A great team of women who won everything share all the news about women’s bike world: trails, races and tour in the USA.

The highlight is the confidential feel that ispires this great team. What once was exclusively only for men, today is kept hard by new heroines: women on bike!

Women’ Bike Talk is a great team sport made up of heterogeneous kind of women that join forces for biking along mountain trails and hard races.
They are famous for the numerous wins in the various races of USA, especially in the Arizona state.

Here is a personal diary where everyone shares personal emotions and feelings, but you’ll find also informations about diet, races and technical bike support.
Women’s peculiarity shine brightly thanks the help they are giving to Colleen, a racer that is fighting against cancer from many years.

Now a women’s bike team is the occasion to show a great togetherness and humanity, showing that sport is the possibility to put into practice the most high human values.
If you want to support Colleen and its battle click here.

Women are victim of some violent episodes while biking, this because they seems to be more vulnerable and emotional than men.
Here you will find some rule about how to avoid attacks and become more sure of yourself.

-Consider that fear doesn’t help you. Try to be rational: this will help you in very moment.

-You have the advantage of being faster than someone on foot. If the aggressor is by car, you are more mobile than him.

-It is better riding in group, because it is easier to be picked out as a target when you’re alone.
But this doesn’t mean that you can’t ride without other people.

-When you are alone, don’t ride in roads where other women have been attacked. Watch out for suspicious people near your path. Ride in the main streets, avoiding alleys and cramped, bad neighborhoods. Vary the time and route you ride, so you will confuse who wants to hurt you.

-Hide long hair in your helmet or under a jacket. If you’re riding alone, it will be better wearing baggy shorts than jerseys or T-shirts, to avoid to arouse the attention.

-Learn to listen your instincts and perceptions. If you see someone following you, turn into a crowded street.

-Don’t leave at home your cellular phone.

-If an aggressor is fighting with you:
hold your bike between you and him, using it as a weapon;
run in the opposite direction;
Scream, kick, gouge, hit: put him on the spot.

photo credit: richardmasoner

To avoid chafing and to improve your comfort you should wear specific women’s bike shorts.

The most bothersome thing is when your thighs chaf against the seat. But with the right bike short legs won’t ride up.
Shorts are made up spandex and nylon, this means they are breathable designed for moving water vapor and perspiration away from your skin.

Inside the average shorts should have a smooth soft liner that protects your delicate parts from friction. Furthermore, it should be made of synthetic materials. Another feature consists in two curved seams, so the central zone of the shorts remain smooth.

Two suggestions are a must: -take liners with antibacterial treatment, so you can avoid more easily the developing of sores;
-don’t ride in unlined garments: wear cycling shorts under multisport tights.

You should choose shorts with a smooth surface antibacterial hygienic, non-binding elastic.

For a more comfortable condition, choose the shock absorbing type, padded bike shorts designed to absorb shock during your bike trails.

photo credit: Material BoyHow to settle your bike seat

Tell your friend to help you to regulate your bike seat, so while you’re riding backward, he will get ready the right adjustment.

Level your bike saddle and center the rails in the seatpost clamp.

Get on your bike and pedal backward. While you’re riding backward, raise the seat until your legs are completely extended.

Start to pedal and stop pedaling with one foot at 3 o’clock. Your friend must level the crankarm and the pedal. Also, he will hold a plumb line against the indentation underneath the bone beneath your kneecap. Adjust the seat fore and aft on the rails until the plumb line bisects the pedal axle.

Tilt the saddle in a confortable position, but not over 3 degrees, because your body will slide forward making weight pression over a sensitive part (your pudenda).

After these adjustment, if the nose bothers you enough, try a different bike seat.

How to beat seat sores

To avoid bike sores try to get out more times in a week, so you’ll fit your sit bone to the saddle.

To improve your comfort, consider to apply a lube to the padding in your shorts, so you will avoid friction and chafing of your crotch.

Wash your short!

photo credit: emdot

To improve your comfort on the bike when you ride on dirt roads or trails, it is recommended the assembling of a shock-absorbing seatpost.
Generally, you will run into two kinds of these, a simple and a complex one.
The simple has the drawback of changing the height of your saddle when you ride over bumps.
Furthemore, it will be possible the increasing of frictions and wear. Consider that your weight isn’t always focused on the seat, and its force applied to the post isn’t always in line with its movement.
The complex shock-absorbing seatpost has a parallelogram in the top that absorbs bumps by moving the saddle horizontally, and your seat height remain costant.

photo credit: cleverchimpNow it is better to say something about how settling the saddle’s tilt-angle.
Try regulate the seat a little at a time. Go from one extreme to the other leads until you’ll find the right tilt-angle.
To distribute pressure across a wide area the saddle must be relatively horizontal.
If you tilt the saddle far up at the front, you will slide forward on the saddle, and your most delicate parts will make pressure up the nose of the seat.
If you tilt the saddle too far down at the front, you will ride pushing back from the handlebars. This will create a lot of tension in your shoulders and arms.

Generally, consider that the top of the handlebar don’t be lower than the top of your saddle.

Some bikes allow small height difference:
-with a smaller road bike try to keep this difference to 5cm (2 inches).
-with a mid-sized road bike keep a difference of 6cm (2.5 inches).
-with larger bikes keep this difference not over than 8cm (3 inches).

Sometimes lesions aren’t due to a wrong seat settlement, but the cause can be your riding style.
If your ride on the saddle without taking a break, you’re much more likely to have problems.
The best way to avoid this is to stop and stand up for a bit.

The women’s average seat is that with wider rear sections, and shorter and well-padded noses. The reason is that they have wider and shallower pelvises that tend to tilt forward, putting weight on their pudenda.

The places where seat contact occurs are:
-your site bones, where your ischial tuberosities support most of your weight;
-your pudendum, where occurs the contact with the saddle’s nose.

The saddle must be positioned with the top horizontal or tilted nose-down just a degree or two, not more, because a greater tilt may cause you to lean too far forward, putting uncomfortable pressure on your hands and arms. For the right position set your bike against a wall
and lay a yardstick lengthwise along the center of the seat. Stand back to see if the yardstick is horizontal with the ground or tilted in either direction.

Consider that the same saddle may be right for you, but completely uncomfortable other riders. This is because each of us has backsides in a wide variety of shapes and sizes. You will want to find a saddle just wide enough to support your weight on your sit bones. A narrow seat bike will cause an extra pressure just where you don’t want it. If it’s too wide, you are much more likely to suffer from chafing and saddle sores.

The drawbacks of an incorrect seat are the saddle sores, that are a crotch infections that typically start as a small pimple formed from irritation or chafing of the hair follicles. In some cases the sores can spread to adjacent tissue and create larger sores, boils or cysts.

Choosing the right size means having a comfortable riding condition and the best control of your bike.
Many of you can fit with every women’s bike, and sometimes also with a men’s bike, but not for most women.

To know what’s the right bike size for you start to measure you body:

For the right stand-over height
-measure your inseam
-measure the distance between your crotch and the top tube of the bike

For the right top tube length
-measure arm length: extend your arms and measure the distance between the center of your fist to your collarbone.
-measure your torso length: put a book against your crotch, the spine facing up, now measure from the lower part of your throat (near collarbones) to the spine. Add the value of arm lenght to the torso lenght. Divide the result in half. Subtract six inches. The final result is the measure of your right top tube lenght.

You can decide to buy a bike for a cruise along a beach to enjoy the scenery, or maybe you have in mind to be a great race biker, or you need a bike to make some excursion. Here you’ll find a simple guide about how bikes are classified:

Cruiser Bikes: these are comfort thanks to their padded seats that allow you a relaxed riding position. The best bike for light trails, paths or for cruising a quiet beach-side lane. Take it with you for holiday!

Photo by Bitchbuzz

Mountain Bikes: these kind of bikes have larger tires, hill-friendly gearing and upright position.
They are designed specifically for rocky and steep trail, the best for dirt road riding. Mtb use typically feature a suspension fork. Some may have rear suspension.

Photo by Eye of Einstein

Road Bikes: these are also called racing bikes and they are built for speed and longer distances on paved surfaces. Their thinner tires, lightweight 29-inch (700c) wheels and drop bars allow a more aerodynamic position. Most road bikes offer many gears for facing both hilly and flat terrain.

Photo by Eleaf

Photo by Hans Vink

The first thing before start to ride is choosing the right bike for you: not every bike fit for women’s anatomy, and this because all bikes are designed by men using the male anatomy as the yardstick to create a frame’s geometry for women.

There are precise physical differences. When there are women and men of the same height, men have longer torsos and arms, but women tend to have longer legs. Because of this, men need more cockpit space on a bike, and many bikes feel too stretched out for most women. But this doesn’t mean that every woman need to buy a bike with women’s geometry, infact some women fit also with a men’s bike.
As a rule, the average size of a women is smaller. Furthermore, they usually have smaller hands and feet, and this means that average women’s bikes should have shorter stems, smaller brake levers, narrower handlebars and shorter cranks for a more comfortable riding.

One of the more important thing is the choise of the right saddle. In comparison to men, women’s pelvises tend to tilt forward, putting weight on their pudenda. This means that a comfortable saddle should be with a shorter, well-padded nose.