'Let's give more women the confidence to be competitive' – the blooming initiative that is supporting hundreds in the world of online racing

The world of outdoor road racing can be an intimidating place for the newcomer, going shoulder to shoulder with other riders of a variety of fitness and experience levels. There is the ever-present crash risk, there can be shouting, there can be aggression, and there is always a price to pay financially. It's no wonder that entrant numbers is at the top of so many organisers' 'to do' lists.

When it comes to female competitors, underrepresentation makes bike racing a harder sell from the get-go, with women making up just 20% of British Cycling members and 15% of US Cycling's. However, indoor riding and racing is a different story, with Zwift's director of women's strategy Kate Veronneau reporting a "large and continually growing women's market".

One place where women are definitely represented is at FemmeCycle Collab – a women-only indoor cycling community formed two-and-a-half years ago with the aim of "connecting and enabling" women in the e-racing arena and, ultimately, get more women racing online.

The project was led by California-based Beccah Niesen, along with Susan Clarke and women's racing advocate James Bailey, and has since bloomed into a thriving community of more than 500 riders racing across Zwift and MyWhoosh.

“As I age, I see so many women losing confidence in their athletic self and themselves as a whole," Neisen told The Zommunique esports site in 2024. "I believe the same confidence rebound can be achieved for women by racing virtually, particularly within a community of other women. Empowered, enabled women can do so much good in this world, both in esports and in real life.”

Among those now helping run FCC is elite UK rider Alice Lethbridge, a former 100-mile and 12-hour national champion and record holder.

Speaking to Cycling Weekly, she said that FemmeCycle Collab is definitely about women competing online, but that it is also about the enjoyment, the journey, and the social benefit.

"In women's sport, you do have super-competitive people who will do it whatever, but for a lot of women, it's their friends that keep them going," she says. "They do the sport because actually they enjoy the time with their friends more than they enjoy the winning or pushing themselves.

"[FCC] is about getting them enjoying their exercise and having a challenge, having something to work towards," Lethbridge adds. "Because I think that's the other thing we've seen in women's sport. If they're afraid to compete, they kind of don't have the goals. If you've got competition, you've got a goal. And it doesn't have to be to win, it could be to score some points for your team, or it could be to finish the race, or it could be to move up a category.

"The focus is, 'let's give more women the confidence to be competitive," she adds.

FemmeCycle Collab is more than just a racing team – although it has teams that women can ride for. It's a community of women from different teams who, says Lethbridge, work together to help and encourage more women to race. If they don't have a team, they can race for FCC.

It also runs its own races and race series, with the upcoming Iceni series featuring events that are based on the WorldTour Classics. Lethbridge helped curate the series along with Niesen and Karla Williams, with the idea being that the Zwift course mimics that of the WorldTour as closely as possible, though it's far from an exact science, Lethbridge says.

"We wanted to do the linking as well," she says, "so, you're racing indoors, but look at what's outdoors – here's the pros. And there's a big Discord channel where any question goes."

This Sunday, International Women's Day sees FCC's 'Queen of the Classics Challenge' race, based on Paris-Roubaix, based on the Knights of the Roundabout course in France.

Lethbridge's hopes for the future is to help address the yawning gap between the younger senior riders and the fully-fledged WorldTour ranks via a series of events.

"We'd like to actually run some under-23 and junior events that bring in some of the girls who are having a bit of trouble transitioning from junior ranks on the road to senior, and get them racing against each other, as well indoors over winter and just keeping a bit of motivation," she says. "Because at the moment, a lot of the young girls are being thrown in with the pros at too high a level, and then losing all their confidence.

"It's a massive problem," she adds. "The talented juniors just get picked up by a pro team, thrown in the deep end, but are sometimes not really given the proper support, then don't do very well and lose all their confidence, and get lost from the sport completely.

"We were thinking, could we offer a kind of stepping stone, because also there's such limited competition for them actually, to race against people their own age."

You can find out more about FemmeCycle Collab by navigating to its Instagram page and clicking on the link in the bio.