La Tete De La Course--Or La Lanterne Rouge--In Gender Equality?

Yesterday, I used the story of Tara Gins to illustrate the unequal treatment of women in competitive cycling, and sports generally.

Today, I have better news on that front.  The Trek-Segafredo team is now offering equal pay to its male and female riders.  "Salary really depends on the individual, but we can confirm that all of our professional road cycling athletes --regardless of gender--make at or above the minimum for the men's program," according to Eric Bjorling, the director of brand marketing at Trek Bikes.  

The policy, he said, went into effect on the first day of this year.  It puts Trek-Segafredo ahead of the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI), the sport's world governing body.  While the UCI mandated maternity leave and health insurance for female riders last year, its minimum salary--20,000 Euros--is half of the 40,045 guaranteed to men.  Even after annual increases that would raise the minimum women's salary to 30,000 in 2023, female riders would still make only three-quarters of their male counterparts--assuming, of course, the men don't get a raise.

Lizzie Deignan

Trek-Segafredo's move is important because it's one of the better-known and more successful teams in the peloton.  Its female roster includes Lizzie Deignan, who won La Course--the women's version of the Tour de France--last year.  

Trek-Segafredo is moving to la tete de la course in gender equality.  Will the UCI ride abreast, draft T-S or become the lanterne rouge 

Pictures Of A Double Standard

Megan Rapinoe and the US Women's Soccer Team have used their dominance in the sport to expose the inequities between the ways men and women are treated in the sports world.

Their advocacy work has focused on the differences in pay and facilities, but has also highlighted the root of the problem:  There are few women in high-level executive posts, not only on teams and sports leagues and federations, but also in the industries related to them.

One result of that dearth of female management is that female candidates are held to very different standards from men, in areas outside of, as well as in, their sports. It's hard not to think, for example, that one reason why, after nearly a quarter-century of play, the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA) still plays in lesser venues than most college teams is that the majority of players are black (and tall) and that many are, or are perceived as, lesbians--no small matter to potential sponsors who are worried about boycotts led by right-wing and religious organizations.  

(Although Rapinoe and other members of the USWST are openly lesbian or bisexual, the team first became media darlings after its 1999 World Cup victory. Everyone on that squad, with the exception of goalkeeper Briana Scurry, was white and all were seen as "the girls next door.")

I can just see Tara Gins nodding knowingly. From 2016 to 2020, she raced professionally in Belgium, where fans can name literally anyone, professional or amateur, in the peloton or on the track.  She sounds like just the person to become the directeur sportif of a team, right?

Tara Gins

Well, the management of an under-23 team thought so.  That is, until some photos came their way.  Apparently, because the team--which Gins could not name, for various reasons--is under-23 and thus not bound by UCI rules, they could make agreement verbal, without a written contract. That, of course, made it easier for them to get out of the agreement when, they claim, potential sponsors objected to the photos.

It's not clear which photos caused the team to renege, but Gins believes that they were part of photoshoots she did for Playboy last May and for a Belgian company's calendar two months later.  The calendar is distributed only to the company's customers, so the photos weren't made public.  

Gins acknowledges that in the Playboy photos she is "nude" with "some areas covered" so they are "not vulgar." In the calendar photos, she says, she's topless and the photos have "nothing to do with cycling."  So it's interesting, to say the least, to wonder who "leaked" those photos--or if the team's director sought them out.  She was told that a team staff member came across them and sent them to other staff members in a group chat.

As Gins points out, the photos "harmed no one" and the phots were taken before she was offered the job.  More to the point, she says, her experience points to a "double standard" in the sport.  "In a men's race, they want flower girls to dress very sexy and that is OK," she explains. But if someone wants a job in men's cycling "who used to be the sexy girl," then "it's not OK."  

Even before the job offer was withdrawn, Gins had experiences that pointed to the "double standard" of which she speaks.  While she raced, she had demeaning encounters with team leaders or soigneurs.  "I was literally assaulted," she recounts.  A mechanic "crept into a shower with me after a workout;" she was kissed and heard inappropriate comments directed toward her.  "I had a manager come in when I was getting a massage to say how horny I looked," she recalls.

During my youth, there was an ad (for, ironically, a brand of cigarettes) that exclaimed, "You've come a long way, baby!" Well, if you'll indulge me a cliche, we have a long way to go.  Just ask Tara Gins.

Lonely As A Bike Parked In A Snowstorm?

Whenever a winter storm watch or warning is issued, people--especially ever-cynical New Yorkers like me--wonder, "Is it really going to be all that?" After all, we've heard such forecasts before only to see little more than a few flakes.

Well, this time the National Weather Service, the Governor and Mayor weren't being unnecessarily alarmist.   The warning has come true--and, as I write this, the storm isn't nearly over.

William Wordsworth's may have "wandered lonely as a cloud."  Would he have stood lonely as a bike parked in a snowstorm?  Of course, such a line wouldn't fit into the rhythm and meter of his poem.  Perhaps he would have written something different if he'd seen Martie, my commuter on the street, around the corner from my apartment.  Hmm...Lonely as Martie?  Of course, the poem would have to tell us about her.

Never Changing Their Stripes

Zebrakenko bicycles first appeared in the US during the mid-1970s, just past the Bike Boom's peak.

Like many other Japanese bikes of that era, their lugwork and paint were clean, and they came with good, high-value components from the likes of SunTour, Shimano, Sugino and Sakae Ringyo (SR).  

Somewhere along the way--I am guessing in the early or mid-1980s, the name was shortened to "Zebra."  It was, I reckon, an attempt to evoke the animal's agility, as I don't recall any of their bikes painted with black and white stripes.

Or, perhaps, whoever rebranded the bikes had this in mind:

The Need For Lanes--And Bridges

There are some things "real" New Yorkers never do.  They include walking three (or more) abreast on sidewalks, eating cupcakes*, going to Times Sqaure (at least since it's been Disney-fied), Hudson Yards, Radio City Music Hall or Statue of Liberty.

I confess that I once went to RCMH for a holiday performance and, honestly, enjoyed it.  But I've never been to the Statue of Liberty or Hudson Yards, and have only passed through TS en route to or from the Port Authority Bus Terminal since "the Deuce" was turned into a shopping mall/amusement park.  

Then there are things no "real"--or at least in-the-know--New York cyclist does.  Among them are riding across the Brooklyn Bridge for any reason or the Queensboro/Ed Koch (a.k.a. 59th Street) Bridge except to reach places in Midtown or Long Island City.  The last time I went across the BB, a couple of years ago, I had to dodge and weave around selfie-takers and people who stroll across it without understanding that, even though the path is closed to motor traffic, it isn't a bucolic lane in their hometown.  And, while I occasionally use the 59th Street, if I am going anywhere that isn't in Midtown Manhattan, I take another crossing, whether the Manhattan or Williamsburg Bridges for downtown Manhattan and the Staten Island Ferry) or the Triborough  for uptown spots and the George Washington Bridge.

Cyclists and pedestrians on the Queensboro/Ed Koch/59th Street Bridge.  Photo by Clarence Eckerson Jr, October 2019.

While the Brooklyn is full of people, sometimes nearly shoulder-to-shoulder, who aren't paying attention to their surroundings, the  59th Street Bridge (what real New Yorkers call it) bike/pedestrian lane is simply too narrow.  Others have echoed my complaint and have told me, or written on message boards, that they try to use the other crossings I've mentioned.  

The city, it seems, has heard our complaints.  Yesterday, Mayor Bill de Blasio has announced that new bike lanes will be built on the Brooklyn and 59th Street Bridges.  

I must say, though, that I have mixed feelings.  My hope is that the new lanes--and, more important, the approaches to them--will be well-designed.  As I've lamented in other posts, too many bike lanes are poorly-conceived or -constructed, going from nowhere to nowhere or, worse, leaving cyclists (and, often, pedestrians) in hazardous spots, forcing them to make stops and turns that leave them vulnerable to being struck by motor vehicles.  

I also must confess that new bike lanes will be built leaves me with another kind of apprehension.  Other cyclists have confirmed my impression that aggression and hostility from motorists has increased.  That rage was echoed in a "man in the street" interview broadcast on a local news station:  The interviewee, whose first name is Spiro (I didn't catch his last name) complained, "the mayor is building bike lanes when there's a pandemic."  He added, half-jokingly, that he was going to run for mayor and, if elected, the first thing he'd do is to "get rid of the bike lanes."

His comments were tinged, I thought, with class resentment:  I could practically hear him thinking that cyclists are "privileged" on the backs of poor and working people like him.  That, I think is what led him to the false equivalency:  Building bike lanes doesn't detract from the fight against COVID-19 or anything else.  If anything, building lanes, if done properly, can be part of the battle, and the work that needs to be done after:  Cycling is good for physical and mental health, and can be done while maintaining proper social distancing.

All we can do is hope:  that the new lanes will be well-designed and -built, and that folks like Spiro will come around.

*--In his Vanishing New York, Jeremiah Moss wondered, " [I]s there anything more blandly sweet, less evocative of this great city and more goyish than any other baked good with the possible exception of Eucharist wafers than the cupcake?"