Gloria Hwang rode her bike to work every day for years without a helmet. She thought it looked goofy. Then her career mentor died from a head injury sustained in a bike crash—sans helmet. Committed to shifting habits, she merged style and safety in a design that overcame all her reasons for not wanting to wear one. Thousand is the result.

Observe

“Commuting around Los Angeles, I would count how many riders were wearing helmets. It was only about 10 to 15 percent. For people riding a hundred miles a week, wearing a helmet is standard. For the recreational community, less so.”

Identify Problems

“Design isn’t just supposed to be beautiful. It’s supposed to solve problems. For example, people hate carrying helmets around, but they also worry about leaving them behind. So we designed a feature that lets you thread your bike’s U-lock through the helmet.”

Follow Through

“If your lid gets stolen when it’s stashed outside with our Pop-Lock system, we’ll replace it. We also have an accident replacement policy. If you’re ever in a crash, we’ll send you a new helmet for free. Since 2016, we’ve replaced 389.”

Embrace Change

“I believe there is an authentic desire among people in the bike industry to attract diverse riders. But that requires more than a pipeline or good marketing. It means creating a culture that’s equitable and inclusive, where people feel valued and safe. Women, or the BIPOC and queer communities, might enjoy cycling. But if they always feel like outsiders, they won’t stay.”

Stand Out

“As a woman of color in the bike industry, I’d go to a trade show and never see anyone who looked like me. In the beginning, I tried to blend in. Later, though, a mentor told me that my otherness was the reason Thousand was succeeding. I had a different perspective on what the market wanted. Now I believe that outsider perspective is the most valuable thing I can offer to an industry I’ve really come to love.”Ìę

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A wheelie is the bicycling equivalent of hanging ten on a surfboard or spinning a basketball on your finger—a skill as profoundly cool as it is functionally irrelevant. Pedaling around with one wheel in the air won’t help you win a race or bomb a gnarly descent. Unlike a front-wheel lift or a bunny hop, it has no business on a trail.

What the wheelie lacks in utility it makes up for with pure, unfiltered radness. There’s something thrilling about a skill that isn’t a means to an end but the end itself, whose value in doing it is just doing it, simply because you can. Yet it’s more than showing off. It’s about seeking an elusive, almost mystical state of precarious, dynamic balance. You’re chasing a sweet spot, a moving target that’s constantly shifting in every dimension, including the one inside your head.

In 20 years of mountain biking, this skill has always eluded me. So in January 2020, I hatch a plan: 100 wheelies per day for 30 days—3,000 attempts, all told—spread out over two or three months. I’ll consult some experts about technique, but mostly I’ll just put in the work. And I’m willing to fail prodigiously.

How will I define success? The ability to wheelie indefinitely, until I choose to put the wheel down. I’ll simultaneously tackle the manual—a different method of one-wheeled cruise control—because maybe the moves will inform each another. And also because: Why not?

It’s a juvenile pursuit for a professional writer with a mortgage and a 12-year-old boy. There are more productive uses of my time. But maybe, just maybe, there’s some value in tilting at your own quixotic windmill.

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Ask mountain bikerÌę the trick to whipping gap jumps, bunny-hopping up boulders, and landing a backflip (asÌę, no less), and he’ll happily share his secret: a workout that can be done in your living room with nothing more than duct tape.Ìę

“I need short bursts of power and speed to shoot up a climb, clear a gap, or pump through a rhythm section,” says theÌę30-year-old from Boise, Idaho. “This type of workout develops that strength.” The formerÌęBMX racer and All-American pole vaulter has spent years developing explosive power with plyometric training. Also known as jump training, plyometric exercises—like box jumps—conditionÌęyour muscles to produce maximum force in the shortest possible time, explains Jim Walker, director of the sports science department at , a Utah-based medical network.Ìę

The coronavirus pandemicÌęled to the closure of the bike parks where Bringhurst typically trains, so he developed a short, effective plyometrics workout he can do at home.ÌęThe series of rapid-fire jumps that progress in magnitude and intensityÌętakeÌęless than half an hourÌęand may feel deceptively easy. “You’re not going to sweat a ton orÌęwalk away feeling like you’ve done a ton of work,” BringhurstÌęsays. But this technique is remarkably efficient, thanks to a load-explode pattern that trains your muscles to produce more force more rapidly.ÌęThe key is minimizing the amount of time your feet spend on the ground between jumps to create a superfast rebound.Ìę

“They call it the stretch-shortening cycle,” says Greg Myer, director of sports-medicine research at the Children’s Hospital in Cincinnati and a coauthor of . “You’re lengthening a muscle prior to initiating a rapid contraction.” Plyometrics trains your muscular reflexes to respond quickly, Myer explains. That neuromuscular control improves coordination, balance, and proprioception—the awareness of where your body is in space. For athletes who do low-impact sports like cycling or swimming,ÌęplyometricsÌęÌęin increasing . “We tend to think of impact as a bad thing. But high-impact, weight-bearing exercise is what makes our bones strong,” says Walker. These types of exercises also strengthenÌęthe muscles that stabilize your ankles and knees, which helps guard against joint injury.Ìę

To set up for your workout, on the ground, make a plus sign that’s two feet squaredÌęusing duct tape or painter’s tape, and move any nearby furniture two or three feet away.ÌęWarm up with a quick jog around the block or five to ten minutes on aÌętrainer, followed by dynamic stretches focusing on yourÌęquads and hamstrings.Ìę“When you’re jumping and landing, really focus on proper technique,” says Myer. KeepÌęyour knees aligned with your toes—not buckling inward—and landÌęlightlyÌęon the balls of your feet.ÌęDo this workout twice a week when your muscles are fresh, not after a long ride or run. It’s also important to be mentally engaged,Ìęas you’ll need to focus to accurately nail each move.Ìę

The Moves

Two-Legged Circle HopsÌę

What it does:ÌęGets your calf muscles firing with quick, precise movements and prepares your quads and hamstrings for progressively bigger, more dynamic jumps. It also warms up your reflexes by engaging your nervous system.Ìę

How to do it: Stand in one of the quadrants. With your feet an inch or two apart, make quick, small hops (about twoÌęinches off the ground) in a clockwise pattern, movingÌęquadrant toÌęquadrant with each hop,Ìęfor 30 seconds. Make sure to land light-footed and rebound as quickly as possible without losing accuracy. After your first effort, rest for 30 to 60 seconds, until your muscles are fully recovered. Repeat for a total of three clockwiseÌęsets, resting between each set.

Single-LegÌęCircle Hops

What it does: In addition to the benefits of the two-legged circle hops, doing this move on one leg develops proprioception and neuromuscular control.

How to do it: Stand on your right foot in one of the quadrants. With small, rapid jumps, hop counterclockwiseÌęthrough the quadrants for 30 seconds. Make sure to land on the ball of your foot or midfoot, not flat-footed or on your heel. After your first effort, rest for 30 to 60 seconds, until your muscles are fully recovered. Complete three sets on your right leg, resting to full recovery between sets. Then repeat the sequence on your left leg, also going counterclockwise.

Two-Legged Depth JumpsÌę

What it does: This high-intensity, dynamic move builds explosive power and speed, which helps with dirt jumps, bunny hops, and other big moves on a bike.Ìę

How to do it: With your feet shoulder-distance apart, performÌęa series of controlled, explosive vertical jumps, aiming for knee height. When your feet come down, land on the balls of your feet and rebound into the next jump with as much power and speed as possible. Do ten consecutive jumps,Ìęminimizing the time your feet touch the ground. RestÌęa full two minutes between each set, until your muscles are fully recovered. Repeat for a total of three sets.

Single-LegÌęDepth Jumps

What it does: Depth jumps on one leg take things up a notch by doubling the load. They also buildÌęstrength in the core andÌęthe muscles stabilizing your knees and ankles.Ìę

How to do it: Don’t attempt these until you’ve mastered the two-legged version. Stand on your right leg, with your left foot a few inches off the ground. On one foot, do a series of controlled, explosive verticalÌęjumps, aiming for knee height or a little lower. When you land, rebound as quickly as possible. Do five consecutive jumps, making sure your knee stays aligned over your toes. Land on the ball of your foot orÌęmidfootÌęas quietly as possible. Complete three sets, resting a full two minutes between each set. Repeat the same sequence on the left leg.

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Getting dialed on a mountain bike requires a combination of fitness and bike-handling skills. Unlike road riding, where most of a ride is spent in the aerobic zone, mountain biking requires frequent bursts into the red. “Most mountain-bike trails are on varied terrain,” says , USA Cycling’sÌęperformance director for mountain biking. “You have steep climbs or technical features that require you to put power into the pedals.” It’s also a discipline where strong technical skills can save a ton of energy. The strongest rider is not necessarily the fittestÌębut the one who combines a solid endurance base with the technical skills that translate to more efficient riding.

We asked Gullickson and , skills coach for the USA Cycling and Olympic mountain-bike teams, to share some tips for beginners that will make you a strong, fast rider.

Build a BaseÌę

Before working on speed or intensity, it’s important to developÌęa basic level of fitness and endurance. “It builds the body up and allows you to handle higher-intensity workouts,” says Gullickson. If you’re coming off the couch, aim to spend four to six weeks in base-building mode—frequent, consistent, low-intensity effort—before adding speed and intensity. Ride three or four times a week for one to two hours at a time. The key here is restraint: “If you feel good, get longer rides in, but don’t go so hard that you can’t repeat the effort in a couple of days,” he says. Make sure you’re fueling your rides with high-quality food: fresh veggies and fruits, whole grains, and minimally processed foods. “It’s also important to hydrate with an electrolyte drink during the ride,” Gullickson says. “If the ride is longer than an hour, bring a gel,ÌęBloks, or energy bar to supplement the hydration.”

Add IntervalsÌę

After about four weeks of base building (followed by one dialed-back recovery week), incorporate intervals on one or two rides a week. During the first two weeks, intervals might look like this: ride for 30 minutes to warm up, then add five-second intervals of intense effort followed by 10 or 20 seconds of rest. Do five reps followed by a longer break. In later weeks, work up to : 20 seconds of all-out effort followed by tenÌęseconds of rest. Shoot for eight reps. In lieu of timed intervals, you can borrow the runner’s concept of ,Ìęusing power lines, trees, or other landmarks as visual goals for short, intense efforts. After two or three weeks, swap one short-interval workout for longer : five-to-ten-minute efforts at a pace that you can hold for up to 20 minutes.Ìę“Not so hard that you can’t maintain the pace,”ÌęGullickson says.

Burn Through Turns

No matter what level of rider you are, cornering is a skill you can never stop improving. “It’s the number-oneÌęplace where riders kill their speed,” says March. “You can use less energy by holding your momentum through the turns.” Set up early, in a wide, crouched stance on equally weighted pedals, opening the knees so the bike can lean beneath you. Important: make sure to lean the bike, not your body. “When you lean the bike, you’re able to get those side knobs on your tires to grab traction and hold the edge,” March says. “It’s like carving on skis.” Braking in the turn can cause skidding, so try to brake before the turn, easing off the brakes as you carve. Make sure you’re looking through to the exit, turning your body. “Imagine your belly button is a laser, and point it toward the exit,” he says.

Float Over Rocks and Roots

Many obstacles in the trail—roots, rocks, and bumps—are small enough to ride over with good form and a little momentum. Standing on equally weighted pedals, with elbows out and a nice bend in your knees and ankles, approach the obstacle at jogging speed. Keep your eyes focused as far down the trail as possible (don’t look down), using your peripheral vision to hold your line. Avoid leaning on the handlebars, which weights your front wheel and could cause it to snag. “Heavy feet, light hands,” is a good mantra, March says. Think of your arms and legs as shock absorbers as you ride over the obstacle.

Master the Basic Front-Wheel Lift

For midsizeÌęobstacles (like a log, or anything hub height or lower) on level or downhill slopes, use the basic front-wheel lift. “It’s a three-part move,” March says. “Load. Explode. Lift.” Approach the obstacle in a “ready” position: standing on equally weighted pedals, looking ahead, elbows and knees actively bent.

Step 1: Load

Compress your front shock by loadingÌęthe handlebars with your upper body, aggressively bending your elbows.

Step 2: Explode

As the shock rebounds, straighten your arms explosively. (It should feel kind of like a clapping push-up.)

Step 3: Lift

As your front wheel leaves the ground, bend your arms and lift the handlebars, raising the wheel even higher. The timing of this move is essential and depends on the speed at which you’re approaching the obstacle. Once the front wheel is over, the rear wheel—unweighted—will follow. This a perfect move to practice on curbs in the parking lot while you’re waiting around for that riding buddy who’s always running late.

Crush Uphill Obstacles

Getting over uphill obstacles can be exhausting unless you use an energy-saving technique: the pedaling front-wheel lift. Use it when you’re seated and climbing and need to get over an uphill rock or root. “Start with your dominant foot at the top of the pedal stroke—one o’clock—and give the pedal a hard punch to six o’clock,” March says. At the same time, lean back with your shoulders, straightening your arms, and feel your front wheel rise. “You’re not pulling up on your hands so much,” March says. “The power from the pedals is what’s bringing the bike up.” As soon as your front wheel clears the obstacle and lands, stand on the pedals in a crouched position, with bent arms. Give the handlebars a forceful shove, lunging the rear wheel over the obstacle. This method works best in an easy-to-moderate gear.

Rest Hard

Recovery is just as important as training—it’s when your body rebuilds itself.ÌęThis starts the second you get off the bike: “Make sure to take in a recovery drink mix or healthy snack within 20 minutes of completing the ride, to jump-start recovery,” Gullickson says. “A lot of our riders use protein mix with almond milk, but any mix of protein and carbohydrate is fine.” Incorporate easy, unstructured rides between longer rides and shorter, higher-intensity rides. “It flushes blood through fatigued muscles and can speed up recovery,” Gullickson says. “Psychologically, it’s nice to get on your bike and know you’re not going out to suffer.” He recommends one or two days completely off the bike per week. “Maybe one of those days is a cross-training day, just to mix it up.”

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On September 5, the World Surf League announced a major milestone: equal prize money for male and female surfers at every WSL event in 2019 and beyond. It was a watershed moment for a sport with a history of treating women as second-class athletes.

“Bravo to the WSL for their commitment to equal pay,” says Bianca Valenti, a San Francisco–based pro who conquered 20-foot waves to win Latin America’s first big-wave surf competition this summer. There, she won $1,750—a quarter of the $7,000 men’s purse. “Maybe we’ll find we have created equity not just in surfing, but for all sports.”

So where do other sports stand? Surprisingly, when it comes to prize money, a great number have reached parity—as high as 83 percent, according to one . But prize money isn’t the whole story, and because it’s a public-facing number, organizations have a considerable PR incentive to make purses equal. Harder-to-quantify issues like salaries, sponsorships, representation, and opportunities often still lag behind for women athletes.

When Title IX passed, in 1972, rewarded men and women equally. Tennis became the first, in 1973, after Billie Jean King and eight other female pros pressured the U.S. Open. By 2004, sports like volleyball, marathon running, and skating were awarding equal prize money. In the past four years, according to , at least 12 more sports joined the club. Climbing, alpine skiing, cross-country skiing, freestyle skiing, snowboarding, BMX, mountain biking, triathlon, and track and field pay men and women equal prize purses at the world championship level. Sports that haven’t closed the gap include cliff diving, ski jumping (in 2017–2018, the sport’s raked in more than twice as much as the ), and many cycling events.

Road cycling is a particularly egregious offender: a UCI-sanctioned World Tour one-day road race pays the male winner than the female victor. But recently, the sport has taken some significant steps forward. This March, the Tour of Britain for the women’s race by more than $60,000 to match the prize purse for the men, making the most lucrative event in women’s cycling even more rewarding. Also this year, the Tour Down Under to match the men’s. In 2014, Le Tour de France introduced La Course, a women’s race with prize money equal to what a man wins for winning a stage of the Tour.

However, these events are still several stages shorter than the men’s races, and other elements, such as media coverage, remain unequal. This year’s La Course delivered a thrilling race but fell short of delivering the audience it deserved. Only the last kilometer was televised in the United states, and the rest required a $50 streaming subscription. Still, it was considered a victory after years of women fighting to have any event, with little success.

On the other hand, younger sports are more likely to have reached gender parity than historically male-dominated sports. The International Triathlon Union, for example, has paid equal prize money to men and women in since its 1989 inception—more than a decade before triathlon became an Olympic sport, in 2000. (Triathlon is indeed a more progressive sport for gender equality, but one of the sport’s biggest events, the Ironman World Championship in Kona, offered more qualifying spots for male pros than for women .) The International Federation of Sport Climbing has also offered equal pay from the start.

There’s now a push from the highest echelons of sport—the —to get all sports paying equally and paying attention to harder-to-quantify factors of equality. On International Women’s Day in March 2018, the IOC announced the results of its , including 25 recommendations for promoting gender equality in sports. Three of them related to funding, and one specifically called out financial rewards, urging international sport federations to “establish mechanisms to address inequalities between genders in prize money or other athlete payments.”

As with so many other watershed moments of progress, this Olympic push is being led by a woman: Marisol Casado, president of the International Triathlon Union since 2008 and a rare example of a woman elected to the top post of a sport’s highest governing agency. (Of 40 Olympic International Federation presidents, Casado is one of two women.) As the chair of the IOC Gender Equality Review Project, she has pushed for not only equal prize money but also equal media portrayal and gender balance in leadership—perhaps the next frontier in the quest for gender parity in sports.

Speaking of leadership, it’s worth noting that surfing’s rise to equal prizes is happening under the WSL’s first female president, Sophie Goldschmidt. But it didn’t happen without an external push from a vocal group of women, including Valenti and other pros, San Mateo County Harbor Commissioner Sabrina Brennan, and a pro bono attorney, who formed the . The committee demanded that a women’s division be added to the Mavericks Challenge, a big-wave competition that for decades was open only to men.

The women prevailed. Mavericks added a women’s competition. But it took government involvement to push things forward. By excluding women, the contest was violating anti-discrimination laws that apply to events held on state lands, and the state of California mandated the inclusion of women as a condition of issuing an event permit. The resulting publicity put a spotlight on the inequality that pervaded other areas of the sport—like prize money. And theÌęvictory for women's surfing could have larger implications for other sports that play out in publicly funded venues.Ìę

“Every time I drive by one of those ginormous sports stadiums, I’ve always thought about how much public funding goes into them,” Brennan says. “So now we’re looking at what can this do for other sports?”

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Four years ago on a sunny July day in Paris, former pro cyclist Kathryn Bertine wheeled up to the starting line of La Course by Le Tour de France. She still remembers feeling the energy on the Champs ÉlysĂ©esÌęthat day and hearing the scrape of cleats on cobblestones. She’d spent years negotiating, petitioning, and organizing to bring about the event and finally she’d arrived, along with a rosterÌęof the best women cyclists in the world.Ìę

La Course was the latest attempt in a decades-long fight to create a lasting, prestigious women’s stage race to run alongside the Tour de France. Such events have come and gone through the decades, beset by financial struggles, organizational roadblocks, lack of media coverage, and good old-fashioned sexism. But Bertine thought that this time, she could make it stick.Ìę

The first attempt at a women’s Tour took place in 1955, when 41 women competed in the five-day , put onÌęby French journalist and race director Jean Leulliot. Despite mockery from the press and photographers, who allegedly tried to surprise competitors in their dormitories, the women finished the race. But without stable financial backing, the race disappearedÌęthe followingÌęyear.

The Tour de France FĂ©minin returned in 1984, this time organized by the group behind the men’sÌęTour de France. The idea was to create a truly equal event: during the three-week tour, women rode the same routes as their male counterparts, albeit slightly shortened to ensure they finished ahead of the men’s peloton. But aÌęlack of prime-time attention hurt the race: cycling publications largely ignored the women. After two years of a full-length tour, organizers cut the Tour de France FĂ©minin down to two weeks.

By that point, the business of professional cycling had started to change dramatically. TV coverage of the Tour de France increased, turning sponsorships and ads into a lucrative business. In 1989, the Tour organizers dropped the women’s race entirely in order to capitalize on the much larger men’s audience. “We could have been watching women since 1989,” says Bertine. “But instead they sold the TV rights for the men and got rid of the women.”

There were other attempts from other organizers: the Tour de l’Aude Cycliste FĂ©minin, a women’s stage race held in south-central France that was founded in 1985Ìęas a four-day eventÌęand grew into a multi-day tour that by 2006 had ten stages; the 1992ÌęLa Grand Boucle FĂ©mininÌęInternationale (so namedÌębecause organizers of the Tour de France prohibited any reference to “the Tour” on the grounds of trademark infringement), which lasted for 12 years and linked epic stages; the 2004 Grand Boucle FĂ©minin, which lasted till 2010; and the 2006 Route de France FĂ©minine, which became one of France’s most prestigious women’s races until it wasÌęcanceled in 2017 due to a scheduling conflict and the UCI’s decision not to give the race WorldTour status.Ìę

Over and over again, the same fatal cycleÌęrepeated itself: Without robust media coverage, the audience wasn’t big enough to attract sponsors to fund big events. Without big events, no sponsors were interested. After all, people can’t want what they cannot see—nor can advertisers buy it.

That wasÌęthe problem La Course, which was the result of years of lobbying the UCI,Ìęsought to address. It would piggyback on the infrastructure and media attention of the Tour de France. Live on 24 channels, the race was watched by millions of viewers in at least 150 countries. Dutch phenom Marianne VosÌęwould go on to sprint for the win and earn part of the $30,500 purse—a prize equal to the amount men receive for winning just oneÌęstage of the Tour.

Lots of people hailed La Course as a massive step forward for women’s cycling. But critics called it a token eventÌęto quell the increasingly vocal complaints about gender inequality in cycling. It was only a one-day race instead of a multi-day tour—a curtain raiser for the men, who were still very much the main event, they said. The 55-mile race lasted just over two hours and covered 2.5 percent of the Tour de France course.

“We intended the race initially be three to seven days the first year, and it would grow incrementally from there as the financial structure of women’s cycling grew,” says Bertine. “We saw it as getting our foot in the door.”

The UCI, the sport’s international governing body, seemed to echo this thought. “Our job now,” , then newly minted president of the UCI, in 2014 “is
to make sure that women’s road cycling develops in a way that is sustainable, that builds on each successive step with another successful step.”

That never happened. After repeating the one-day event on the Champs-Elysees in 2015 and 2016, the Amaury Sports Organization (ASO), which puts on the Tour de France, added a second day to La Course in 2017. But the format changed. Day one was a mountain stage, a climb to the Col d’Izoard—the men’s final mountain stage in the Tour. But while the men rode 103 miles, the women’s stage was a paltry 41. And only the top 20 finishersÌęof this stage were allowed to participate in day two, an unorthodox pursuit-style individual time trial. “If you follow cycling, that’s ridiculous!” Bertine says. “Why would you take the top 20 climbers and put them in a time trial? It’s a totally different event. It was a show pony event.”

The disappointment was evident. “We took it as seriously asÌęwe felt the organizers took us,” satsÌęBritish rider Lizzie Deignan, who pointed out that she couldn’t even find a women’s toilet at the race start. “To warm up for a time trial not knowing where the closest bathroom is—if there is one at all—It’s difficult to take that seriously.” Retired German cyclist Judith Arndt, two-time winner of the Tour de l’Aude, was more blunt. She called the new format “pathetic and humiliating.”

This year, the event was once again shortened. The one-day race was another truncated version of the men’s Stage 10 of the Tour de France, a 159 kilometerÌęascent in the Alps with four major climbs. La Course covered 118 kilometersÌęof that route, omitting two of the four climbs.

“I did get the feeling from ASO that they were annoyed by the hassle of having to deal with women wanting a race and then having to arrange a women’s race,” British World Champion Emma Pooley told VeloNews. She pointed to the OVO Women’s Tour, a five-day, 650-kilometerÌęwomen’s stage race in the United Kingdom as a model that shows the audience does exist for women’s events. VeloNews reported that the 2017 race, according to organizers, attracted 500,000 spectators and 1.4 million UK TV viewers.

At this year’s La Course, the women delivered a thrilling show with a hold-your-breath ending. After a high-speed descent from the Col de la Colombiere, Anna van der Breggen, the Dutch Olympic gold medalist who won the women’s road race at the 2016 Games in Rio de Janeiro, appeared to have won the race. Then, in the final 300 meters, fellow Dutchwoman Annemiek van Vleuten (who led the race in Rio before a horrific crash that knocked her out cold) began closing the gap. Just 50 meters from the finish line, van Vleuten passed van der Breggan, winning La Course by one second.

It was yet another reminder of how exciting women’s pro cycling can be. And yet, the live TV coverage in the United States was a joke wrapped in an insult and deep-fried in indignity. “Only the last kilometer was televised,” Bertine says. “In the States, the only way to see the whole race was to buy a subscription to NBC Sports Gold [a stand-alone online streaming service for $49.99. Why do we have to pay 50 bucks to see the women?”

“If we want to rise above the inequality, it’s the women who have to rise up together and say, ‘No more. This is not okay. I deserve exactly what the men have,’” she says. “Standing on that start line [in 2014] gave me the hope that yes, we have the power to effect change. You know, I’m not famous. I’m not wealthy. I’m not an Olympic medalist. But if I helped make this happen, then we all have the power to make change happen.”

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During the final laps of the 2017 Dutch National Road Championships, in Montferland, the peloton surged through a fine June rain. Helicopters thundered overhead, broadcasting the race live throughout the Netherlands. Thousands of spectators lined the course, which looped through corn and wheat fields. More than a hundred women were racing for the Dutch title, and their country was paying attention. Yet the race’s four-time champion, Marianne Vos, was nowhere to be seen. She was not pushing the pace or launching attacks. Instead she was behind the pack, riding shotgun in the WM3 Pro Cycling team car. Vos was nursing a broken collarbone, the result of a crash two weeks prior on the Women’s Tour. Less than a thousand yards from the finish in Royal Leamington Spa, England, a rider went down while traveling at 37 miles per hour, causing a pileup that slammed Vos into a metal barrier. (She still finished the race.)

If Vos was feeling crushed to have to sit this one out, it didn’t show. Leaning in for a photo with her coach and mechanic, she beamed her signature dimpled grin. “Dutch National [road race] on the way,” she typed on her phone, posting the shot on Instagram. “Not in the bunch, but in the car @WM3pro-cycling today. Let’s see what it brings!”

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Vos is one of the finest cyclists in the history of the sport. Winner of more than 300 races across four disciplines—road, track, mountain, and cyclocross—she excels at every distance, from hourlong criteriums to multi-day tours. “Marianne Vos is the rider of her generation,” British commentator Anthony McCrossan told me last spring. At 18, she earned her first rainbow-stripe jersey (the exclusive badge of world champions) in cyclocross. At 19, she earned one in road. Two years later, in 2008, she was an Olympic favorite in Beijing. After a disappointing sixth-place finish in the road event, eight days later she refocused on the velodrome, where she didn’t just win—she lapped the competition in the track points race. Her trophies stacked up as she systematically conquered every major women’s event, from one-day spring classics to the Giro Rosa, a ten-day stage race through Italy.

Vos considers the Olympic gold medal that she won in the 2012 London Games road race to be the pinnacle of her career. That event is often held up as proof of how exciting women’s cycling can be. As Vos wheeled up to the starting line, she heard Eminem’s “Lose Yourself” playing over the loudspeaker. She has a habit of singing aloud on her bike, something she says annoys fellow riders, and this, her favorite psych-up song, felt special. When the 87-mile race started, she was ready. Her final sprint down the waterlogged Mall in central London, beating Britain’s Lizzie Armistead by about a bike length, was one of the sport’s most breathtaking moments. In the photos of Vos at the finish, you can see goosebumps on her arms. The memory of the crowd’s roar still gives her chills. “That sound. I can still hear it,” she .

That same year, Vos again won the Road World Championships, the UCI Road World Cup, the Giro Rosa, and a half-dozen classics. Velo magazine named her the —over Bradley Wiggins, winner of the Tour de France and the Olympic time trial. “There is no one like her, man or woman, who has ever pinned on a number,” Velo declared. “Merckx was not this accomplished at 25.” Vos’s competitors consider a runner-up finish behind her a victory. “Second to Marianne isn’t too shabby,” Katie Compton said after winning silver in the 2013 Cyclocross World Championships. “I can’t think of anyone who is as talented as she is, as hardworking as she is, as motivated as she is. But it only makes everyone better.”

Vos, 31, is a natural and gifted athlete, with some of the biggest VO2-max and threshold-power numbers in the women’s peloton. But she credits her success to her work ethic. She almost always skips rest days in favor of more time on the bike, and she logs hour after hour of base miles during the off-season. All of which is to say that she was in rare form last June, sitting in the team car. “Gutted to be out for a while and not be able to race,” she posted to her fans on social media after an outpouring of beterschap, Dutch for “get well soon.” “Thank you all for the well wishes; I’ll be fine!”

Still, while the broken collarbone was an annoyance, her fans knew that it wasn’t the only thing that was holding Vos back. In 2015, after almost a decade of dominance, she’d started losing races, finishing well behind the leaders, confounding her coaches and herself. It was as if her body had gone on strike, with zero explanation. Vos, who had practically lived on two wheels since the age of five, was forced to stop riding for six months, confronting her hardest challenge yet—stepping off the bike.

When I metÌęup with Vos for coffee at the Hotel De Buunderkamp, a small inn in Wolfheze where she and her WM3 team were staying before nationals, there were no photographers or fans. Delivered by a handler who reappeared just once, only to be waved away, Vos was a model of Dutch understatement, wearing jeans and a team shirt, modest jewelry, and a touch of mascara. She’s five foot six, with brown hair framing green eyes. A beast in the saddle, she’s shy and laid-back out of it, that rare pro you’ll see washing her own bike after a muddy cyclocross race. Most of her trophies are under a plastic tarp in a shed at her home in BabyloniĂ«nbroek. She’s a household name in the Netherlands, where cycling is a national obsession and the sport’s superstars carry as much clout as Tom Brady. “I never wanted to be famous,” Vos said. “I just wanted to ride my bike.”

So when doctors told her in 2015 that she needed to stop riding indefinitely, it felt like a prison sentence. In the first major cyclocross race of that year, she’d finished 12th. She wasn’t out of shape, sick, or hurt. But the harder she trained, the worse she felt. “Your body at some point says, ‘That is enough. I don’t work anymore,’ ” she says. There was no specific diagnosis beyond overtraining. The doctors’ prescription was equally vague: Stop. Rest. As long as you need. Vos had never been seriously injured. In the past, a shattered collarbone hadn’t kept her from finishing a race. But this wasn’t like a fracture—six weeks and good as new. This was like swimming toward the offing with no land in sight. “You don’t know if it is ever coming back,” she said, as six of her teammates settle around a nearby table. “Maybe it was the end of my career.”

Finally, in May 2015, she agreed to take a break. “I got my identity from results, not from being a good human,” she said. “Being at home only resting and trying to fill my days with recovery, I had no identity, because I didn’t win races.” She needed normalcy, which wasn’t easy for her. “She’s special in that she really enjoys training,” says Vos’s current team manager, Eric van den Boom. “Of course, she can be very angry and disappointed if the performance does not work as she planned or hoped. Her intense sports mentality is unique.” But for six months, she tried to become less intense. Vos threw out her fitness and diet regimens. She stopped training entirely, though she allowed herself to spin around town on her cruiser. She napped, read a lot, and went shopping with her mom. She learned to ride a moped. She sought normalcy. Finally, Vos had an epiphany: sometimes a weakness is a strength driven to the extreme. “I had to accept that my injury might be caused by the same thing that got me so far—I push myself very hard,” she says. “I learned to accept myself for who I am, apart from the bike.”

She became more accessible, even to her own teammates. “After all these invincible years, she turned out to be a human being,” observed Marijn de Vries, a journalist and retired pro. “Her teammates, who always put her on a pedestal, perhaps not even consciously, suddenly dared to talk to her about doubts and uncertainties. And Marianne slowly learned that vulnerability is not weakness, but something very powerful.”

After six months off the bike, Vos’s body started responding to the rest. In late 2015, she began a careful comeback. She focused on the Rio Olympic Games, in August, where she competed in the road race. This time, instead of rolling up to the start as the team superstar, Vos took on the role of tactical leader and domestique, dropping back to the support car to stuff her jersey with water bottles for her teammates. Later she launched a counterattack that looked like a possible race-winning move. It wasn’t—Vos placed ninth—but her fellow Rabobank racer Anna van der Breggen got the gold. “People say, ‘Now you have some age. You have to settle,’ ” Vos says. “Actually, I am pretty happy with what I do now with the team and just riding the bike.”

She’s still hungry for victories, though, and still capable of them. Since returning, Vos has won several big races, including the 2017 European Championships, her first international title since her recovery began. “With sports, you have your ups and downs,” she says. “Over the past couple of years, there have been a lot of downs. But there are also highs when everything comes together.”

Those highs no longer come just from wins. Vos has turned the podium into a platform, advocating for gender equality with an unassuming Dutchness. Since 2015, she has become a leading advocate for expanding the international women’s road-race calendar, and she started a nonprofit to connect amateur and professional riders. The result is a different kind of triumph. “Whenever we would speak up about the fact that we’re not getting paid much or that our races are too short, it came across as whining,” says Meredith Miller, a former pro cyclist who leads the Boulder, Colorado, chapter of the Rapha Cycle Club. “Marianne turned the tone around and made it sound less like complaining. She added purpose and momentum—and a voice that people listen to.”

Three days afterÌęthe Dutch National Road Championships, on a blustery morning, I go to see Vos’s home in BabyloniĂ«nbroek, a village of about 400 residents. She isn’t there—despite the collarbone injury, she’s headed to a team camp in Italy—but her brother, Anton, has agreed to take me on a 31-mile ride to see Marianne’s local turf. A photographer with a sunny disposition, Anton is four years older and a head taller than his sister. Together with their parents, they share a thatched-roof home that Vos bought with her winnings. Over the course of her 12-year professional career, she’s been able to comfortably support herself and is currently sponsored by several major companies, including Oakley, Shimano, and Volvo.

The house overlooks the marshy lowlands that connect the seven villages of Aalburg, a rural community not far from the Belgian border. Most of Vos’s training rides start in her driveway, from which she has access to a countrywide network of paved bike paths that mostly prevent her from having to contend with traffic. Vos started riding after she watched Anton race at the local cycling club. When she was five, her father, Henk, bought her a tiny road bike. She couldn’t reach the pedals, so Henk, a carpenter, removed the seatpost and clamped the saddle directly to the lime green frame. Three years later she entered her first race. At the starting line, the shy schoolgirl vanished. The bike awakened a fierce hunger to win. “We couldn’t even play board games,” Anton says. “She really hated losing.” Once, after crossing the finish in third, she just kept on riding. “I was so angry, I didn’t want to stop” she told me, cringing at the memory. She rode another half-mile and missed the podium ceremony.

We stop by the street where Marianne and Anton grew up racing each other on the neighborhood’s only “hill”—a highway overpass. Anton shows me one of the monuments honoring Vos’s 12 world titles. It’s very Dutch: a simple wooden bench with a modest engraving. There’s a similar bench in each of Aalburg’s six other villages. “They ran out of villages,” Anton says. “So they added a table and a couple of statues.” One of the statues, a giant metal sculpture, rises from the middle of a roundabout. Taller than Anton and at least 15 feet wide, Marianne’s Crown is a collage of bike silhouettes, each symbolizing a stage of her journey, from her little green bike to the one she raced to Olympic gold in 2012.

As glorious as that year was for Vos, it was also a turning point for professional cycling. Months after the London Games, Lance Armstrong was stripped of his trophies, triggering the biggest doping scandal in the history of the sport. One hero after another—mostly men—lost their titles and were sanctioned. Brands withdrew, including Vos’s then team sponsor Rabobank, which was “no longer convinced that the international professional world of cycling can make this a clean and fair sport.” Vos tweeted that Rabobank’s choice was “understandable
 but unfortunately this hurts many innocent [riders] in our sport.” The company ultimately amended its decision. In the end, Rabobank ended up dropping the men but agreed to sponsor the women through 2016. Women have been caught doping, too, but in much smaller numbers, and none of the Rabobank women had ever produced a positive test. In 2017, Vos cofounded a new team sponsored by WM3, a Dutch green-energy consulting firm. For the 2018 season, WaowDeals, a smartphone payment app, stepped up as the title brand.

The doping scandals got Vos talking seriously about how to make women’s cycling a financially viable profession for more than just a handful of elite riders. Professional road cycling is perhaps the most inequitable sport on the planet: women’s races are shorter, the riders’ salaries (if they exist at all) are much lower, and the prize money is a fraction of the men’s. According to , a women’s union created in 2017, half of all female professionals earn less than $12,300 per year, and 17 percent don’t get paid at all. By contrast, male cyclists on WorldTour teams have a minimum salary of around $47,000 and can make six figures through sponsorships and prize money, with a few at the top awarded multimillion-dollar annual contracts.

In 2006, when Vos began her elite career, she was the rare female pro who wasn’t holding down a second job to get by. She wanted to change that. “In professional cycling, we saw limits in organization, development of teams, salary, and professionalization of the riders,” she says. “Of course, it has to do with money, but also with…” she pauses, searching for the right phrase, “daring to make a difference. The UCI is a great organization, but it is big, it is old-fashioned. It is difficult to change big things.”

After the 2012 doping fallout, Vos began speaking up for women’s cycling. More coverage would build a bigger audience, which would attract more sponsors; more sponsors meant better salaries, which would attract more talent and grow the sport. Everything would have to start with visibility. Advertisers can’t buy into what people can’t see. In interviews, Vos contended that every major men’s race should have a women’s equivalent, with the same broadcast schedule. “I’d like to see the Tour de France [for women],” she told Cycling Weekly in early 2013. “We need a platform. The Tour de France is what people watch, that’s where the world of cycling—media, fans, spectators—is.”

That year, between winning two more world titles, she teamed up with three other cyclists and called on the Amaury Sport Organisation, the organizer of the Tour de France, to create a women’s race. In 2014, the ASO launched , a women’s race held in Paris a few hours before the men made their victory laps. The 55-mile competition included 13 laps on the Champs-ÉlysĂ©es. The winner would receive $30,500—the same amount the men get for winning a stage of the Tour.

In July 2014, as the sun shone on Paris, 119 of the world’s best female athletes stormed the Champs-ÉlysĂ©es in front of millions of viewers from 190 countries. In the final stretch, it came down to four riders. With her usual impeccable timing, Vos sprung out of the bunch, nailed the sprint, and won the race she helped create. “La Course is really something awesome for women’s cycling, but it’s just one step toward the recognition we deserve,” she told Cycling News. “I hope everyone who saw us today realized the peloton’s getting stronger and stronger.”

Though La Course was a significant milestone, it was still just one day tacked onto a 21-day race for men. So in 2015, during her break from the bike, Vos launched her second attack: to grow the number of women riders in the professional and amateur ranks by connecting pros with everyday rides. The pros would develop a fan base for the sport while the amateurs learned from them. More women. More bikes. More power. “We had an idea to improve grassroots cycling, because that’s where everything starts,” Marit Huisman, one of Vos’s collaborators and a former pro cyclist, told me. “I can learn a lot from a beginner, and a beginner can learn a lot from us as well.”

Vos and Huisman envisioned a worldwide platform. “We wanted to create some buzz and events,” Vos says. It began with the Road Trip to Paris, a small group ride from Holland to watch the debut of La Course. The next year it was a festival in the Netherlands called We Own Yellow, held a week after the 2015 Grand DĂ©part, the first stage of the Tour de France. There were bike-handling clinics, women-led rides, and evening socials. Around 1,000 women, ages 16 to 80, showed up. About two weeks later was the second Road Trip to Paris for La Course. This time, Vos came as a spectator.

Near the end of her six months off, Vos also launched , an online community for women cyclists. “Strongher links pro athletes and -grassroots riders,” she says. The launch party, in London, unveiled her hand-picked team of Sheroes—female ambassadors from cycling’s various disciplines, including world downhill mountain-biking champ Manon Carpenter. Today, Strongher has 300 ambassadors leading rides and hosting events around the world. In early 2018, it launched the Strongher app, which connects female cyclists of similar riding style and ability.

Growing the sport’s fan base, Vos hopes, will lead to more mainstream coverage of women’s races, which slowly seems to be happening. Last year, before the -women’s Tour of Flanders, Belgian rider Jolien D’hoore tweeted, “We ride the same day as the [male] pros. A live broadcast is also welcome.” Retweeted more than 200 times, the message jump-started the #wewantrvvlive campaign. A few days later, the event organ-izers tweeted back. “Let’s make this official! There’ll be live broadcasting of the Ronde for Women, thanks to @proximus and @sporza!”

Vos has returned to full-time racing. She’s currently the leader of the , though she still doesn’t feel 100 percent. She is committed to resting more and focusing on a few major races.

The rest of her 2017 season was marked by the highs and lows she’s now grown accustomed to. After winning the European Championships in August, she came down with a serious cold and struggled in many of the major winter races. In February, she competed in the Cyclocross World Championships in the Netherlands, where she placed 18th. Her first win of 2018 came a few days later, in the C2 Parkcross cyclocross race in Maldegem, Belgium. In March, Vos and her team turned to the season’s second major road event, the Netherlands’ Ronde Van Drenthe, where she placed fifth. She plans to compete in the other Women’s World Tour events this summer, targeting the Road World Championships in September.

Last summer in Montferland, as the National Road Championships neared the finish, Vos hopped out of the team car for an interview, then joined her sponsors inside the viewing tent to watch the end of the race. At the finish line, the crowd clustered near a beer truck, glued to a screen showing live footage. As the riders swung into the final lap, the leaders jockeying for position, the announcer’s pitch rose two octaves: “Dit is een typische vrouwenkoers!”

“He was saying, ‘It is a typical women’s race,’ ” said Inge Neijenhuis, a 45-year-old Dutch high school teacher and amateur racer who I met on the sidelines. “It’s a compliment. That means it is constantly moving and changing—anything can happen. ‘Women’s race’ is synonymous with ‘interesting.’ ”

As the peloton crossed the finish, my pulse raced. Still, I was skeptical that more coverage would get more women on bikes. I’m a believer in the grassroots cycling groups that have popped up all over the world in the past five years. I founded one in 2011 to meet other women to ride with in Alabama, one of the least bike-friendly states in the country. Today we have over 1,000 members on Facebook, and a few hundred show up for rides and clinics, including some who drive from nearby states for the camaraderie. Few of us follow pro racing. I have seven bikes but no cable TV.

Then, at the podium ceremony—where the medals were bestowed by fresh-faced podium boys in white button-down shirts—I met Kayleigh, an eight-year-old cyclocross racer who came to watch the women race. Her dad, Norbert, scrolled through photo after photo of Kayleigh mugging with her idols, Olympic road cyclists Annemiek van Vleuten and Anna van der Breggen, Vos’s gold-medal-winning teammate.

I asked Kayleigh what made her want to race bikes. Her father translated.

“I saw the women,” she said.

“What women?”

“The ones on TV.”

I asked what her cycling dream is. She cocked her head and thought for a moment.

“To be world champion.”

Kim Cross () is the author ofÌęÌę. This is her first feature for șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű. James Cannon is anÌęșÚÁÏłÔčÏÍűÌęcontributing photographer.

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Last spring, Ìę outsprinted the world’s best cyclists, becoming the first American to , Belgium’s prestigious 95-mile cobblestoned classic. The 25-year-old Southern Californian began racing pro at age 16 and has claimed 71 national titles across four disciplines— road, track, cyclocross, and mountain biking. But recently she became a major threat in Europe, winning two events in 2017. This spring she’s focusing on road cycling and has her eye on the World Championships. With so much keeping her busy, we asked Rivera how she balances the essentials: training, rest, recovery, and food.

“My morning ritual is pour-over coffee. I grind my own beans, weigh everything, let it bloom for a minute—all that stuff. I have a Hario V60 size-one dripper—it’s small and great for traveling.”

“I do a resting-heart-rate reading every morning using an app on my phone called Ithlete. It clues me in to whether I’m tired, getting sick, have overtrained, or am not getting enough sleep.”

“After a crash, I use hydrogen peroxide to wash off all the road grime. It hurts like heck. When it’s dry, Tegaderm, a wound dressing, is great, but if you’re training, your sweat pools under-neath it. Hydrocolloid bandages soak up any moisture.”

“After a hard ride or race, I like Greek yogurt or skyr for ^–protein. I might add some granola or goji berries.”Ìę

“I don’t have any special diet.ÌęI eat what tastes good.”

“Diversify. Track cycling builds leg speed that can improve your sprints. Mountain biking and cyclocross build bike-handling skills that can save you if you get pushed off the road.”Ìę

“Building endurance is all about time in the saddle. I go long and steady early in the season. My endurance rides are at least three hours. I keep it pretty low-key, just cruising around and taking in the sights.”Ìę

“I wear compression socks on long flights. It helps circulation, so when you get off the plane your feet aren’t swollen and sore.”

“Everyone handles pressure differently. I’m laid-back. In a race there are things you can’t control. You just have to be ready to encounter some obstacles.”Ìę

“Recovery is just as important as the training you put in. When I have a rest day, I’ll sleep in as long as I can. European blinds that block out all light help me sleep longer.”

“When I’m racing I run a lot on instinct, and I try not to overthink things. Once you hesitate, you miss the moment.”

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It only took nineteen years, countless advocates, dozens of letters,Ìęa bankruptcy and change of ownership,ÌęplusÌęone particularly tenacious public official, but women—for the first time ever—have been invited to compete at one of the world’s most famous big-wave breaks: Mavericks. After intense lobbying, political maneuvering, and negative press, the historically all-male contest has invited six female pros to compete in a single women’s heat, which will take place sometime between now and the middle of February, conditions permitting.Ìę

“This is a huge step forward,” says Bianca Valenti, a San Francisco-based big-wave surfer slated to compete in this year's event. “Finally, we’ve got a foot in the door. But we have a long way to go.”

The ferocious wave, off the coast of Half Moon Bay in northern California, has long been an icon of big-wave surfing. It has also become a focal point in the growing fight for gender equality in a sport with a long and colorful history of machismo. “There’s nothing more beautiful than a well-shaped girl riding a six-foot wave with the wind blowing through her hair,” wrote . “But one thing I can’t stand is girls riding (or attempting to ride) big waves.”

Flash-forward 45 years. While that attitude has eroded, it’s far from gone.

“Surfing is 20 years behind other sports,” Valenti says on a drive home from surfing Mavericks. “One day a guy told me, ‘This is a man’s playground. I don’t want to see you out here, unless I’m going out on a date with you, ‘cause you’re kinda cute.’”

Big-wave contests have run at Mavericks since 1999, when the made fliers promoting the event and the “Men Who Ride Mountains.” That was the same year that became the first woman to surf the monstrous wave, five years after bodyboarder Sarah Lucas busted the gender barrier. But competition was strictly open to dudes, who were the only ones getting invites. Contest founder Jeff Clark, a big-wave pioneer who surfed Mavericks alone for 15 years before anyone would join him, didn’t think women were good enough. “It’s not a gender thing. It’s a performance thing,” Clark told CBS—in 2016. “Women just aren’t there yet.”Ìęa year after Keala Kennelly won Barrel of the Year at the WSL Big WaveÌęAwards, the so-called Oscars of big-wave surfing. She was chosen—over hundreds of men—in a season with a historic number of supersized rides, barrels, and wipeouts. In her acceptance speech, Kennelly thanked “…. Because that drove me to dedicate my life to proving you wrong, and it's been so damn fun.”

As if women aren’tÌęalready out there with men in the lineup for any big swell. “On any given day, we’re competing with the men,” Valenti says. “It’s not like a tennis court.”

The simple truth is, women have been surfing big waves for decades, despite the cultural undertow of a brotherhood that really would rather they didn’t. “Women have been expected to look good on the beach and hand the boy his towel when he gets out of the water,” says Matt Warshaw, author of the . “Women were not encouraged to go out and surf big waves during the 1960s. But there were women who did.”

In 1959, as Joan Cleaver was still cleaning the house in a dress and pearls, Linda Benson, who would later be called the , became the first womanÌęto surf Waimea.ÌęAround the same time, Marge Calhoun, a mother of two who didn’t pick up a surfboard until she was almostÌę30, was winning the Makaha International, on the west side of Oahu, Hawaii. “I loved a wave that was dramatic,” Calhoun said. “I wanted something that could knock me around.”

In the 1970s, Margo Oberg, often credited as the original female big-wave surfer, became a regular on the monstrous winter swells at Sunset Beach on Oahu’s North Shore. She raised the ante to 15-foot waves. After winning four world championships, she fell just shy of a fifth, placing second in 1982—three months after giving birth. Then came Phyllis Dameron, one of the most fearless bodyboarders (of either gender) in the history of the sport. She paddled into waves higher than 20 feet and bounced down them like a skipping stone, often passing the men below her. “I’ll go right over them, in the air if I have to,” she said.Ìę

In the 1990s, Layne BeachleyÌęandÌęSarah Gerhardt became tow-in pioneers. After mastering 20-footers at a North Shore break called Phantoms, BeachleyÌęhad a Jet Ski sling-shot her into 25-foot waves in Todos Santos, in Baja California, and șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű Log Cabins, in Hawaii. She became the first woman to conquer the “death slab” barrels at a freakish Sydney break, which pounds into a rocky shelf.Ìę

Yet during all that time, invite-only contests were closed to women. Finally, in 2010, Oregon’s Nelscott Reef Big Wave Classic became the first major event to inviteÌęwomen to compete. But even then there was a catch: it was only an exhibition,Ìę. Three women surfedÌęin a one-hour heat, in conditions that blew out one male competitor’s eardrum and sent him staggering to shore, warning about the conditions. Keala Kennelly took home the win—and a prize purse of…$0.Ìę

Finally, in 2016, the first paying women’s division was added to a big-wave contest. The Peahi Challenge, one of three stops on the , invited women to compete on the 30-foot-plus waves at the Maui breakÌęJaws. It was a bona-fide division: 12 women, plus six alternates, competing in three heats—two semi-finals and a final. Hawaii’s Paige Alms, who does construction and ding repair to supplement her pro-surfer income, landed air-drops in the howling wind and became the first women’s big-wave champion. She won . (The men’s champ bagged .)

The world of big-wave surfing appeared to be shifting, with many male pro surfers expressing support for their female counterparts. But the Mavericks door remained slammed shut. It took a politically savvy local official to pry that one open.

Sabrina Brennan, an elected member of the San Mateo County Harbor Commission, which also grants event permits, teamed up with several female pros, including Bianca Valenti and Keala Kennelly, to form the . She argued that public resources could not be used for discriminatory activities—a key legal point. In response to their lobbying efforts, the California Coastal Commission required Titans of Mavericks to include women competitors as a condition for renewal of the event's permit.

Here’s how Titans founder Jeff Clark responded to that news in a TV interview: “I understand what the Coastal Commission wants is more women involved in Mavericks. We’ve had women judges, we’ve had women in our water patrol, and water rescue
” Actually, no. They want to see women on the board—not the board of directors.

The contest organizer, Cartel Management, grudgingly responded by agreeing to “reach out” to female pros and allow them to compete—with the men, if they qualified. Four women made the 56-person first cut. Days later, not a single woman made the 38-surfer second cut, selected by an all-male committee. Calling B.S. on Cartel’s pseudo-meritocracy, the Committee for Equity in Women’s Surfing demanded that women compete against women, as they do in pretty much every other sport. They asked for a standard women’s division: six women, three heats.Ìę

To make a long story short, Cartel was then sued by sponsors and . The 2016-2017 Titans of Mavericks never happened.ÌęThe next season, the event was picked up by the World Surf League, which invited six women to compete—against each other—in the 2017-2018 contest, renamed the Mavericks Challenge. This added a second women’s contest—and a fourth event—to the Big Wave Tour. “The timing was right,” says CEO Sophie Goldschmidt, who has held executive roles with the NBA, Adidas, and several mainstream sports. She expects the WSL to add more women’s big-wave surfing events—gradually. “We’re not going to rush. We’re going to be very thoughtful about this. Over time, I expect us to add further events as the women and the sport are ready for it, from a performance and a safety standpoint.”

The female pros say they’re stoked to compete at Mavericks, but they wish it was a legitimate multi-heat division. It’s six women and one heat—one golden hour on the waves. Compared to the three-heat, 24-man contest, it feels to some like a footnote. What they’d like to see is a multi-heat competition, where women have to surf against one another to make it to the finals.ÌęAsÌęit is, “it’sÌęa token,” Brennan says. “Six women, one heat? That’s nowhere near equality.”

Given the sport’s history of machismo, that should surprise no one.Ìę

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You knew Bo Jackson could hit back-to-back home runs. You’ve seen him bust through a wall of linemen like a Mack-truck through a picket fence. You might recall his 40-yard dash clocking in among the fastest in NFL history. And if you remember the “Bo Knows” commercials of the ‘80s, you don’t need to be reminded that Bo was freakishly good at more sports than should be humanly possible.Ìę

But did you know that Bo knows cycling?Ìę

Every spring, you’ll find Jackson pedaling through Alabama, launching from Auburn and leading a peloton packed with superstars: Lance Armstrong, Ken Griffey Jr., Picabo Street, and even Bo’s former football nemesis Brian “the Boz” Bosworth. They’re mixed into a motley assortment of riders, from racers astride $10,000 bikes to fans on clunkers excavated from dusty back-yard sheds.

It’s like this every year at . Proceeds from the annual charity ride—the fourth one was held earlier this month—go toward the construction of community tornado shelters in Alabama,Ìęwhich leads the nation in tornado deaths. Bo created the ride after watching 62 tornados ravage his home state on April 27, 2011. More than 250 Alabamians died, and many small towns suffered. “I felt I needed to do something,” Jackson says. It would not be a race, or even a ride that takes itself too seriously. “It is what I call a celebration ride. You can have kids from their early teens to senior citizens, and everyone is having fun.”Ìę

At six foot one, 275 pounds, Bo is the physiological antithesis of the archetypical cyclist: a skinny guy with the quads-to-biceps ratio of a Tyrannosaurus Rex. After hip surgery, he discovered cycling not so much as a sport but as a way to stay fit without the pounding of running. He is not the fastest rider in the pack, or the strongest climber—don’t even think about trying to chat with him on a hill.

But he may just be the best advocate for cycling in the nation’s least bike-friendly state. Last year, Mississippi bumped Alabama from #49 to dead last on the League of American Bicyclists’ . Alabama remained in dead last this year.ÌęInfrastructure and laws for cycling are poor to nonexistent. Bike lanes are scarce. There’s no three-foot law. Drivers unaccustomed to seeing bikes on the road are, at best, unsure how to pass, and at worst, . But many of them are also football fans.

“You couldn’t ask for anyone better than Bo to do this in our football-crazed state,” says Faris Malki, owner of Cahaba Cycles, a Birmingham bike shop.

For the inaugural Bo Bikes Bama, Jackson rode nearly 300 miles across the state, from town to tornado-torn town, drawing cameras and donations to places forgotten when the media circus moved on. He got Trek and Nike and other sponsors on board, and invited his fans to donate and ride, with the goal of raising $1 million for the Governor’s Relief Fund. After that first year, he changed it to a one-day event, with a 60-mile course and a 20-mile option. After four years, the ride has grown to around 900 cyclists and raised an estimated total of $960,000, says event director Rebecca Falls, an employee of Trek Travel who hails from Tuscaloosa. “Next year we’ll easily pass the $1 million mark.”

As celebrity rides go, Bo Bikes Bama isn’t the first or the largest. Levi Leipheimer’s GranFondo, set in the hills of northern California, draws around 7,000 riders a year. George Hincapie’s Gran Fondo counted 1,300 riders last fall, in only its second year.ÌęBy comparison, the four-year total number of riders in Bo Bikes Bama is around 2,400. But Bo Bikes Bama is a tight-knit, intimate group, with devotees returning year after year from 28 states.

Certain celebrities also come back every year. Armstrong rode this year and in 2012. Street, the Olympic gold medalist alpine skier, and Griffey Jr., 13-time MLB All-Star, have ridden all four years. Olympic triple-jumper Al Joyner rode the first three. Riding shoulder-to-shoulder with them feels like the Gods of Sport have come down from Mount Olympus to walk among the mortals.Ìę

Except, on a bike, they are mortals too. They don’t train for this. Their butts get just as sore. They struggle up hills like the rest of us. is still fit, still a legend, but he is not built for climbs. After four or five days of cycling foothills during the first ride in 2011, Bo drank pickle juice for cramps, walked his bike up at least one hill, and endured Armstrong quipping, “Bo don’t know hills!”

This year got interesting when Bosworth asked to join. The former Seattle Seahawks wrecking ball, known for his swagger and Max Headroom hair, was a big-time rival of Bo’s when the two were star rookies in the NFL. They clashed famously on November 30, 1987, when Bo blew right through the tackling arms of the Boz, scoring a touchdown for the Raiders. “Next time,” Bo told Bosworth in the end zone, “Bring bus fare.”

Bosworth, who takes his wife’s indoor cycling classes, has not spent much time riding a bike outdoors. But he easily hung with the lead pack on last Saturday’s 60-miler. That group included Armstrong and ChristianÌęVande Velde, a former member of the U.S. Postal team. When the pace grew frisky (by social-ride standards), Bosworth and Bo both rode strong. The competition was friendly, but palpable. Vande Velde gave Bo a friendly hand-on-back push up a hill. But the descents belonged to Bo.

“This is where my 275 pounds works in my favor,” Bo shouted, passing Vande Velde on a downhill, “and your 150-soaking-wet does not!”

And then, around mile ten, Bo got a flat. Samaritans swarmed him like flies on butter, falling all over themselves to help. Riders rubber-necking as they passed him by very nearly caused a pileup. “What are you looking at?” he said, smiling and waving them on.ÌęHaving fixed the flat and continued on, Bo pulled back into Auburn on his custom pink Trek Madone, which bore on its top tube the names of 252 Alabamians who died in the storm. As riders streamed into the after-party and tucked into BBQ sandwiches, he stood for two hours signing autographs for fans.

One of them was Ashley Mims, who lost her 21-year-old daughter, Loryn Brown, to the EF4 tornado that devastated Tuscaloosa four years ago. Mims tackled the 20-mile ride—her longest ever—on the back of a tandem bike, with a photograph of Loryn pinned to the back. Bo put his arm around her for a photo and said, “I’m so sorry.”

Ashley Mims is the reason Bo Bikes Bama matters so much to this state and the people who live here. At least 50 community tornado shelters have been built with the money Bo raised. The ride now seems as much a part of the Bo Jackson legacy as the Heisman trophies and MVP awards. How long will it continue? Just askÌęBo.

“As long as a bike can hold me,” he replied.

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