Pro-cycling thread

Lefevre's problem is less the holding of opinions, more his moronic way of expressing them.

The idea that all men's world tour teams should have a women's team isn't really a useful one. Some don't have backers with the extra millions they need to sign leading riders, some don't have the management capacity (I imagine DQS have at least 2-3 minders for Lefevre) etc. The standard of women's racing is definitely on the increase but the number of different race winners in the WT events is quite surprising.

If wikipedia is to be believed there have been 77 women's world tour races. 49 of those races have been won by just 5 riders; 40 of those for SDWorx as a team (a further 12 for Bike Exchange). With those odds, the chances of getting a lot of top step exposure for sponsors is pretty limited so you're looking at a big wage bill or waiting out the older riders of the current generation or both.

The argument that teams should be created and then the sport will improve is fine, but Lefevre does have a point in one area, his commercial enterprise isn't going to run a women's team just for the benefit of the wider world, it has to provide sponsor benefit. We can argue about whether just being in the sport is a benefit but I don't know there's evidence to support it. Like it or not, his team seems to lurch from sponsor crisis to sponsor crisis despite the high profile wins so who knows whether they could make it work without those wins. There are already 9 women's WT teams to share the limited number of top riders available and most of those aren't winning top tier events.

In honesty, to improve the standard will take investment from people with deep pockets as well as media and fan interest and it's probably a generation of riders away.

As I said though, there's ways to discuss it that are reasonable and ways to discuss it that make you sound like a particularly bad 1960s misogynist...