The road to the roadside: 800km to the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift

A week before the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift rolled into Lausanne, 50 women met outside the Canyon Store in Munich.

Some came with friends. Many came alone. Some had years of bikepacking experience behind them, while others were about to ride a fully loaded gravel bike for the first time. Seven days and 800 kilometres later, we would arrive in Lausanne together.

But the finish line wasn't really the point.

We were riding there to watch a bike race

Words: Laura Claus

Photos: Natalie Uljas, Ayleen Behrens, Anna Gesenhues

50 women, one route, no race

The idea behind the GRL PCK Rally was pretty simple: create a big cycling adventure that feels challenging, but achievable, and do it together.

There were no timing chips, no rankings and no prizes for getting there first. There weren't even fixed groups.

We gave everyone the same route from Munich to Lausanne and seven days to get there. Everything they needed for the week was strapped to their bikes. And then we started riding.

Very quickly, any idea of how the week was supposed to go disappeared. Groups formed and re-formed. Plans changed. Mechanical problems were fixed. People waited for each other. Some took trains when the day became too much. Others rode longer than they ever had before.

There was tarmac, gravel and singletrack. There were tents, gas-station snacks and wet cycling kit. There were some very big mountains.

And somewhere along the way, the strangers weren't strangers anymore.

That part wasn't an accident.

GRL PCK started because we wanted more women to feel like there was a place for them in cycling. Over the years, we've learned that telling someone they can do something isn't nearly as powerful as creating an environment in which they actually experience that they can.

Sometimes all it takes is looking around and seeing other women who are just as nervous, excited or unsure as you are.

Someone else is pushing their bike up the climb too. Someone else doesn't know how to fix that mechanical. Someone else has never ridden this far before.

And suddenly, doing something that felt slightly ridiculous a few months ago feels completely normal.

But why ride to the Tour?

We could have finished anywhere. There are certainly easier ways to get from Munich to Lausanne, and definitely easier ways to watch the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift.

But connecting our own adventure to women's professional cycling was important to us.

Women's cycling is growing quickly. More races are being broadcast, crowds are getting bigger and the level of racing is incredible. But growth isn't only about what happens inside the professional peloton. It's also about whether people feel connected enough to care.

That is where I think grassroots communities have a role to play.

For some of the women on the Rally, following professional cycling was already a huge part of being a cycling fan. For others, it wasn't. Some had hardly watched a women's professional race before.

A week later, we were all standing on the roadside together.

And after everything we'd experienced on our own bikes to get there, watching the best women in the world race theirs felt different.

We knew what a climb could feel like in our legs. We knew what it meant to keep going when you're tired. Obviously, none of us suddenly thought we knew what it was like to race the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift, but there was a connection that hadn't necessarily been there before.

We hadn't just travelled to the race. We had ridden ourselves into it.

From participation to fandom

There is a lot of conversation about how to get more people to watch women's sport. Maybe one answer is to get more people participating in it.

Because participation creates a different kind of relationship. You start following athletes. You understand the sport better. You recognise the roads they're racing on. You know what a 10% gradient feels like, even if they're riding up it considerably faster than you ever will.

And perhaps most importantly, you start to see yourself as part of the same sport. Not at the same level. But part of the same world.

The opposite is true too. Watching women race at the highest level changes what feels possible at grassroots level. Representation matters because the things we see repeatedly start to feel normal.

Women racing bikes. Women fixing bikes. Women crossing continents. Women taking up space on the road. Women being competitive. Women having enormous adventures.

The professional and grassroots sides of cycling can sometimes feel like separate worlds, but I don't think they should be. They can make each other stronger.

The road to the roadside

When we arrived in Lausanne after seven days, we were tired, dirty and very ready to stop sitting on our bikes. But we were also proud.

Not just because we'd ridden 800 kilometres across the Alps. We'd watched people discover they were capable of more than they thought. We'd watched friendships form in a matter of days. We'd seen riders help each other through difficult moments without ever turning the Rally into a competition.

And then we got to take all of that energy to the roadside.

We cheered. Loudly.

For the riders we'd followed for years and the ones we'd only just started learning about. For the teams. For the breakaway. For the last rider on the road.

The Rally was never really about getting 50 women from Munich to Lausanne. It was about creating an experience that made cycling feel bigger, more accessible and more connected.

We set out to ride to the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift. By the time we got there, the distance between the people riding bikes and the people watching them felt just a little bit smaller.

And maybe that's exactly the point.