
Q: Is there any Cross, BMX or Mountain bike stuff on this site?
A: No, Zip, Ziltch, Nada, None. I am a roadie fan strictly, but I don't have the time either for anything else. Also let me make it very clear that I do not believe in the image of the mud races for women, as opposed to high class sports for women like Tennis and Ice Skating. I think road cycling has a clean sexy image for women pros, and I think it's our best bet to build women's pro cycling into a model that could possibly reach the same status as Tennis or Ice Skating.
I don't believe the mud races can do that, and it also reminds me of women in mud wrestling and such gimmicks created for the Boorish crowd. My goals are to raise the level of road racing into a clean respectable sport for women, which Big Media will someday take seriously, and with their colorful bikes and kits, I think this works well for women. It's my personal opinion that women covered in mud from head to toe hurts the image of women's cycling in the press, and could never be taken seriously that way, so this will always be strictly a roadie site. However specializing is always been the in thing, and I have no problems with those who specialize with other sites for the mud races.
Q: Does this site report on any real time live events?
A: No, sites like CN and Velonews do that, but this site is more like a women's hall of fame, it's mostly historical in content, but I do post photos from some California NRC events yearly, as well as some races from Europe through connections there, and several friends who work the Euro circuits. I also have a newsfeed and a photo-video archive. Since women's cycling is so small worldwide, I have chosen to combine the best links for resources worldwide, as well as doing a lot of my own work writing stories, interviews and covering races.
I think it's very important that if I don't have what you are looking for in women's cycling, is to point you to where you can find it. I have always said the sport is so small, we must all work together and not be afraid to point people to the best resources. Nobody is getting rich in this business, but are just trying to do our small part to support it. Like Miracle on 34th street, if Macy's doesn't have it, I'll send you to Gimbles or where I think you can find it! Six of one, half a dozen of another! I absolutely hate the idea of one big corporate site trying to dominate the entire world of cycling. The internet is our strength in that regard!
Q: How many riders will be indexed total?
A: I would like to keep it at most, the top 100 pro women of all times.
Q: When will the palmares be complete on all the riders?
A: I don't know!
Q: Why do some palmares say that X rider won stage 3, when you know it was stage 4 they won?
A: Because its depends on how the palmares or stage results are written. For instance CN uses stage 3a and 3b on some races. Others will write 3b as being stage 4, which then changes all the stage numbers that follow that. Also some call the prologue stage 1, when they write results, but others call the stage after the prologue stage 1. The best thing to do is to match the name of city, place or date to the exact stage you know about or are looking for, which then will correct the order of all the stages for your interests. Bit tricky, but no one follows a standard for writing results in the same fashion. Not a perfect world.
Q: When will the articles be complete?
A: I don't know!
Q: Will you add photos for all the riders?
A: Yes, in time, although some are quite rare, and takes time finding them.
Q: Where do you get your photos?
A: They are mostly ones I took at races, and also a friend donates photos taken at east coast events. Also I have a number of friends in Italy, France, Holland, Belgium and Switzerland who either donate of share photos through a collaboration.
Q: Are photos free?
A: Photos are free to view, but not to use without permission. Photos on loan to this site must require the permission of their respective owners, and not this site. Only the photos that are the property of procyclingwomen.com can be granted to use for a specific reason. If you are a rider of team, please send your requests to us.
Q: Where do you obtain data for your articles, stats, palmares, etc?
A: I have tons of videos I saved from the past of women's races from all over the world, plus tons of cycling mags I subscribed to from all over the world, as well as many rare books on women's cycling, and at least three very good sources for palmares and race results to compare and make sure the palmares and stats are as correct as possible. Stories or the articles are researched from scratch from both observations from races, race videos, race reports, books, and many sources from Italy, France, Holland, Belgium, Australia, USA, and other unique resources, and out of that, I write something as meaningful as possible, and quote sources if needed, but always put things in my own words. Nothing is plagiarized at this site.
Q: Will you be doing interviews with riders?
A: Rarely, they are time consuming, expensive, and not really what this site is mainly about, but I might add some interviews in time. Not the typically kind, but if I do any, they will be well done. I am more interested in getting to the root of the problems with women's cycling and it's possible solutions then just writing fluff interviews or typically race reports. If the former is not addressed, the later hardly makes any difference cause nobody is listening.
Q: Do you use advertising on your site?
A: No, there are no ads or pop-ups to drive you crazy. No chat rooms, no web boards, no confusing navigation, just very clean straight forward database of the great women pros. I also have a nice photo gallery, video, news and photo links to a great many resources, plus the links page contains a huge number of resouces for women cyclists. This is a free non pay site, with nothing to drive you stark raving mad, so enjoy!
Q: Do you have links of other women cycling sites?
A: El tons, probably more then anywhere else, because I want people to know these places and have access to them. Its very important I feel to have these links, many International links for Italy and France as well. Same goes for the video and photo links, but I think the newsfeed is something people enjoy very much since they don't have to hunt down all the tib-bits of women's cycling news scattered all over the internet at hundreds of difference sites that mostly cater to men.
Q: Will you change the colors and splash on your site?
A: I will in time someday give it a new facelift, and new logo, but for now it stays this way, so I can focus on content.
Q: Do this site use scripts, CSS or old html?
A: I use no scripts, no search engines for now, just plain old HTML, mainly because I want people in third world countries that still use old Pentiums and Windows 98, 2000, and older browsers to bring up the pages without any problems, so the site is backwards compatible. That's important to me.
Q: Do you see any bandwidth limitations in the future?
A: No, I use GoDaddy, and I can pretty much handle a lot of traffic. That's why I got on board with a huge hosting company, because I knew the photos would eat up a lot of bandwidth. I won't have to start charging money like Cyclebase did, nor would I even consider it.
Q: Is this a non profit site?
A: Yes, it's totally non profit. I do it for fun, and because I enjoy doing it. I want to advance women's cycling in this regard and provide a historical timeline, and history of the top pro women. I have no desire to profit off of pro women by selling their photos. Any pro women who sees a photo of themselves can use one, but I would like them to drop me a line, telling me that they want one. Some photos are not mine, but belong to my friends used with permissions as we work closely together, and you need to ask them about their photos.
Q: How many people work this site?
A: Many contribute to its success now.
Q: Do you get a lot of traffic at this site?
A: Tons, in the beginning, not much in the first months until it became known, but now hundreds of photos are viewed daily from all over the world.
Q: Is this site stable?
A: It's up 24/7, and very stable running on a Linux Apache server.
Q: Where is the contact for this site?
A: It's listed on the homepage.
Q: Why do you have this site?
A: It's the result and culmination of a cycling hobby I have following for over 30 years now, starting back in the old days when Leontien won the worlds, but I was actually at the first Nevada City race in 1978 for women cause I used to shoot videos as a teenager. Since that time I have been many times including 1995 when Stacey Copper won. I have collected tons of mags, videos, books, data, stats and highlights of the top women pros, so I decided to create a historical site to share with anyone who in interested. Also, no one has really done a good job covering the history and the riders, so I decided to do it. In some small way, I can do my bit to advance their status in the cycling world.
Q: Do you know any pro women personally?
A: Quite a few, both nationally and internationally. While I don't know them on a daily basis, I know and have talked with quite a few over the years, at races, through friends, and through the Internet.
Q: Who are my friends, affiliate sites?
A: Chicabike, Bici Ticino, Cycling Quotient, Ciclismo Femminile, many others.
Q: When will this site end?
A: In 20 years time, if this site is still here, and it's finished, I might turn it over to some sports historical society for women's cycling.
Q: Will you write a book on women's cycling?
A: I hope to write a book about women's cycling someday.

Addendum: Why Only Women?

I used to watch both men and women in the early years. I saw them at Nevada City in person, and watched them race locally for many years. Even back then, the men's races got very little attention here locally. I just remember fans didn't know what to make of it. It was very eerie. I just remember the announcer would say "let's give them a hand", when the winner crossed the line along with the rest of the field, but no one clapped. They just kind of stood there like deer not knowing what to think or how to act.
Things have come a very long way since that time. While things are horrible for women pros compared to what the men get, women's cycling at least is on the map now compared the way fans used to act, things have improved considerably by how fans judge them. However, just like while the cost of living has risen astronomically over a 30 years period while wages have remained flat, womens prize money and salaries have remained flat while the men have prospered way beyond what anyone could of dreamed. Lance making double digits millions in one year, who would of ever dreamed that? On the women's side, even in the best of times, the top womans salary in the sport during the golden years never topped 200k, and you could count on one hand how many got over 150k, so things have not improved but backslid.
Today top women are getting at most 50-75k if that, but the men, in spite of the relentless doping scandals are still getting millions both in prize money, salaries and endorsements. What the hell happened? Well, that's not the subject to go through here, as this is just a facts section, but basically Big Media and the UCI dropped the ball, end of story. On the sponsor end, they won't invest in anything that doesn't return credible numbers, and those impressions only come from solid TV coverage, not toy boxes like Youtube. Internet will never galvanize the kind of exposure big sponsors need, only TV can do that.
So the reason I support women's cycling is because during the Festina Affair, I became aware like most of us that the men's side was full of cheaters. Yeah, we grew up reading books about the doping culture ever since the days of Coppi, even before that but those substances back then did little to help a rider win a race. In fact some hurt them more then helped them. It's questionable how much speed did help or hurt the riders in the long run, take the case of Tommy Simpson. However, what made the jump to light speed that really got our attention was the new advent of steroids which was prior to the ever more effective EPO. Both were still newcomers to the sport, with EPO coming in the late 80's, early 90's. We remember reading about all the Dutchies dropping dead from heart attacks.
That was a game changer. Remember before that riders who won grand tours were the real deal, there were no big game changers like today, which can take an average rider and turn them into superman. This is the reason I left men's cycling after the festina affair. I loved to follow Greg Lemond, and Marco Pantani later on, Indurain and such, but I turned sour in the late 90's and started my push to follow only women's pro cycling because they race mostly clean. Also I found them to be lots of fun, very entertaining, beautiful in lycra, and also I felt compelled to work for their side of the sport because the men were doping and getting paid millions while the women rode clean and got paid nothing. I felt this was so unfair, that I wanted to get involved.
What excites me? Riders excite me. Either by their abilities, or by their flair, spice, panache, or combination of both, or of course their beauty and statue, class, grace on and off the bike. There are so many ways women can be turn heads for the fans. I mean that is what a rider does, is ultimately aspire to turn heads by some form or virtue, and that leads to hopefully the earnings they need and deserve. Unfortunately, the sport has not been forthcoming over the years lacking hugely in prize money and salaries for Pro women.
So I keep pushing it on my end, hoping to keep the fires burning, or at least to make sure the pilot light does not go out. That would be my worse fears. Getting it kick started again might be nearly impossible like trying to oil up the tin man in the Wizard of Oz. I know most of the people who work in women's cycling do it without regard for personal profit and do it to contribute in some small way to keep it marginally afloat. However the combined efforts of so many people I know who have worked hard for women's cycling worldwide has not caught the attention yet of Big Media or the UCI. Like I said before, it seems like they live on another planet.
However that will not stop me at the present from supporting women's cycling, although I cannot keep it up forever. Someday I will also ride off into the sunset. I am not one of those types who will work for a cause until my last dieing breath. The last chapters of my life will be for me, peace and quite, no sports, just God, nature and me. However, I've still got a few rounds left in the chamber and I hope to spend some of them on my work in this field. There are many races I still want to attend someday, especially the World Championships.
However to cut this short, I don't support a doped sport. No, I do not acccept the good ole boys club, cause the new products are huge game changers, and there is far too much doping going on now, and has been for over a decade now with these new products. It's become too commonplace and accepted as part of the secret code of the road. Well, I don't accept these vastly overpaid charlatans, and their over-doped sport. I concur with Redneck from Boulder who said, "Keep those druggies out of my backyard"! I agree totally! I want nothing to do with a sport where top men are paid astronomical amounts to race, and so many of them are dopers. I am all done with men's pro cycling, and have been ever since the Festina affair. That was the last straw for me.
They say if women are paid a lot of money, they will do the same. Well, for one, they need to be given a chance because they deserve that chance. The men got it and failed. But two, I never believed in paying men millions to race a bike anyway, so I don't think it's a good idea to pay women millions either. Money corrupts absolutely every time it seems. Let's pay them decently so they can be respectfully be called "Pros", but let's keep salaries and prize money at reasonable level so it doesn't make people crazy to do anything to get at that money. Problem is today, with millions on the line, they will do almost anything to get at that money, so the sport needs to be overhauled.
So simple enough. When women reach the level of fairness and equity in both the press and in terms of respectable prize money and salaries, then my job will be done. More then anything in the world, I would love my work to become irrelevant. I mean if many top sites for women's cycling appear with solid robust coverage, then that would be great I then can march off into the sunset! I've been doing this the last five years so I can just keep the sport on notice, that women deserve to be treated fairly in this sport, which they are not! Whether doping will ever stop, I don't know, but if women can't get a fair leg up in this sport as pros, then I say let them start their own amateur leagues, and just break away from these corrupt organizations which are holding them down.
They are not making much money anyway as pros, and some are not paid any salaries, so clearly that is a farce. If women can form their own leagues and organizations much like a union, then they can sanction races of their own and use their power collectively to obtain fair and equal prize money. I think it might be the only way, to start from scratch, because like some have said, whatever the UCI and USAC are doing, it's not moving women's cycling forward. The UCI doesn't demand that the Pro Tour carry women's races with solid prize money and salaries for pro women, and their world cup series offers no prize money to the winner, nor the winner of their UCI rankings.
On the USAC side here in the states, they don't seem to recruit or test women out of high school or college like the AIS does. I think they just look at who's good at junior races, and catch talent based on when it pops up. On the NRC series they don't demand that all NRC race promoters carry a women's race, and they don't demand in their rules that all NRC races should provided equal prize money for their women races. They also don't provide coverage on TV for women's NRC series so the sport can grow with new sponsors. I guess what the USAC is good at, is getting the National Team to Europe to race, programs for women to race in Europe, and while that's good, what is the point if we have no riders to send to Europe?
We can't win anything if we don't recruit fresh new young talent from high school and college, and nurture them with a solid program like Australia does with it's AIS. If we did that, then the Euro part of the program would be more successful, but we also need solid home grown UCI teams, and we have none, only one currently. Instead what happens every year is our top riders are piece-mealed out, scooped up by teams in Europe because we not only don't have our own UCI teams but we can't afford to pay them a decent salary. For a country of 300 million people, we should be doing much better.
So for now, the last part of my cycling adventures in my life will be to support women's cycling. Whether or not it's makes much difference, I don't know, but at least I can say I tried. I love cycling, and I love a clean sport that is not corrupted by big money. I love women's cycling if for nothing else, at least they are riding clean mostly now, and they do it for very little pay. Even in the short run, that kind of sacrifice makes what I do worthwhile. My only regrets is I wish I had started covering it much earlier but digital cameras didn't obtain an acceptable level of use until the mid 90's so I timed it just right in a sense, although I am not getting any younger. Also, it's always about time and money, and someday my time will become the overriding factor. In the end, I hope this site will remain for years to come.
Cheers!

Compiled and Edited by Procyclingwomen.com