I love riding singlespeed. The races I want to go to generally don’t have women’s singlespeed categories, though. I don’t blame them- there are relatively few women who race (compared to men), so asking them to break the women’s race down further to include a SS category is kinda tough.
Namrita at 55nine had told me that if 3 women would be willing to race SS at Fool’s Gold that she’d make it a separate category. Awesome!!! Oh, wait- that means I need to find two other women who will race SS.
Anyone? Anyone?
I posted the same question over in the Endurance forum on MTBR, and that’s kinda the response I’ve gotten so far.
So- ladies… Why don’t you want to race singlespeed? It’s fun. There’s less stuff to break and less shifting to worry about. If something is too steep to ride, you just walk. No big deal. Try it. Race it. Get obsessed like I have. Let me know if you’re interested in Fool’s Gold & we’ll talk to Namrita.
Edit- as an aside, if you ladies were to race it SS, what gear would you use? I was thinking 32×20, but I’ve got options…
If I didn’t have a conflict, I’d totally be there on my SS again – but it’s just not going to happen this year.
However, pick the right gear and have a good day out there, and I believe that you can totally podium against geared ladies. It’s a good SS course.
i heard one of the top 3 expert women at the haw ridge tbra race this weekend was on a ss. not sure if you can find out and do some recruiting or not. didn’t get a name. just heard she was a smaller build girl.
Reading your posts has definitely been giving me the SS bug, but I probably won’t have a bike ready until next year. The good news is that women’s endurance fields have grown a lot in the last couple of years, and I expect that there are probably quite a few lady SS’ers coming down the pipeline in the near future.
Wouldn’t racing in the general SS cat, or the open women’s cat, be more fun than being in a cat so small all the entrants make it on the podium? I would usually rather have a larger field of competitors than a smaller one.
That said, due to Colo. Trail Race just beforehand, I am racing the fifty at FG. And chances are I will be racing it with gears anyway. See you there, I’ll be showered, changed, and on my second beer when yall are finishing :)
Yeah, I hear ya- a bigger field is always better… I guess in a perfect world, we’d have two gigantic, talented groups to choose from. For now, I’ll just keep trying to drum up a bit more enthusiasm from the closet SS ladies out there.
Hammerschmidt, the simplicity of a single speed with a bail out gear if you need it. I hate walking…
I know someone in Tupelo who might be willing to race SS. I know her husband loves SS.