-
1 week ago | 
escapecollective.com | Abby Mickey
The 11th edition of La Vuelta Femenina by Carrefour.es kicked off in Barcelona on Sunday with Lidl-Trek taking top honours and Ellen van Dijk taking the first red jersey of the week. The American team finished the 8.1 km TTT three seconds ahead of SD Worx-Protime and Liv AlUla Jayco, who finished second and third, respectively. Demi Vollering, the 2024 Vuelta winner, lost six seconds to Lidl-Trek's leaders Riejanne Markus and Niamh Fisher-Black with the French team finishing fourth on the day.
-
2 months ago | 
escapecollective.com | Abby Mickey
All the best climbers in women's cycling couldn't get to the line faster than Elisa Balsamo at Trofeo Alfredo Binda on Sunday. The Lidl-Trek rider was invisible for the entirety of the race, only coming out of the woodwork to sprint to victory ahead of Blanka Vas (SD Worx-Protime) and Cat Ferguson (Movistar).
-
Feb 6, 2025 | 
escapecollective.com | Abby Mickey
The numbers don't lie - women's cycling is on the rise. Viewing figures for races like the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift and Paris-Roubaix Femmes avec Zwift prove that the appetite is there, as does Nike's recent involvement in FDJ-Suez. It's not just cycling that is experiencing this surge in attention.
-
Jan 21, 2025 | 
escapecollective.com | Abby Mickey
For riders in women's WorldTeams and ProTeams, salaries are the highest they've ever been. Athletes are finally able to make a real living from riding their bikes while contracted for one of the top teams in the sport. But for the Continental teams, the grass isn't quite as green. The 2024 season saw multiple long-standing Continental teams fold, including DNA Cycling in the United States and Lifeplus-Wahoo in the United Kingdom.
-
Jan 21, 2025 | 
escapecollective.com | Abby Mickey
G'day (yep, we're still in Australia, at least mentally), and thank you for opening this week's Wheel Talk Newsletter. Tour Down Under delivered three spectacular days of racing, and Matt de Neef was on the ground to cover it all. Coming up this weekend, we've got a new UCI race before the peloton jumps on a plane to fly to Melbourne for the next WWT event. A note: Pretty soon, I will be on maternity leave, and during this time, the newsletter will be taking a four-week break.
-
Jan 14, 2025 | 
escapecollective.com | Abby Mickey
G'day and thank you for opening this week's Wheel Talk Newsletter! The Australian National Championships are done, and we have two new elite national champions to congratulate.
-
Jan 7, 2025 | 
escapecollective.com | Abby Mickey
G'day and Happy New Year! It's Aussie Nationals week which means the Tour Down Under is right around the corner, which means the 2025 season is (almost) upon us. Before we know it we'll be deep in Holy Week all amped up on the cobbled Classics and thinking about how anyone will best Lotte Kopecky at the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift. While we were away ... Not much happened in the world of road cycling news over the holidays, as it should be. Everyone deserves a little downtime.
-
Jan 6, 2025 | 
escapecollective.com | Abby Mickey
To mark Bonnie Tu's retirement as the Chairperson of Giant Group last week, we have republished this article and short film to revisit her transformative impact on the cycling industry. Over more than three decades at Giant, Bonnie played a pivotal role in shaping the company's success and advancing women's cycling. As the CFO, she led Giant's IPO in 1994, founded Liv - the world's first female-specific cycling brand - in 2008, and acted as the company chairperson since 2017.
-
Dec 31, 2024 | 
escapecollective.com | Abby Mickey
In part one of our attempt to prognosticate the upcoming men's and women's WorldTour seasons, we looked at which riders we think will most animate the racing. Today, we zoom out a little bit to team- and sport-wide issues, plus pick five members of the men's peloton to keep an eye on for a breakout year. Are we wrong? (Joe's usually wrong; that's about the only thing we're sure of.) Tell us how in the comments. And of course, we'll be back next offseason to tally up the score.
-
Dec 17, 2024 | 
escapecollective.com | Abby Mickey
This is it! The last Wheel Talk newsletter of the year. Thank you so much to all of you for following along this year, and what a year it's been! We've seen top riders break new barriers, riders who have been around for quite some time step up in legendary ways, new names take massive wins, all while experiencing one of the most unhinged transfer seasons in women's cycling history. And all signs point to 2025 being even more chaotic.
