Farmer, Bee Keeper, and Olympic Mountain Biker, Georgia Gould Primed for London Olympics

Submitted by Amy Thompson on

Today's Denver Post featured a great story about Olympic mountain biker Georgia Gould

Georgia Gould is a farmer at heart, and her backyard is like a small farm. She has chickens, honey bees and a vegetable garden. Gould, 32, is preparing for her second Olympiad. She placed eighth in mountain biking in Beijing in 2008 but is a strong candidate to medal this time...

This adopted Coloradan from Baltimore via Sun Valley, Idaho, is into the environment and into another Colorado endeavor. Gould is Colorado's queen bee of mountain biking. Change that. She's the queen bee for the United States, which she will represent for the second straight Olympics next month in London.

Read more at the DenverPost

Georgia Gould Interview on Mountain Bike Radio recently
- Georgia's Interview

News Item: 

45 Comments

Why do Trek, Specialized,

Submitted by Anon (not verified) on

Why do Trek, Specialized, Orbea, Felt, etc., etc., etc., make women specific race bikes, mountain and road? I'll answer your question - because there is a market. However you're probably smarter than their marketing teams and perhaps they should listen to "anonymous 303 sexist guy".

Yeah, there's a market there,

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on

Yeah, there's a market there, a small one. The smart guys/gals at Specialized/Trek/Orbea/Felt, etc, etc, etc... have determined that it's not the best use of limited marketing dollars to sponsor women's teams or races to promote sales to that market. The smart guys/gals at most every major corporation have also apparently decided that women's racing is not a good use of limited marketing funds.

Thanks for the lead in for yet another opportunity to bolster the argument against equal pay/prizes for women cyclists.

You are amazing. You can't

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on

You are amazing. You can't give one single legitimate reason to justify equal pay between men and women pro cyclists, and haven't offered a single point to refute the points made against equal pay, so you resort to insults AND call yourself a nonhater.

You cannot tease this out

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on

You cannot tease this out into an argument based solely on economics outside of academic exercise, in part because economics is a human endeavor, not a hard science. Again, a piss poor argument. You're just justifying your opinion via economic rationalization, or shifting the argument back on to Georgia (or more generally, women).

Here's why the pay should be equal between male and female cyclists: BECAUSE UNEQUAL PAY IS INHERENTLY SEXIST! Think about the fact that any of your wives, sisters, mothers, daughters, girlfriends, et cetera are making $0.77 for every $1.00 that you, I, or Kris T. makes FOR THE SAME WORK. This is no different. It's disappointing to see opposition to this coming from within cycling's grassroots, really disappointing.

Of course, this comes in part from a cycling community that has also justified paying out Master's racers more than Pro Women, so maybe I should not be surprised? (Let the flames loose?)

Perhaps even more disappointing is the attempt to shift blame onto women, or challenging them to justify why they should be paid equally for their efforts. The economic impact (vis a vis sponsorship returns) is a poor rationale to use, given how tenuous it is even for men's cycling teams to justify, and really seems a thin veil for the argument "this is how it's always been, why change it?"

More ranting to come I imagine...

Pages