Tour of London

Can I ask why the Tour of London middle distance is women only? My normal distance is the shorter distance and not sure I could manage the longest distance especially mid week after getting home from work. Would like to be able aim a little bit higher and do the middle distance. If there are women only events, surely you also have to have men only events too?

Why?

I think the point here is that generally men are stronger than women. So mixed events don’t seem as level a playing field. I know this wasn’t a race, but I do think that providing events for women only gives them a more competitive event.

On your other point about the distances, I agree it doesn’t seem sensible. It’s as if they’re saying “hey, women, we understand you can’t ride for as long as men, so here’s a shorter ‘long’ event just for you!”

But that’s clearly a load of rubbish. There’s no reason to me that a women-only event couldn’t be 2 laps or 4 laps (or one of each).

I guess it could be because of my first point: if men generally ride faster than women, then a 4-lap “long” event is a greater time investment for women. So it might make a little sense to shorten the event on a time basis.

But that argument completely falls on its face when we consider different levels of fitness. There are plenty of women who are faster and stronger than a lot of men, just as there are a lot of men who are slower riders who’ll also take a lot longer to complete a 4-lap event.

I dunno, I suppose Zwift have their reasons.