Well, we put our thinking caps on to bring a different sort of week to celebrate International Women’s Day. We quickly decided one day wouldn’t be sufficient, so we stretched it out all week instead. At this point we would strongly advise you live everyday like it’s International Women’s Day as we aimed to find different ways to enjoy cycling together and help support each other with our cycling journeys.

We had rides all week, some flat, some hilly. Some rides on smooth roads and some on the lumpy stuff. Some raced. We all enjoyed so very much.

Breeze Champion Emma Pidgley lead a ride in Ceredigion, I noticed on Strava she gained a Local Legend on Roman Road to Stags Head, any local legend should be celebrated especially a Breeze Champion. This particular Local Legend on Roman Road to Stags Head sounds like a long straight road finishing near a pub which is a win in itself in rural Wales. 

Lots of the Breeze rides incorporated rides to Blue Plaques in the area that celebrated many impressive historic women from times past. It just so happens that the month of March is Women’s Hostory Month too so the Blue Plaque routes seemed even more fitting. 

One blue plaque that stood out on the ride was Breeze Champion Cathy White’s ride. Cathy incorporated a ride via Amelia Earhart plaque 1897-1937, who was the first woman to fly across the Atlantic Occan Landed here in the estuary near the village of Pwll in June 1928.  This is a lovely location as it’s right on the cycle path between the hills and the sea, not too far from Pembrey Country Park. Lots of excellent cafes around there so pencil this in  for yourself for a ride for another day. 

Breeze Champion Kàren Maddock-Jones won the unofficial most Blue Plaque’s collected competition from her ride. I can’t begin to explain how exciting it was with the WhatsApp group pinging all week as different routes and inspirational plaques that were being found and shared. Discovering all these interesting women from generations before us.  Jessie Donaldson 1799-1889, Anti-slavery campaigner, activist and teacher, lived nearby in Dynevor Place, women who have been incredible so it felt appropriate to celebrate them. 

The rides were brilliant and we had decided we would also host some talks to bring our love of women’s cycling together. Special thank you to Tredz for hosting our IWD celebration talks and workshops as they provided the cafe space, teas and coffees for free, this was really appreciated as it meant we could run the day for free hoping it would be even more accessible and welcoming. We tentatively started with about 15 people but as the talks went on the place filled up so by the end there wasn’t a single empty seat and some women were even standing. Breeze Champion Lindsey Hanley, who is also a buyer for Tredz, she had sourced some fantastic women’s cycling kit at excellent prices. The most popular was a cycling jacket from £90 down to £25. Now, I should be honest as I didn’t need a new jacket, so I bought one anyway. Everyone knows there’s never an end to finding amazing cycling kit, so a new jacket to add to the cycling jacket collection was very necessary. As it was Mother’s Day the following day I also bought a matching cycling jacket for my mum too because a matching mum and daughter team kit ride is something I feel we all need. 

Tredz was something really fun. We had organised many Breeze rides for the week and we included a ride to leave the shop and came back in time for the talks and another ride started the other side of Swansea and stopped with us before heading back again. Our programme was very ambitious, and so it should be. We started with a mechanical talk discussing tyres and punctures. This was followed by four speakers and hosted by myself Lizzy. So Catch Goss talked us through what Breeze is and she did an excellent talk on what juggling motherhood with cycling looks like. We all agreed that cycling in a group makes us more adventurous and ambitious while also giving the perfect balance of being able to ride so much further with company. I know Cath well but listening to her methods of juggling motherhood, a professional career and cycling was extremely engaging for myself and others. How to fit in planning a Breeze ride while juggling everything else seems empressive so listening to how it’s done suddenly felt more manageable and meaningful.

Our second speaker was Hollie Labunsky. Hollie is a full time teacher juggling many things as we invited her to talk about her experiences of being in a cycling club. While most clubs are male dominated, she chatted how actually once you join there are no end of rewards and benefits from being part of a cycling set up in a club. Hollie ran through how she had joined and how cycling clubs work. How she has been part of Port Talbot Wheelers (lots of other clubs as options, all different and similar too) and how bit by bit she’s reached out to racing time trailing, and how club encouragement has seen her progress to 12 hr TT races and onto 24hr TT races. Hollie helps organise the Presidents road race and she is a valued part of that set up, this race  is a key part of the Welsh Road Race calendar too.  Whatever your discipline there are a lot of people in a club to offer support and share their experiences.  Hollie did a great job of breaking down the jargon wordiness and little bits of information you need to get going and understand. This was greatly appreciated. 

Laura Davies was next, she is also a teacher and she gave us her incredibly detailed summary of her Zwift experiences. Her racing ability on this platform is fantastic and she shared her different perspectives and experiences on how is best to navigate Zwift. The perfect cycling training and racing tool for many people but at first glance the Zwift set up does look like a different language. Laura showed us a video of her racing Zwift and her numbers on screen were remarkable. 

We finished the talks with Ella Barnwell, it seemed fitting to have a local elite cyclist come and talk to us. To make a profession out of something the rest of us love offered a great insight, and Ella was very inspiring. Ella’s chat about progressing, attending international races, travelling the world with a bike and how the network of people around her works. She gave us all a glimpse into how elite sport, pressure and top end racing. It’s important to mention that Ella has just returned from serious injury so listening to her  understanding how she has managed her recovery and mental health to get back on her bike was incredibly inspiring but also took some courage to share this with us all. We would all like to wish Ella the very best with her return to elite racing.

After saying our thank yous we were then joined by David Ward, Liv Bikes, Bicycle Product Manager. David ran through some interesting facts about women’s set up and geometry, he then gave out some freebies which was really appreciated! Other bike brands are available but Liv is the only women’s bike specific bike makers we know of and David had traveled from Leicestershire to talk to us.

I know for a fact one bike was sold to a lady called Céline who sent me a picture of herself out on her new bike a few days later. Can you even beat that new bike feeling? Nah, definitely not. We wish Celine all the best on her Breeze cycling journey with her lovely new bike. 

A very big special thank you to all of our Breeze Champions and to our speakers as their contribution was a joy to listen to but equally really powerful and rewarding to be able to listen to so many different strengths and opportunities that are available. Yes there are challenges but listening and talking together felt like a problem shared, a problem halved sort of scenario. I think we roughly had about 40 women by the end and we will look forward to doing this again in the Autumn. Towy Riders have already asked if we can do one with their club and we would like to take it further on to the other counties too. Thank you also to Robbie and Ffion at Welsh Cycling, as their support and encouragement to celebrate International Women’s Day was fantastic. 

Our youngest lady attending was Isabella at 4 years old, our eldest as far as I can confirm was a lady called Caroline at 73 years young. We had one woman who rode in cycling cleats for the first time, which is such a hurdle.  We learned about Zwift, time trailing, the joys and advantages of being in a club environment, juggling parenthood, what is Breeze and so much more. 
In a world full of barriers in women’s cycling we said we weren’t to be our own barriers. 

Until next time, keep riding. 

Lizzy Felton.

lizzyfeltoncycling@outlook.com

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