Pro Women's Cycling

Following on from last week's episode we round out our review of the 2016 season and talk a little more about how we think things will shape up in 2017. There's been a fair bit of movement among the teams, with some really interesting new line ups. Can Boels Dolmans dominate again? Will they achieve the same level of winning as their astonishing 2016? Will some other team step up to challenge their dominance? What will Marianne Vos' new team look like? And how will other teams find their feet? We discuss all of this and more, including the important new investigation from the Dutch federation. There's lots to cover, just in time to round out the year!

It's time for our review of the 2016 season, what the first year of the Women's World Tour brought us and some speculation around what we can expect for 2017. There's some really interesting things that have happened. We get into some of the bigger questions about how the WWT has (or hasn't) changed things, and we take a bit of a look at the Zwift and Canyon project along with heaps more. In our classic style, what we planned for one podcast is now a part one, so enjoy your Christmas and we'll be back next week with a part two!

Anne Loes Kokhuis works for the KNWU, the Dutch Cycling Federation, and talks about the research project they're starting, looking into bullying, intimidation and harassment (including sexual harrassment) in Dutch cycling. The Federation is passionate about preventing all these, and she talks about the background, and the next steps.

2016 has been tough for a lot of people, and what with politics, the economy, Daylight Savings Times in the northern hemisphere, and so on, a lot of people are feeling bleak right now. So when Emily Chappell suggested we podcast on how the women's cycling world is changing for the better, and how we can all have positive impacts on that, I jumped at the chance.

We talked about Emily's own year - winning the women's TransContinental race (read her blog about that!), and her other successes (including having her book published) and also about the Adventure Syndicate. I can't quote believe it hasn't been around for even a year, but wow, those women have done so many great things. All this, and more - including Emily's and my pledges for our own 2017 cycling challenges (Emily says she'll try cyclocross, if someone will show her how, so if that's you, get in touch with her!).

Click through to my blog for the usual ton of links.

Hey remember that time a few days ago when Sarah and Dan started talking about all the Best of the Year categories and it took them an hour to get through the first category? Well they're back! And this time they're determined to get through all of the other categories (including the two extra ones that Sarah made up so that she could fit everyone in that she wanted to) no matter how long it takes! Look, we're not gonna lie, this podcast is EPIC (that's a technical term). It's huge. It's long enough to be a Hollywood blockbuster, but it's got more plot, more drama and more action than your standard Hollywood blockbuster, so there's that! So make sure you're stocked up on time and refreshments, this one's perfect for that long drive to see all your extended family for the holidays. Here goes...

Our friends at VeloVoices are preparing their end of year voting and asked Sarah to help them come up with a short list of nominees in a whole raft of categories, from Rider of the Year to Best Race Finish of the Year to Breakout Performance of the Year (and a whole bunch more). Of course, to make it challenging the inimitable @kittyfondue told Sarah she needed to keep it to a list of 5 finalists per category.

Sarah dutifully stuck to that requirement (and simply invented new categories when she needed to go over ;) no really) and so here we are with the first instalment where we discuss our nominees for Rider of the Year, including a couple of honourable mentions and a couple of riders we considered, but ultimately couldn't include. We review their seasons, the highs, the lows and the reasons for and against. Will our top pick be the same as yours?

This week we catch up on everything that happened in the Junior Women's and Elite Women's World Championship Road Races, including all of the things that surprised and delighted us. We do a bit of a wrap up of the latest news in UCI rule changes (there have been a lot of them for track in particular) and there are a couple of points of unavoidable controversy. We do our best to tackle them from a glass half full perspective but we'll let you decide how well me managed to pull that off.

This week we talk about all of the worlds time-trialling in Doha. The heat in Qatar showed up in full force and played havoc with the Team Time Trial. There was plenty of riders suffering from heatstroke and heat related stress which was deeply concerning. We also talk about how this impacted on the results. There's the Junior and Elite women's Individual Time Trials to discuss as well, with some interesting and surprising results there. Although fortunately with less dramatic heat. We catch up on the latest cyclocross and mountainbike news and round the episode out with a bit of gossip

This week we preview the TTT, the ITT and the Road Races in Qatar for the Junior and Elite women (would it surprise you if we said there was controversy?). We also took a look at all the latest transfer news and who is confirmed to be going where for 2017.

This week we take a deep breath as Qatar's World Championships is just around the corner. We've got a few races to talk about in the Giro dell'Emilia and Gran Premio Bruno Beghelli. There's also been the latest US leg of the Cyclocross World Cups and in classic fashion we manage to find heaps of controversy to discuss along the way. This includes everything from the latest UCI publicity around the Women's World Tour, the TTT event in Qatar, TUEs, hacking and more. Dan also potentially manages to offend entire states in both Australia and the US. Just another week on the podcast!