{"id":96745,"date":"2019-11-26T06:30:12","date_gmt":"2019-11-26T14:30:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rei.com\/blog\/?p=96745"},"modified":"2025-11-20T22:27:06","modified_gmt":"2025-11-21T06:27:06","slug":"more-women-than-ever-are-winning-endurance-cycling-events","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rei.com\/blog\/cycle\/more-women-than-ever-are-winning-endurance-cycling-events","title":{"rendered":"More Women Than Ever Are Winning Endurance Cycling Events"},"content":{"rendered":"

In early August, 10 days, two hours and 48 minutes after setting out from the start line in Burgas, Bulgaria, 24-year-old German Fiona Kolbinger rolled into Brest, France, to win the seventh edition of the <\/span>Transcontinental Race<\/span><\/a>, one of the world\u2019s premier self-supported, ultra-endurance cycling competitions. Kolbinger didn\u2019t just top the women\u2019s category. She won the race outright, besting 225 men and 39 women along the way. In second place, Ben Davies finished nearly a half day behind Kolbinger.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI was so surprised. Before the race, I never thought about winning,\u201d Kolbinger says.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Transcontinental was her first-ever endurance race, she explains, so she had no way of gauging how she would stack up. Her only measure came from Bj\u00f6rn Lenhard, a two-time Transcon runner-up who Kolbinger met and rode with in her adoptive town of Dresden, Germany.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe became really good friends and cycled together a lot. He told me that he thought the women\u2019s podium was realistic, and that was my expectation going into that race. But never the overall.\u201d She adds that, in hindsight, she thinks she could have ridden even faster. \u201cIn the moment, I didn\u2019t feel I was pushing that hard. I was just going steady,\u201d she says.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Fiona Kolbinger (left of center, in the blue jersey) outpaced the men to win the Transcontinental Race. Photo: James Robertson<\/p><\/div>\n

By winning one of the world\u2019s toughest endurance cycling events, Kolbinger follows in the tracks of a small, but growing number of women. Recently, Alaskan Lael Wilcox pulled off a coup at the 2016 <\/span>Trans Am Bike Race<\/span><\/a> to win the 4,400-mile epic by just two hours. And in 2011, Lynda Wallenfels, a 24-Hour National Champion who <\/span>trains<\/span><\/a> some of the country\u2019s top endurance mountain bike racers, outlasted the field to victory at the sixth edition of the<\/span> Arizona Trail Race 300<\/span><\/a>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s not just cycling. Women ultrarunners are also outpacing men, including Jasmin Paris\u2019 record-shattering victory<\/a> at the 268-mile<\/span> Montane Spine Race<\/span> in January and Courtney Dewalter\u2019s<\/a> 2017 overall victory at the Moab 200. And based on the research of Swiss sports scientist Beat Knechtle, women are faster than men at two of the world\u2019s hardest<\/span> ultra-distance swimming<\/span><\/a> races, the 28.5-mile Manhattan Island Marathon Swim and the 20.1-mile Catalina Channel Swim. These results, and others like them, remain the exception. But as women rack up wins at endurance events, we can learn from them how women are bridging the performance gap.<\/span><\/p>\n

The most obvious answer lies in the democracy of endurance racing, where women line up side-by-side with men.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWomen will never beat men unless they get to race them,\u201d says Lael Wilcox. She says that it can be intimidating at first, but it\u2019s equalizing. \u201cIt\u2019s hard to look around and see all these super-fit guys and think, \u2018I can win this.\u2019 But now that I\u2019ve done these races enough, I know it spreads out after a day or two, and then it\u2019s all about my race and not anyone else. I definitely don\u2019t look at it as men\u2019s and women\u2019s competition; I see it as an overall field.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Being pitted against men was the first step in breaking down the gender gap. While a broad sample of world records show men\u2019s performances consistently outpace women\u2019s by around\u00a010 percent<\/a>, as more women enter mixed-gender endurance events this may change. After all, the demands of endurance racing reward more than physical effort.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn ultra-endurance sports, there are so many factors that determine the outcome of a race\u2014physiology, mental skills, technique, nutrition, route finding, strategy\u2014and when you consider all of those things, women stand a decent chance against men,\u201d says 2018 24-Hour World Champion Kaitlyn Boyle, who has won ultra-bikepacking events such as the<\/span> Coconino Stage Race<\/span><\/a> and is among the fastest racers on routes like the AZT300.<\/span><\/p>\n

At the soaked, muddy, frigid world championships in Fort William, Scotland, last year, Boyle favored smarts and calculation over flat-out pace to earn her title. She paused to warm up between laps when she was suffering and changed to dry kits when necessary, going fast when she had to but preserving her reserves so she could continue at pace while others fell away. \u201cIt persuaded me all over again that mental skills and strategy are just as determining or even more so than physical ability,\u201d she says.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

That was the case for Lynda Wallenfels in the 2011 AZT300, when record temperatures soared to over 100 degrees. As conditions took their toll on racers, Wallenfels stuck to her plan of going fast, but not too hard for the sizzling conditions, and eventually prevailed while others faltered<\/span>. <\/b>\u201cIt\u2019s a common mistake to be distracted by keeping up with a faster competitor,\u201d she says. \u201cSome races are won through smart pacing and attrition of athletes who do not execute their own best race plan.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The more women excel, the more energy gets put into them rising, too.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWomen are increasingly being included in exercise-science research and studies, which have historically only included men,\u201d says Wallenfels, who trains some of the country\u2019s top endurance racers through her business, <\/span>LW Coaching<\/span><\/a>. \u201cThis has led to increased understanding of gender differences and how to optimize training and performance for female athletes, which has opened up the opportunity for an increasing number of female athletes to rise to the top.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Wilcox agrees that women\u2019s lack of representation in sports relative to men partly accounts for the disparity in results. \u201cI think you\u2019d see women winning more often, except the field is so small,\u201d she says. \u201cMost of the time in these races, women are 5 percent of the field or less.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

During her 2016 victory at the Trans Am Bike Race, Wilcox was one of 11 women (of 66 racers) to line up. She rode almost the entire event behind other riders in the field, pacing carefully as the competition burned out or made mistakes. When the leader became disoriented from fatigue in the final 200 miles and mistakenly rode back the way he\u2019d come, Wilcox caught him, dropped him, and went on to win by two hours. \u201cYou just never know what\u2019s going to happen out there, so you have to ride your own race and make sure you\u2019re doing your best,\u201d Wilcox says.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

That\u2019s exactly what Kolbinger did at this year\u2019s Transcontinental Race. Founded in 2013 by the late endurance racing legend<\/span> Mike Hall<\/span><\/a>, the TCR follows an unusual format that stipulates a start point, end point, and several checkpoints in between (four at this year\u2019s edition), but allows racers to pick their route and ride when and how they like.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe format makes it really exciting and interesting,\u201d Kolbinger says. \u201cIt means the race is not only about speed and fitness, but also about strategy and choices and decisions.\u201d Beyond that, riders must adhere to a strict self-support ethic, carrying everything they need and restocking only from public places.<\/span><\/p>\n

Of the 10 countries through which she could have passed from Bulgaria to France, Kolbinger linked seven, averaging 19 hours in the saddle and just shy of 250 miles per day. She survived on four hours of sleep per night, usually on the roadside in a bivy sack. She lurked near the front of the race for the first few days, but when the leader succumbed to saddle sores on day three and the rider behind him quit due to foot pain a day later, Kolbinger took the lead and never looked back.<\/span><\/p>\n

According to Strava, she covered 330 miles and 10,910 feet of climbing on her final day of the race. At the finish, she was delighted, but stunned to have won.<\/span><\/p>\n

After some reflection, Kolbinger says that she probably should have had more confidence from the start. She went in knowing that 200-plus miles per day was realistic for her, which would have put her in the top ten of every previous edition of the race. And she has learned that the distance and the broad range of demands in ultra-endurance cycling levels the playing field. \u201cSecond and third place had a faster mean speed than me, but also more stoppage time,\u201d she says. \u201cI think I made good decisions throughout the race.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Watch More:\u00a0<\/strong>Wilcox shares her journey on the Arizona Trail\u2014800+miles of desert singletrack.<\/em><\/p>\n