This new version of the women’s Tour featured long, difficult stages and tackled some of France’s signature climbs, much as the original Tour de France féminin had. The 1995 edition, for example, concluded with a mountaintop finish on the Alpe d’Huez. “It was such a thrill to get to race a lot of the same mountains that the men raced,” said Canadian Linda Jackson, who finished second that day.
But while the racing was plenty epic, the race itself was held together by shoestrings and determination. Once again, “there was not much money behind the race,” Jackson said. Because the women’s Tour lagged significantly in popularity behind the men’s version, towns willing to bid on the race starts and finishes were few and far between, so transfers between stages were unusually long.
“We’d finish the race, often not even have a chance to shower, and jump in the car right away for 5-7 hour transfers,” she said. Jackson remembered travelling five to a car, and grabbing food from gas stations along the way.
The race’s long-time title sponsor Monoprix withdrew amid controversy over unpaid prize money in 2003, which marked a temporary end of La Grande Boucle. In 2005 yet another organiser stepped in and introduced a smaller-scale race. In a call-back to the race’s history, the new organiser continued to call it La Grande Boucle, but it never achieved the same prominence. When Emma Pooley won the final edition of the Grand Boucle in 2009, it was more of a Petit Boucle, having dwindled to just four stages from the original two weeks.
Demand for a women’s Tour. It’d be easy to read doom in the tea leaves, but women’s racing has proven resilient, despite pervasive disparities. Though women haven’t competed in the Tour de France, the sport has grown in other, significant ways, such as better sponsorship for the top teams and higher standards required from race organisers by the UCI. The introduction of the Women’s World Tour in 2016, in particular, signaled a turn to a more professional women’s sport.
“I think the days are gone where an organiser can put on a race like the Tour Cycliste féminine on such a small budget,” said Jackson. “The sport has grown, thankfully.” Races such as the Ovo Energy Tour in the U.K. and the Amgen Tour of California in the U.S. provide competitive racing, social media coverage, and significant prize purses for women, raising the standard for the sport.
Better team support, meanwhile, has made women’s cycling more viable in recent seasons. Teams such as WM3, Canyon-SRAM, Boels-Dolman, and Sunweb, among others, offer riders sufficient salaries to race and train full time—conditions that male professional riders might take for granted.
“You’ve seen the peloton get more and more competitive every year,” says Specialized product manager Stephanie Kaplan, whose brand sponsors Boels-Dolman and La Course. Deeper fields make for more competitive racing, which is good for spectators. The days when the same five women won every week are gone; teams have gotten strong enough to play the tactical games that make cycling so compelling.
In 2013 four women athletes circulated a petition that boldly called for a women’s Tour de France. Calling themselves Le Tour Entier, Chrissy Wellington, Emma Pooley, Katherine Bertine, and Vos spearheaded the effort. ”We want[ed] a new women’s Tour de France back on the calendar,” said Vos. “Of course that was, well, a big aim.”
The petition succeed in bringing the ASO to the table, and the following year, the women’s peloton competed in a circuit race on the Champ Élysées. Named La Course, the new women’s race coincided with the finale of the men’s Tour de France, paid out a purse equal to a men’s stage victory, and received live television coverage. It was the first appearance of women athletes at the Tour since 1989 and Vos won the sprint finish, wearing the jersey of World Champion.
Growing up, Vos traveled every year to the Tour de France with her family. She never imagined she’d ride the race herself. “I never dreamed about it, because in my time, it was not there,” she said. “It was just guys riding up mountains. For me, when we first came on the Champs Élysées, it was a really heroic, iconic place in cycling history. And to be able to be part of that, and to race there, I really thought that day was something special.”
There’s not a lack of racing, there’s just a lack of coverage.
Vos still hopes to see a five-to-seven day women’s stage race at the Tour de France. She believes the UCI will need to step in to resolve conflicting events; the Giro Rosa and the Tour de Féminin both currently run during the Tour de France.
“Sometimes you have to start with a proper structure,” said Vos, and she points to the Women’s World Tour, created in 2016 as an example. “At this point, all organisations and all teams are working on their own island.”
And of course, a successful race still requires sponsors to foot the bill and media to cover it. “No one prefers to listen to football on satellite radio,” said Kaplan, emphasising the importance of media coverage to a race’s success. Canyon-SRAM’s Alexis Ryan agrees: “There’s not a lack of racing, there’s just a lack of coverage.” Like many women’s sports, cycling continually battles for attention and against dismissive attitudes, often rooted in sexist assumptions about women’s capabilities.
Races like the Ovo Energy Tour in Britain have demonstrated that women’s cycling can stand on its own and draw an audience, if it’s promoted and funded well. Still, the magnetic pull of the Tour de France remains irresistible. The fans are roadside, the media is assembled. Why not have a women’s race?
“I’m a total Field of Dreams person,” said Kaplan. “Build it, and they will come.”