Café Roubaix Bicycle Studio was the province’s only host for the Rapha Women’s 100, which globally promotes women in cycling.
Dan Richter, the owner of Café Roubaix, said it’s important for him to support women in the sport, especially the women members of his Café Roubaix Cycling Team.
“The cycling industry being dominated by men, it misses out on a lot of women,” Richter said. “I want to encourage more women into the sport.”
Richter had been actively looking for a ride women on his team could look forward to and when Liz McLean came to him about the Rapha Women’s 100, he was excited to host the event.
Rapha is a cycling apparel company founded by London’s Simon Mottram in 2004. For the past five years, the event has taken a day to celebrate women in cycling by bringing women across the globe together to ride 100 km. This year, 7,000 women took part.
McLean, who has been a member of the Café Roubaix cycling team since January, organized the event. She said the Rapha Women’s 100 is an amazing way to support women in cycling.
“You’re there to partake in something,” McLean said about building stronger friendships with her teammates. “You’re sharing that experience together.
McLean has been in Cochrane for two years now said the main reason she and her husband, Ally, moved here from Edmonton was the cycling community.
“I got into cycling to shut my husband up,” McLean laughs.
McLean’s husband wanted her to give cycling a chance because he believed it would help with her postpartum depression, which she said it has.
After a mountain of paperwork and two-weeks of quick planning, the four women members of the Café Roubaix team and one outsider from Calgary were given the opportunity to participate in the Rapha Women’s 100.
Melanie Benoit, the team leader of the ride, expressed how proud she is over how well the women did.
“We started together, we finished together,” Benoit smiles, “That’s what being a team is all about.”
Benoit has been in Cochrane for 12 years and has been a member of Café Roubaix team since it started four years ago. She fell in love with cycling when she was around 16 years old.
“I found it liberating,” Benoit said. “I didn’t have to rely on money to get anywhere.”
McLean and Benoit said the ride was extremely challenging, but worth it.
“It was great,” both McLean and Benoit said in tandem, laughing.
“We’ll have a Tour De France type thing one day,” Benoit added smiling in McLean’s direction.
The biggest message that McLean and Benoit want to share to other women is that it’s OK to go slower and not having elite gear won’t define you as a cyclist.
They want to encourage others to be a part of their team no matter the circumstances.
