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absolutely not. Not a single woman in the world can keep pace with the peloton.
I think they could might be able to hang with the men's peloton on some stages, too -- it's an enormous drafting benefit. They wouldn't win climbing stages, wouldn't make breakaways, and wouldn't win sprint finishes.
asking riders to ride for 12 hours a day is inhuman.
I could complete the course. The question is in what time.
I don't think I would be able to walk after two back-to-back 100km days, and these guys are doing double that with a lot more climbing nearly every day for over three weeks straight.
I think light_hue is seriously arguing for mixed fields in the same race. E.g., they wrote:
> Of course women can complete such races! We know this because they do it all the time. Not only that, they can even win! All we need to do is let them.
Of course women can complete such races! We know this because they do it all the time. Not only that, they can even win! All we need to do is let them.
Take the RAAM (Race Across America, a gruelling almost 3000 mile race, nearly 5000km). Women are allowed to join in. This is even longer than the Tour. Not only have many women finished RAAM, in Leah Goldstein actually won. Not the women's category. The race outright. Period.
Or the Transcontinental Race (TRC, similar to RAAM but across Europe and without a support team, between 3000-4000km depending on the year). Not only have many women participated and completed it, in 2019 a Fiona Kolbinger won. And again, not the women's category. She won the 10 day race beating out the best man by 10 hours!
Both of these races show that not only can women complete the men's Tour, they could end up setting better times.
> But they will not, and cannot, EVER, be asked to ride what the men's teams do. It is just too harmfull. And impossible.
I hope that the clear evidence I gave you, the fact that women have done far more than this, and have beaten the world's best men while doing it, will make you reconsider your position in the future. It's not backed by evidence, it's just prejudice.
Your points about women winning TRC and RAAM are interesting (and extremely impressive!), but they do not translate to the type of contest that the Tour de France is. The Tour has fixed stages each day, whereas RAAM or TRC appear to be an overall completion time. That means that one could ride for longer each day, or have better navigation, or better preparation, and win.
Combined with how these are less popular races, and the winner Leah was 52 at the time of winning (surely that is not the ideal age for such an achievement), and I am unconvinced that in a more rigorous and popular setting like the Tour that women cyclists could be directly competitive with men.
Additionally, I briefly researched ironman race times and marathon times -- two endurance sports that came to mind. In neither case were the best women's times particularly competitive with men (at least 10% slower). Those aren't as long races as the Tour, but they do provide data points that align with all other physically demanding sports I know of: at the very top tier, women (sadly) cannot physically compete with men.
In smaller sports, races or venues, the very top tier athletes may not be present, and in those cases women can often compete with men. But at larger scales there is sadly less variance, in my experience.
(The ultra/bikepacking races you mention are a completely different format to the TdF.)
I support your idea of not explicitly forbidding mixed fields, but I suspect it won't happen even without a rule against it.
But we aren't even at the not forbidding mixed fields stage in cycling.
We're at the "women aren't allowed to ride races of the same length as men" stage even in their own competitions.
I don't think women actually want this! Again, no objection to allowing it, but I don't think this actually benefits women in sport.
Not sure what "it" is here or how it is responsive to my comment.
So I point out that in a tiny sliver of pro cycling a mixed gender field is happening.