The Time-Crunched Cyclist Podcast by CTS

TDF Femmes Podcast - Stage 5 & Alison Tetrick's Insights on Rider Salaries, Opportunities, and More

• CTS • Season 5 • Episode 263

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Welcome to the Tour de France Femmes Podcast, from the producers of "The Time-Crunched Cyclist Podcast"
CTS publishes daily Tour de France Femmes podcasts with Coaches Adam Pulford and Renee Eastman. They recap the stages, but the unique aspect of these podcasts will be coaching insights about how athletes prepare for the demands showcased in that day's stage. 

STAGE 5 PODCAST OVERVIEW
Stage 5 of the 2025 Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift saw a major shakeup in the General Classification, thanks to a significant climb and descent right before the finish. Coaches Renee Eastman and Adam Pulford recap the stage and they're joined by guest contributor Alison Tetrick, a retired World Tour rider, commentator for The Move podcast online and on Peacock, and a long-time CTS Athlete. Ali provides personal insights on the evolution of the Women's World Tour in terms of the salaries, support, and competitive level. 

For more on Alison, visit:

  • https://www.alisontetrick.com/
  • https://www.instagram.com/amtetrick/

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Co-Host: Renee Eastman

Renee Eastman is a CTS Premier Level Coach and has been coaching with the company for more than 20 years. She has been a professional bike fitter for 15 years and was one of the first fitters to use the Retül bike fit system. She has a master's degree in exercise science, has worked for USA Cycling, and is a 6-time Masters National Champion.

Renee Eastman bio: https://trainright.com/coaches/renee-eastman/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/renee.eastman/

HOST
Adam Pulford has been a CTS Coach for nearly two decades and holds a B.S. in Exercise Physiology. He's participated in and coached hundreds of athletes for endurance events all around the world.

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Speaker 1:

Welcome back. Time Crunch fans and TDFF fans. I'm your host, coach Adam Pulford. With me again for all these special editions of the Tour de France Femme à la Zwift episodes is my co-host, rene Eastman. Welcome back.

Speaker 2:

Good morning Adam, hey, everyone.

Speaker 1:

Good morning. So if you, the listener, have been joining us for the past stages, thank you so much and we hope you're enjoying it. And if you're enjoying it that much, please share it with a friend or a training partner, as that helps to grow the show even more. If you have any questions directly for us on all things Twitter, france, follow my book, zwift, women's racing, training, physiology feel free to drop the comments in the sections on IG or YouTube or head over to trainwrightcom backslash podcast and click on ask a training question. Those questions get sent directly to me and Renee and I will do our best to answer it on a future episode. So for anyone new that's just jumping in, welcome to you. Coach, renee and I are here to give you the best podcast that we possibly can that not only recaps the women's tour, but we also weave in coaching and training tips that you can apply to your own training or you can just learn more and appreciate from the Women's Belt On. So, renee, can you give us a stage recap for stage five?

Speaker 2:

I sure can, adam. And it was a doozy today. We expected a little bit of GC action was a doozy. Today, we expected a little bit of GC action. It did not disappoint.

Speaker 2:

I'm going to start with my window watch alert. The last 25, 30k is real racing, so you want to devote a little bit of time to this race today. Let me start with. There are a lot of abandons today. We would take the whole podcast to name them all. There's at least six or seven riders either crashed out illness, including our Olympic champion, kristen Faulkner.

Speaker 2:

It was pretty clear yesterday that she wasn't feeling well. We knew she was a little sick. I saw on her instagram she actually had. She was sick, uh, right before the tour started. So anyway, on to the race action. Uh, it was pretty chaotic. Uh, there's tailwind. At the start there was tons of attacking. There were so many breaks that I'm not going to go through them all. It was. The main break of the day, though, was Brody Chapman, francesca Barley in, catalina Soto in Dykstra, and Allison Jackson made the break again. So she was out there working hard. They established about 80K to go about halfway through the race. The max lead they got was three and a half minutes. But once the climb started with about 30 odd K to go, 35k to go, the gap came down pretty quick and AJ got the first climb, but I did see she started suffering pretty hard on the second climb.

Speaker 1:

She was absolutely dying, and you could see that for sure.

Speaker 2:

She was all over the place on the bike. I felt bad for her because we've all been there Just dying slow death.

Speaker 2:

Brody Chapman was the last one of the break, but she eventually got kind of swept up by a little flurry of attacks off the front of the field. They were off for a while but it wasn't going anywhere. These were all people who were like opportunists, like, uh, none of the gc contenders were attacking at that point, they were saving it for the last climb and by the last climb the field was down to 20. It was small, it was just it was every climb people dumped off the back. It wasn't like anybody was attacking, it was just like the pace was so hard that people are falling off the back. Um, and, as expected, that last climb was uh, fireworks, uh, was Fireworks. That bonus sprint came actually right before the top. Tim LaCourte got it.

Speaker 1:

I was going to say I think LaCourte PFP.

Speaker 2:

I think maybe second for the time bonus and Casio's up there too. They went for it.

Speaker 1:

And I think Damien was the only one that didn't get a time bonus.

Speaker 2:

I believe, yeah, and they after they went through that and I think Damien was the only one that didn't get a time bonus, I believe. Yeah, I recall, and after they went through that bonus, it's only a few people left at the front now and, as expected, it was a select group of riders going over the top. There were seven people. They ended up going all to the finish. No surprises in that group. Sarah Gigante, probably the best climber, maybe other than demi in the race. Uh, kim lacorte, pinar, cassia, pfp, demi uh and abender bergen and uh, paul paulina roy actors we haven't talked about her much because she's fairly quiet, except she did finish on the podium of the tour last year, so she's no joke. Anyway, all GC favorites totally what we expected. They ripped down that descent. I expected that and I am still shaking because Cassia was full send on that. I don't know what you thought. I thought she was taking too many risks.

Speaker 1:

I mean I liked it. I personally I love aggressive racing, I love descending and when you're risking it, you got to send it. I know Cassia has also been working on her descending skills this past year. If you follow her on Instagram, if you follow Taylor Finney, you can see the intentionality of working on some of that descending. Yes, I loved it, but she was skipping both wheels through a few corners. Pfp is like no slouch on the descent. You can see her like the announcers were like oh, Pauline's getting gapped. I think Pauline was just like playing it like normal and cassia was written so you could see it come back together at the very end of the descent. But yeah, I liked it, but it was kind of nerve-wracking uh, everybody made it down safely.

Speaker 2:

That group of seven came down to the sprint and you know the, the one who's been the best finisher of this group all week. Kim LaCourte-Pinard won the stage Nearly didn't, because she celebrated early.

Speaker 1:

We were texting back and forth like did she get it? Did she get it? I don't know.

Speaker 2:

I went to set up. This is a tip to all you all out there Do not raise your hands before you cross the finish line, or just don't raise your hands If you're from Mauritius.

Speaker 1:

That's maybe what they do there. I don't know.

Speaker 2:

Just because it's so embarrassing when you lose the race by celebrating early. But she didn't. She won the race, she knew she had it.

Speaker 1:

She was the snappiest she knew she had it. She was the snappiest she knew she had it. She was confident and celebrated.

Speaker 2:

Demi was second, so looking good after that crash, my pick for the day. Anna Van Der Breggen third, so I'm pretty pleased with my pick. The end result of that is a total reshuffle of the GC. Kim LaCourte's in yellow, and then we've got in the top five Pauline, Demi, Cassia and Evander Bergen, and they're all within 30 seconds. Those are the logical top five to be up there. So it should be a pretty good race, because the next few days and we'll talk about tomorrow soon, Uh, now we're getting into the mountains yeah, and just finally, no changes in green or the polka dots or the white jersey. Those are all status quo.

Speaker 1:

Yes, indeed, yeah, that's a big recap there, renee, holy moly. And I didn't get a chance to look at the GC before we hopped on here, but I'm going to go and check to see where Vanda Bregan is.

Speaker 2:

She's in fifth, about 27 seconds down, I think okay, um, and after all that, adam, I need to take a break, so let me pass it over over to you. Um, I want you to introduce our guest contributor today. Um, I really we both wanted an expert to talk about women's racing, some of the changes in women's racing. We found a very qualified person to tell us about that.

Speaker 1:

Yes, yes, ms Allison Tetrick is our lead person on that. She is a CTS athlete. I've been working with her for almost 10 years now. Before that, dean Golich was her coach. I talk about Dean on this podcast quite a bit, but she's a former pro tour racer and she has a bronze medal at the UCI World Time Trial Championships.

Speaker 1:

She's also the queen of gravel, winning the Gravel World Championships twice, and back in 2022, she was inducted into the Gravel Hall of Fame twice, and back in 2022, she was inducted into the gravel hall of fame. So she's a thing. She's also I mentioned she was a, or she is a co-host on the move to a France from a Zwift podcast, but in her spare time from bikes and all that kind of stuff, she's a molecular biologist so crazy Right. And she's always had a side hustle doing what she's doing. And it's a good reminder of how the women's Peloton has really changed over the years, because teams and salaries have grown to the point now where having a side hustle or an extra job isn't always necessary, though there's only a few making millions at the top. So let's listen to what Allison has to say about how this sport has evolved since she's been in the pro peloton.

Speaker 3:

Now you're looking at some major things that have happened in professional cycling that have made a big difference in increasing the professionalism. I mean we have minimum salaries. Of course it's lower than the men's, but there is a minimum salary for World Tour teams to be able to enter that status, which I think is really huge. My first pro contract I got I think I had to buy my bike at the end of the year and then I topped out at the end of my career doing quite well, but there's a lot of that still doing quite well, but there's a lot of that still Um. But I think now you're looking at superstars like Damien Vollerine, who's making over a million euro a year um signing deals with Nike and being an incredible spokesperson for women's cycling, and that is just through the visibility um that women's cycling is getting women's sports in general. You look at this entire movement with soccer and, of course, the Tour de France-France of X-Wift is huge, just where I believe visibility is viability. So the more you watch women's sports, the more women win.

Speaker 2:

Allie really said it best visibility equals viability and things have changed. She mentioned the minimum salaries. In 2020, the UCI established minimum salaries for women Because before that you didn't have to pay them anything. A lot of women were making maybe 10 grand a year, maybe up to 40 grand a year. It's some making a little bit more than that, but just to put in perspective for you guys, the minimum salaries uh range from 42 to about 70 000 dollars, uh at the the world tour. So that's the uh fdj, uh sd works. Now that's the minimum salaries. You know there's room.

Speaker 2:

She's made comment that there's rumors that Demi's making as much as a million. I don't know if I believe that, because the rumors about, like, what the biggest stars are making Capecchi and we miss, and even Voss, or around the $300,000 mark and those are the like primo stars. And just to put it in perspective, even on the on the men's side, they $300,000 mark and those are the Primo stars. And just to put it in perspective, even on the men's side they had those same minimum salaries. But even if you're a domestique schlepping bottles, you're making $150,000 or maybe even $250,000. Anybody whose name you've heard of is making well over $500,000. And then the top names are like $3-4 million. You know your Primo's World Glitz and your Routban Arts, and I think Pokachar is making like 9 million or something.

Speaker 2:

So you know, cycling's not a very high paying sport as professional sports go. But you know, even compared to the men and the women, the women are like not even halfway there. So we have a long way to go, but it's progress, so that these women on the world tour now they don't have to have jobs to make a living. But it is a good point that most of these women are educated, either went to school before they became a professional cyclist or maybe even had a career before they came to professional cycling. I can think of a couple off the top of our head that we already mentioned, like Alicia Abbey's's, a doctor, marlin ruser's, a doctor, uh. Kristin, uh uh. Faulkner was a venture capitalist. You know, these women either have had careers before or going into often uh, careers after, because even though things are better, you can't retire off of 70 grand a year. You can barely pay your mortgage on that.

Speaker 1:

And I'll chime in here and just say that, having coached now for years and having athletes like Allie go from pro tour to professional person, helping them bridge that gap in the way, taking what we learn from the bike and applying it to business or applying it to life, that's something that I now try to instill into my juniors, and even when they're 18 and they're getting fired up about their first big team contract and all this kind of stuff, I'll always say yeah, but let's like you know, big team contract and all this kind of stuff, I'll always say yeah, but let's like, honestly, let's finish the degree, because you're only going to be a bike racer for so long, you know, hopefully until you're 41, like Mavi Garcia, Right, but like at some point you're going to hang it up and at some point you need to move beyond.

Speaker 1:

And there there is actually a huge market. The people love to hire strong women and men that know how to take that winning mentality from athletics and be able to apply it to the sales team that they're on or the CEO position that they're going to apply for or something like that. So it's like kind of woven throughout my and I don't know, hopefully my juniors listen to me, but it's like okay, what did you learn out there today? You know what I mean. And then I try to weave it into life. So I feel like maybe I'm not a parent, but I sometimes feel like it because I'm like I want you to learn these lessons.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I mean, even if, uh, you were making a lot of money, Maybe, maybe you are Demi and you are making that million dollars. Um, an accident, an injury, can end your career.

Speaker 1:

It's huge. I think in any sport, men's and women's to. You know, look beyond just the sport itself, because, athletes, you have a time, you have a lifespan in that sport, but you have a lifespan that grows beyond the sport. So I think she nailed it on a few things in that video. Let's go to the next video where she talks about Kim LaCourte Panera, and she's got a great story there. Not only is it today's stage winner, but she also retook the yellow jersey. So let's see what Allie had to say about Kim LaCourte took the yellow jersey.

Speaker 3:

So let's uh see what ali had to say about kim lacorte. Kim lacorte and she was actually racing lacorse with me in 2014 on a different team and she was making zero salary. She was worried about how she was going to eat. She comes from this south africa at the time, but also from mauritius, a tiny island um 2 000 miles outside in the Indian Ocean, and she just didn't think it was sustainable for her to become a professional cyclist. So she stopped for a while and now she pled and her husband and her wrote letters to every single World Tour team in 2024. She signed with AQ Insurance, sudol and then, of course, one Amstel Gold, and then also wore the leader's jersey already here at the Tour de France Farm of X-Wift. So that's just showing you where, first of all, you can dream and try really hard, but the level of professionalism is just getting higher and higher.

Speaker 2:

What a story, wow, amazing. It just goes to show progress isn't just about paychecks or podiums, it's about beliefs. Stories like Kim's tells us what's possible if you keep going. You know, she's not only the first African stage winner of the Tour de France FEMS, she's also the first yellow jersey from Africa from the Tour de France FEMS, now for the second time, because she took the jersey back today.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I mean, it's huge and I think that you can dream big. If you don't do anything with it, you won't go anywhere. But if you dream big, you try hard, you try again and you believe in yourself and you got people around you who believe in you and you keep on working. Then the dream starts to become reality. Who?

Speaker 2:

believe in you and you keep on working, then the dream starts to become reality. Yeah Well, things have changed a lot in the last 10 years. Since Kim LaCourte was making $0 and couldn't find a team and almost gave up on her dream and I mentioned since 2020, and the UCI minimum salaries came in. Other things have also kind of come along came in. Other things have also kind of come along really high profile races like Paris-Roubaix, like the Tour de France, fems, and with that, you know the higher visibility, more eyeballs on it. More sponsorships means more money coming into the sport, which means that teams are bigger, and that's been a dramatic change in the women's Peloton over the last few years.

Speaker 2:

We've been talking a little bit about Anna Vandenberg again. She retired back in 2021. Then she's coming back out of retirement this year to try to dominate again and while she's still very, very good now, there's a whole crop of people who are as good as she is, if not even better. And in our next video, ali is going to talk a little bit about how the level of the sport has changed in the last few years.

Speaker 3:

The level has gotten so much higher, and I think that's because more people are investing in the sport. Of course, the professionalism is going up because there's more money in the sport, the teams are getting bigger, they're getting more analytical on training and providing these things like altitude camps, the best bikes, the best nutrition plans, the best coaches Adam is the best coach in my opinion, and so that's an interesting thing to look at. So this woman, anna right, it's top of her game in 2021. And she's coming back four years later going. It's even gotten better then. So I think it's really exciting. I mean, of course, there's a long way to go, but we have to start somewhere, and at one point, I would like to see us talking about just the bike race, not talking about how far women's cycling has come, but just being like look at this badass bike race.

Speaker 2:

She's definitely right. This is a badass bike race. You know what we're seeing out. There is not just good racing, it's like next level We've been talking about all week. It's like so competitive, you know, just look at that front group today. You know seven ladies who I think any one of them could win. You know, we'll see who does. But a few years ago it was like the anime fan gluten show where just she would ride off the front and the level come up. It's really evolved and I know you've coached Allie for a long time and you know through kind of the progression of low budget teams to higher budget teams and now you're coaching athletes on the uh world tour at the very best teams like Allison Jackson on EF Oatley. And I just wondered what, what you see as the differences at that world tour level now, like just simply the level of professionalism.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, well, again, I think that the evolution is positive. I think, you know, paying these women more is is really positive and they're still lower than they should in my opinion, but they're evolving to where the men are going and that's great. I think the infrastructure, like the model, is built on the men's model of sorts, where the men's model, you know, now has soigneurs and chefs and high performance directors and lowly coaches every once in a while, like myself. Um, as well as you know, ds is that, instead of being like uh from the men's Peloton that used to race for some, you know, friend of a friend directing, now it's former pro tour women that are coming on and being directing. So I think that, like, it's evolving in a very positive way. The contracts are getting bigger and the athletes themselves, they have agents to negotiate. That that is helping it to make it more professional as well.

Speaker 1:

Meanwhile, I think I mentioned either yesterday's episode, I think, where a lot of teams are working with you know, coaches, directors and so on.

Speaker 1:

You're just kind of all in a house, which is awesome because it, it, it that does create a great environment to where athletes can can grow and have good success and more stable, as opposed to, uh, just like going and doing your own thing, for, you know, six to eight months out of the year, coming in racing for a little bit here and there and hoping that there's a mechanic. You know, that's. That's where it was not too long ago. So at the world tour level, it is um, blossom nicely it's. It's going to continue to grow. I believe in that and it's going to keep on growing if viewers keep on watching it, keep on getting to the races, keep on investing in saying that we want to watch this more. So the more eyes that are on it, the more sponsors and media outlets and more podcasts like this are going to happen. Right, to just keep on spreading that word and growing the message and saying, yeah, we care about this, so keep putting more out there. So I think that's a positive.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and Allie has a last little contribution for us. I think she really wraps it up way better than I or you could say it, so let's let her talk about what this moment really means.

Speaker 3:

It's just a big thanks to companies like Zwift, which are the title sponsor not only of my show on the move but the Tour de France Femme Avec Zwift, where they believe in the value and the ROI of investing in women's sports and they can actually see the more they invest they can actually get that ROI in their company. So I think that's pretty fascinating. I'm super proud of all these ladies out there racing and the discrepancies are quite large between some of the smaller teams and the larger teams. But to have that opportunity to compete at the world's biggest race for women's cycling on the biggest stage, creating sponsorship dollars, storytelling it's huge. So this is only the beginning. It's going to keep going up, but one day we're not going to be like what does women's cycling need more?

Speaker 3:

How can it be more professional it's just going to be. Look at this amazing professional sport that's sustainable, viable and completely worth it for every athlete to compete in or dream about, because that's also what we're seeing. We're seeing young girls watching this race, and today we had this young woman that was practicing marion voss's salute and and so really like, if you can see it, you can believe it, and and with that increase of professionalism, that's exactly what's happening.

Speaker 2:

So visibility equals viability and you know, for every girl, little girl out there watching now, they can dream about having a yellow jersey. That didn't exist before, that didn't exist when I was a kid, that didn't exist when Allie was a kid and it didn't exist before four years ago. So if you see it, you can believe it.

Speaker 1:

I love it.

Speaker 2:

I love to see where the sport's going. So with that said, renee, I'd say let's talk about tomorrow's stage. Adam, this race is going to be shook up again tomorrow because now we are going to head into the proper mountains in stage six. My note before today is going to say tomorrow is the first real gc day, when I think today was, but tomorrow will be as well. Uh, the climbing starts about 30 kilometers in. There's a couple of smaller category three climbs, but the big climb of the day is the 10 kilometer Col de Belle, and after that there's only a short descent till you get to the category two climb after that and those two back climbs are going to separate the field. Now those big mountains top out with about 30K to go and the run-in is not flat. There's a kind of uncategorized climb in there. It's a little lumpy roll into the finish. I have no idea who's going to win, so I'm going to pick Puck Peterson.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that's a good pick, but she wasn't there today, renee. I know she wasn't there today, renee. I know she wasn't there today.

Speaker 2:

But now she's going to. They're going to give her some leash now. She lost some time today.

Speaker 1:

If they give her leash, yes, but I would say, for how fiery and aggressive and I mean really all the GCs were up there today, I imagine that it's going to be something similar to that day. I imagine that it's going to be something similar to that, um, and I'm gonna, I'm gonna cross fingers and hope that my girl, pfp, uh, does it again. That's probably going to be my pick overall, but Damien was coming in hot, so I she finished. Well, uh, today, good snap, they're all climbing. They're all climbing really well. Uh, puck's a good pick. I'm going to, I'm going to hang my hat on, uh, pauline.

Speaker 2:

So yeah, I think you're right. It's probably going to be just those same five, six, seven gals up the front. You're probably right, yeah.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, well, uh, I'm going to be tuning in tomorrow cause it is going to be an exciting stage, uh, but we'll wrap it up here for today. And special thanks to Alison Tetrick for taking time to make that video while she's over in Aspen doing the move podcast with Lance and good friend Mari, who spoiler alert, you'll probably hear Mari Holden come on the podcast here in a few days talking about what it means to be a director and athlete and all that kind of stuff, but we'll save that for later. So, special thanks to Tetrick for that content and, uh, renee for making this happen once again, and, of course, to everybody listening, our audience. You are crushing it. We're getting over 10,000 views, um, on Instagram and YouTube again. Keep on sharing that, because it's going to. It's going to grow and it's only going to help the women's Tour de France Femme avec Zwift grow even more. So thank you for that and, renee, we keep on going. I think I need a gel or some dark cherry juice at this point.

Speaker 2:

Me too, adam. All right, we'll see you tomorrow.

Speaker 1:

All right, thanks, renee.

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