Sarah Anne Evans and Pippa Lyon who are both members of the Veloroos; an Australian non-professional women’s cycling team.
This is Sarah Anne’s second time on the podcast. She joined me with her Veloroos teammate Julie Ann Hazlett in July 2017 to talk about winning their category at the 5,000km Race Across American in 2015 (you can find that conversation here).
In 2019, Sarah Anne and Julie Anne, together with a third team member, Pippa Lyon (who you’ll meet today on the podcast for the first time) are about to tackle their hardest challenge to date.
The ladies have joined an international women’s cycling team called the InternationElles for an ambitious project.
Together with a female women’s cycling team, the InternationElles will ride every stage of the 2019 Tour de France, one day ahead of the men’s professional race.
So basically, yes, they are riding the Tour de France!
It’s a journey of 3,640km over 21 stages, which works out at roughly 1200km of cycling per week - for 3 weeks!
And, if that’s not hard enough, the route chosen for this year’s Tour de France has been described as the mountainous in the 106 year history of the race!
The reason: to raise the profile of women in cycling and to fight for equality in the sport. The biggest cycling race in the world has no female representation. The InternationElles are hoping to be part of the push to change that!
Get the full show notes for the episode here.
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How does ocean surf ski paddling figure into one woman’s version of a mid-life crisis?
We ask Quona Ross Atkinson on Sparta Chicks Radio this week!
Quona grew up on a cattle station in North Queensland and started competing in rodeos, camp drafting and show riding from the time she was 3.
An extensive career in barrel racing followed before she took up adventure racing in her 40s.
Fast forward to 2019 and after just 5 years in the sport of ocean surf ski paddling, she’s about to compete in the famous 52km Molokai Challenge (considered the hardest ski paddle race in the world) as well representing Australia for the first time at the age of 51 at the Ocean Racing World Championships.
What’s incredible about Quona’s story is that she is a FIFO worker (‘fly in, fly out’), so for 2 weeks every month, she works 800km from the ocean!
Plus with 2 sons and a husband who is deployed overseas for 6 months at a time, she somehow manages to find the time to chase her extraordinary goals.
The secret: being truly committed to them!
Get the full show notes for the episode here.
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Kelli Jackson was in her 40s and an “unassuming middle-aged overweight accountant who smoked” when, at a retreat in Bali, she blurted out that she wanted to ride a unicycle around the world.
That was in 2010, but it wasn’t until she “survived” 2015 that Kelli started pursuing her goal - which included:
Talk about being committed to your goals!
Since then, Kelli has ridden her unicycle the length of Taiwan (430km) and later this month will set out to ride the length of South Korea (635km) and hopefully become the first Westerner to unicycle inside North Korea!
Get the full show notes for the episode here.
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Follow Kelli on Instagram: instagram.com/1wheelonly