There’s an electricity bill pinned above my workbench, next to the cyclocross calendar. The compressor, the pressure washer, the radio. Nobody has ever given me a discount because the wheel I’m inflating belongs to a girl.
So when I read that Charlotte Kool, of Fenix-Premier Tech, had asked ironically on Instagram whether the women would get a discount on energy at the Eneco Tour, I put down the 15 spanner. Just before that she had written: “same start time, same distance and same energy”. That’s a spec sheet. Nothing to add.
Now the numbers. Prologue, Tuesday evening: €1,490 for the winner among the elite men, €220 for Lieke Nooijen among the women. According to WielerFlits, it’s the same in the other stages and in the classification prizes. Same course, same clock, same chain turning. That’s a derailleur problem: a sprocket skipping all along the cassette, not just at the prologue.
After the first road stage, she told In de Leiderstrui that for the women the money is only a small bonus, that it is mostly about the principle. And that it was meant with a wink. I get it. A cable rubbing in its housing is no big deal, you still ride. But you hear it on every pedal stroke, mind you.
A small bonus pays for the coffee of the whole car. It still has to be the same at the next table.
I don’t know who sets the amounts over there. I set what I have in front of me. The compressor inflates the same for everybody, to the tenth of a bar. I’ll go and pump up the club’s, then. Every wheel, same price: nothing.
It’s true, we checked: WielerFlits.
