A great night at Top Gear!

It was fantastic to see so many women turn up to Top Gear Cycles on a drizzly Thursday night for the SUB Women's Night! Around 80 or so came along to hear some well-known personalities in sport and health to talk about their experiences.

The theme of the night was getting the most out of cycling, and for a lot of women there, cycling was something relatively new to them. It didn't take long for the questions to start flowing, and it would have been easy to spend the whole night listening to our guest panelists - Emma Carney, Michele Timms and Flip Shelton - share their experiences about cycling, fitness, health and motivation. They cracked more than a couple of laughs over the course of the night!

Breaking up into three groups, the next part of the night was spent rotating through workshops: bike mechanics with Tim from Top Gear along with Emma C, nutrition and health with Flip and Celine, and women's specific bikes and gear with me, helped by Peter and Alan of Avanti.

Women's specific bikes and cycling products are something I'm passionate about, and it was great to talk about the different aspects of womens specific designs. Sarah Ulmer, through her brand SUB, along with Avanti, and Specialized's Designs for Women (D4W) and Body Geometry (BG) product ranges have some really great products for us girls.

Check out the girl+bikes and girl+stuff blogs where I'll be adding info about women's specific cycling gear...

For the women taking part in the SUB Women's Cycle Challenge on Saturday, happy riding! I would have loved to be there, but unfortunately for me, I'm off to get my wisdom teeth out tomorrow... I don't reckon I'll be on the bike for a few days :(

Here's a few pics from the night at Top Gear...

Summer, bikes and other stuff...

Well it's my first girl+blog, and I just thought I'd let you know about a few things that are happening soon!

Tomorrow myself and Peter are heading to Melbourne, where I am taking part in the SUB Women's Night being held at Top Gear Cycles. The night is a prelude to the SUB Women's Cycle Challenge, which is being held on Saturday 1 December 07 at St Kilda. Tomorrow night is aimed at women interested in getting the most of cycling and finding out more about preparing for an event. Special guests are basketball legend and keen bike rider Michele Timms, TV health personality Flip Shelton and two-time world triathlon champ Emma Carney. There will be around 100 women attending the night.

I'll be co-hosting the night with Peter Hepworth from Top Gear Cycles, and then I'll be running a breakout group along with Michele Timms, focussing on womens bikes and womens specific cycling products - something I'm really passionate about!

Hmm what else is happening... I've recently started riding on the track again, which has been great to get back into after a three-year break from racing! I earned the nickname 'Teflon' after stacking it at the SuperDrome and sliding from the very top of the steepest part of the track, right down to the bottom without a single scratch! But don't tell anyone, OK...

It's great to have summer on the way! We're looking forward to the Tour Down Under (and especially herTour Down Under!) in its first year of being ProTour.

That's all for now...
Emma