Imagine it’s 1984 and you’re watching the award ceremony for the Tour de France. It’s the first time both a man and a woman are standing on the platform, the winners of separate races.
Audrey McElmury was the first American ever to win the world championship in road cycling. Nobody really noticed in her home country but her triumph had a deep symbolic meaning for the race spectators.
The bicycle has been politicized almost since its invention, especially after – and because – it was mass-produced and became an affordable means of transportation for nearly everyone. If today the bike has become a symbol of green transportation and a healthy lifestyle – both…
We’re in 1967. With a signal, 99 men are starting an Otley Cycle Club 12-hour time trial. Watching them all pass, there is a lady wheeling behind. Gradually, she overtakes them all, including the famous Mike McNamara. He himself creates a new men’s record that…
Watching this woman racing meant witnessing the embodied essence of “driven”. Yvonne Reynders had one simple goal: to win. All her focus was on that one particular task. No fake humbleness and doubts in her mind. She was a remarkable racer on a mission.
She was the archetype of a renaissance person. Hélène Dutrieu was a world champion in cycling, an actress, a pilot, a journalist, and that’s still not all. Throughout her life, this Belgium-born woman managed to switch from one fascinating job to another and excel at…
Wheeling around Coventry, this little lady radiates genuine joy. Her legs are moving in such a speed it almost seems they melt into one blurry stain. There are no cheering crowds, it’s not a big spectacle. Maybe someone passing by waves at her. But don’t…