Victoria Pendleton, Lizzie Armitstead, Laura Trott, Anna Meares, Emma Pooley, Chrissie Wellington … all exceptional athletes inspiring generations of women (and men) cyclists to get on their bikes and have a go.

The recent multiplying number of women riders on our country lanes proves it: even the wettest winter in 250 years does not seem to deter their determination. But are these eminent sports figures the only reason behind this cycling resurgence? Could the bike itself be the source of this new love-affair?

Let’s cast an eye on the past and our cross-Atlantic neighbours who in the 1890’s saw the introduction in society of the ‘safety bicycle’, enabling women, through its evolved technology, to partake in a sport which until then had been solely male. With the explosion of its popularity, the bicycle created the modern woman, a ‘New Woman’ whose environment was no longer limited to the boundaries of the home, who acquired a new sense of adventure and considered herself man’s equal.

This was revolutionary: bicycling had ‘done more to emancipate women than anything else in the world’. And the bicycle is still today at the centre of our freedom: it takes us to and from work, helps us challenge our limits and feeds our spirit for adventure, enhances our focus and titillates our competitiveness. 2014 is here to prove it with the first edition of La Course, a women’s race on the Champs Elysees, the morning before the afternoon’s men’s final stage of the Tour de France.

Le Sportif follows suit and celebrates women and the bike with the launch of our Ladies who ride (&lunch) series on International Women’s Day on 8th March.

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