{"id":813170,"date":"2026-10-25T06:32:09","date_gmt":"2026-10-25T06:32:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/813170\/"},"modified":"2026-10-25T06:32:09","modified_gmt":"2026-10-25T06:32:09","slug":"should-we-call-it-the-tour-de-france-fellas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/813170\/","title":{"rendered":"Should we call it the Tour de France Fellas?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Listen, it\u2019s the off-season. So now is the time we can scrutinize all kinds of stuff. Team rosters, rider safety, what\u2019s up next, and yeah, even race names.<\/p>\n

Just a couple of days ago, the routes for the 2027 Tour de France and Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift were announced.<\/p>\n

There was plenty to discuss. Too many time trial kilometres for Tadej Poga\u010dar (71 km, no less). No Pyrenees or Alps for the women. And the women\u2019s route includes the Puy de D\u00f4me, where fans aren\u2019t allowed, but where Ottawa\u2019s local legend Mike Woods won a stage. (A bit of a weird one, that.)<\/p>\n

But then there was this from world and Swiss champion Marlen Reusser.<\/p>\n

She had a question about the French Grand Tour (although technically the UCI doesn\u2019t classify the women\u2019s Grand Tours the same way as the men\u2019s, but that\u2019s a whole other matzo ball):<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy isn\u2019t the men\u2019s race called the Tour de France Hommes?\u201d<\/p>\n

During the TdF\/F presentation, the queen of time trials added more.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat I\u2019m a bit disappointed by \u00a0still is that it\u2019s the Tour de France and the Tour de France Femmes. Where is the Tour de France Hommes? Like, this is weird to me. I don\u2019t understand this,\u201d she said to Cycling Weekly.<\/a><\/p>\n

New year, who dis?<\/p>\n

Now, who am I kidding? We don\u2019t name-drop at the Canadian Cycling Magazine office. (What are you talking about? You do this every day, Hansen. \u00a0\u2014 Ed.)<\/p>\n

When the great Orla Chennaoui, the Northern Irish broadcaster you\u2019ve surely heard if you watch cycling coverage, posted about the whole issue, our intern mentioned something that\u2019s been used on this website a whole bunch of times: Tour de France Fellas.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve used it all the time in our stories when the men\u2019s and women\u2019s routes were in the same story. She\u2019s an incredible commentator and always gives additional input on social.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

It just kinda flows, you know? Way cooler than Tour de France Hommes.<\/p>\n

But the issue, of course, is that the men\u2019s race gets to be the Tour de France, while the women\u2019s race needs an extra word to distinguish it. Same thing happens in soccer, erm, sorry Orla, football. World Cup, women\u2019s World Cup.<\/p>\n

The guys get the default setting; the women get the add-on. And that\u2019s what Reusser is getting at. If we\u2019re serious about treating both races equally, why should one need a qualifier and the other not?<\/p>\n

Tour de France Hommes might be technically fair, but it doesn\u2019t exactly roll off the tongue. Tour de France Fellas, though? Now we\u2019re talking. It\u2019s catchy, it\u2019s a little ridiculous, and it makes you wonder why we ever needed to make the distinction in the first place.<\/p>\n

And listen, I raced bikes for about a zillion years when I was younger, and I\u2019ll admit I didn\u2019t pay much attention to women\u2019s cycling back then. That\u2019s changed. I\u2019m a convert. This stuff is GOOD.<\/p>\n

The last couple of Tour de France Femmes have been nuts, and the road world championships have delivered some incredible racing, too. Yeah, yeah,<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not saying this to score points on the internet. (If even possible, at this point<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

I\u2019m saying it because if you\u2019re not watching pro women\u2019s racing, you\u2019re missing out on some seriously good shit.<\/p>\n

The 2026 season is over, but there\u2019s a tonne of \u2018cross going on if you need a fix. But yeah, the 2027 season will be here before you know it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen, it\u2019s the off-season. So now is the time we can scrutinize all kinds of stuff. Team rosters,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":813171,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[4985,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-813170","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-cycling","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/813170","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=813170"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/813170\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/813171"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=813170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=813170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=813170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}