Move it, girlfriend!

I had no idea that Stephanie was involved so deeply in biking. I knew from Scott that his sister worked in administration at a small East Coast college and had travelled extensively, but I didn't know that she owned three hand-made bikes, competed with Team LUNA Chix and was about to do a 300-mile ride to raise money to combat global warming. I mean, Scott has known me for over twenty years...you'd think that it would have come up at some point in time that his sister spends more on bikes than most guys spend on their cars.

Which got me to thinking. Steph is about two years younger than Scott. Scott's not that much younger than me. And when I look at the faces of the women on Steph's team, it's hard to find someone who would be significantly younger than the bunch of us. This holds true for a lot of the female cyclists I know: cycling doesn't seem to grab hold of us until we're in our late 20s or early 30s, and when it does, it tends to invade our lives in ways that other activities just can't manage.

Which got me to thinking even more: Why is so much focus put on developing junior riders and younger riders when it's the older riders who are the ones who have the time, passion and money to really make a go of cycling? In the States, which uses a (seemingly) well-developed system of categories that allow riders of all ages and genders to move up logically through the system, there's a logical system of advancement. Presumably, that would mean that there's a logical system of rider development. It's a shame that there seems to be so little interest in the Spanish federation to examine this in more detail, and that they're so obsessed with developing medal-level riders that they forget to work from the base, la afición, where the money and passion truly lie.

Which makes me wonder if I shouldn't ask Pepe el Presi for the stats of how many women hold licenses in Spain. I bet it'd be a real eye-opener, and not a good one at that....