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Getting back into sport (or getting off the sofa for starters) after COVID is proving to be slow, frustrating and exhausting process. I feel lucky to be working with an endurance coach who has his own personal experiences with long-COVID and serves as a really valuable sounding board when it comes to tracking my symptoms and moderating my return to activity. We recorded this zoom call we had where Rick shared his personal story with me and where we discussed the strategies we were going to take moving forward. It's a long call so feel free to just turn on the audio and multitask whatever else you've got going on. It's a mix between a cautionary tale and strategic optimism or as Rick calls it "cautious optimism". As Rick mentions in the video - neither of us are medical professionals and we recommend you talk to your doctor. We are however just trying to share our own real experiences and hope that getting the convo going will help inspire patience in athletes and get everyone back to doing their sport at full capacity in the long term. If you have questions for Rick or are looking for an endurance coach of your own check out my long-time training family https://vitalstrengthphysiology.com/

After a beautifully sunny month of March and shorts weather, the day of the Hive ride we woke up to a blanket of snow over the Swiss Kanton of Nidwalden, and I could have cried. Two month of planning for this event was about to go out the window, I was sure no one would show up. The riders were not about to let the depressing weather forecast stop them! Over half of the initial registrants showed up to our absolute disbelief. The bike shop owners and even our photographer were like... you're not going out right? But get two dozen women in a room together, with their bikes and turns out... they're UNSTOPPABLE. I'm pretty confident, that should we all have gone out for a ride alone that day, we would have all chosen to stay under the blankets at home. BUT together, committed to a common cause, there was - as I learned- literally nothing we wouldn't endure. Even more heartwarming than the girls who showed up (also not to dismiss the ladies who emailed to regretfully inform us they would not join - 100% understand, no hard feelings, can't wait to have you next time!) were the smiles on everyones faces. The excitement of the common challenge ahead of us. We may have been on bikes, be we were all in the same boat together (might as well have been a boat because of the wetness). Thank you to everyone who registered and couldn't make it. Thank you to Sport2Go in Stans. Thank you to Vertical Coffee Roasters for their amazing coffee and prize donations. Thank you to DirtySox for the spicy sox prizes. AND THANK YOU - reader for being interested in our mission, for showing up when you can and for pushing the wheel for women everywhere forwards. See you next time! Your fam, at riderawr

I am not an athlete. I'm just your regular sporty woman, average cyclist among other things. I'm a working mom going again through motherhood. I've stopped trying to fit in cycling jerseys but still picking up new challenges and still enjoying a cookie. Since being a mom, the goals have changed, my body has changed, my life changed and I needed to adapt. I don’t chase external rewards. I chase myself. I could talk about many topics involving motherhood: insecurities, dissatisfaction, expectations, fear, etc. But instead, I will tell you about how I focused on what was essential to me and how I centre myself over motherhood amidst the mess that is thrown at us. When I started training a long time ago, I would get warned “Don’t get too muscular”, “You will get too bulky”, “Don’t be too thin!” External outcomes were all too often the focus of conversation over determination and hard work. When I started motherhood, not only did the pressure of the social expectations surrounding my body image grow along with my belly, but so did the expectations on how I should use my time and my freedom, namely regarding caregiving. I went looking for advice and I realized much of the conversations we have surrounding body's is in ideals rooted in the concept of a woman as perceived to be the weaker gender, where aesthetics matter more than strength. “You will lose your weight in no time”, “Don’t lift more than your baby’s weight!”, “How lucky to have a husband helping with ‘your, duties”, “Postpartum essential: 5 exercises to get a flat belly in 3 weeks”, and other garbage. I was pushed on to the idea of how I could get back “as fast as” possible as “before”. I lost a concept of what I was capable of. This mindset was negatively impacting my self-esteem. I believe that building myself around self-love and self-confidence is essential for longevity and a balanced relationship between my body and my soul. And yet, the media, commercials and products we are exposed to, often push a very harmful image on women geared towards their own physical appearances. They are promoting a single and unrealistic image standard for women. Thinness, counting calories, fast results, attractiveness and 2 kg dumbbells are dominating women health’s advertisements. What about an image making me feel strong, confident, authentic and valuable? I wish more would value how we feel, why we do what we do, rather than how we look like. Valuing features and character traits that can enable a person to flourish in all aspects of life. I found myself guilty at first when making time for myself, but ultimately, it makes me a more happy and patient mom. It shows my children that I have a life that matters, too. I don’t look to have the weights decrease on the scale, I am excited to see them increase on the bar. I eat for pleasure and I eat for fuel. I am proud to high-five my kids all covered in sweat, it feels pretty cool. When I get a little time for myself, I am looking to dive into the pain cave and come back stronger, pushing towards my abilities, or simply feeling united with myself. It’s how I feel rewired. It’s how all comes together in a long lasting manner. It’s how I centre myself on what feels essential. And I am proud that my children will grow with the idea that a woman can be strong and healthy. But this is my perspective, my definition of what a capable, beautiful and healthy woman should be. What’s your definition, how do you centre yourself? What is your safe place? I am embracing any initiatives that tries to reshape our culture beyond the expected realm and allows us to flourish into what we are meant to be: our fullest potential. About Bao-Anh “Sometimes you just gotta go.” In her spare time, when she is not playing with her kids or chasing to pull the perfect espresso, you can find her with a barbell or on her bike, willing to hurt and have fun doing so!

April 9th 2022 Stans, NW SUMMARY We've created the hive ride because we know group rides & signing up for cycling events can be intimidating. Join us on April 9th for our first ever community ride! Hive Ride is a day-long women's specific cycling event, centralized in one location. Three different group rides start and end at the hive (sport2go, Stans) where we have coffee stops by our partners @ vertical coffee, snacks and workshops. Chose one ride based on your preference or complete all three! Participation in each event and workshop gets you a ticket for the draw prizes from our partners! Sea to Sky 9:00 Start Workshop and Coffee Break 11:00 Mountain Valley 12:30 Forest Fairy 15:00 (map data and more details below) REGISTER Together, let's support women run businesses. We are collecting 20 CHF per participant for our baristas and mechanics who are putting in a hard effort to be there for us. Don't have Twint? No worries, you can pay on site, just please scroll all the way to the bottom of this page and fill out the form so we can be sure to bake enough cake and update you with any essential info. Don't drink coffee, can't join the workshop and prefer to ride for free? No worries, leave us a note in the comment of the registration form at the bottom of this page. We want to keep the access open to all and understand that it's maybe out of your spending budget. Note: In the comment box of your payment, please specify which rides you'd want to join and any other info we should know! Example: 1 & 2, would be great to have a vegan cake option ;) PS no confirmation e-mail is sent but we will get in touch with you closer to the event with extra details! THE RIDES Here are the back up adaptions in case the weather is too climb - unfriendly https://connect.garmin.com/modern/course/97913277 https://connect.garmin.com/modern/course/97914305 FAQ

Let’s play a game... Picture a slice of your favourite post-ride cake. The one that would make it on to your death row dinner. Got it? The only thing standing in between you and the post-ride cake-phoria is that you have to pick three of the following five things: - Feeling thirsty - Muscle cramps - Smelly, dark coloured pee - Dizziness - Headaches Except, I lied. You don't get to choose only three, you end up with all five, cake or not. You guessed it - you’re dehydrated. Dehydration is the party crasher: she quietly sneaks in the back door while you are distracted and having a good time. She starts minesweeping the room and dancing questionably. You ask a few friends who she is, and who she came with, but nobody knows her, and you certainly didn’t invite her to the party. Then it's too late - you turn to watch her drunkenly stumble and fall on your Tour de France memorabilia (signed by the Le Diable himself) leaving behind a crumpled mess. We’ve all experienced the tsunami of feeling crap that is brought on by dehydration when we didn’t keep our fluids in check. The symptoms we experience are a result of the blood becoming more concentrated, kidneys starting to retain water, and (as it progresses) the brain even losing water in its cells, reducing overall function. As if that’s not enough, the sweat we produced to try and keep us cool has been taking valuable minerals with it that our body needs now more than ever. So what can you do to stop it happening? The old adage ‘drink before you’re thirsty’ is well known for a reason. As athletes (yes, you ARE an athlete), we also need to actively manage our electrolytes, and that is most easily done by taking a drink with you while you are out for a ride -even in winter, even when you're not "thirsty". Complicated things have a very short lifespan in my house, I prefer to prioritise my time to look for tailwinds on a weather app, and get out there to enjoy them. Being a cyclist is not always the most zero-waste lifestyle, and many of the nutrition products are built around processed foods that favour convenience and longevity. Personally, I have never enjoyed the flavour of commercially available electrolyte drinks, so I went in search of a solution that was simple, waste-free and based on whole foods - and that didn’t make my face convulse when it hit my tastebuds. Grandma was a cyclist electrolyte drink Simple Ingredients: Juice 1/2 lemon 2 tsps honey/maple syrup/agave nectar 1 tsp sea salt for extra minerals but any salt will do 500ml water Method: 1) Put all ingredients in your favourite bidon (cool-cyclist-kid term for "waterbottle") 2) Screw top on bidon, and make sure the valve is closed 3) Put on some funky music and shake bidon while dancing around your kitchen 4) Cycle, drink and enjoy Use this recipe as a starting point. Do you feel like it could do with a little extra ‘pop’? Add in some frozen raspberries for some contrast colour, flavour and extra chill. Just back after a long boat trip and worried you developed scurvy? Up the lemon juice. Is your dentist particularly nice on the eyes? A little extra sweetness will get you seeing their sweet cheeks a bit sooner. Whatever you do, take time to find an electrolyte drink that you enjoy - because no matter how perfect any drink mix is, it is guaranteed to be 0% effective if it stays in the bidon. Happy tailwind hunting, Wendy

Last night a badass group of Swiss local girls who ride met @ Kaffee Kranz in Luzern to chat about their favourite pair of shorts. We threw our shorts on the table, passed them around and discussed what elements we love and laughed about the things we hate. Below are some of our conclusions. Agree or disagree? Add your voice to the conversation via this survey here. First things first, all women prefered shorts with suspenders We found that shorts without suspenders are subject to 3 main shortcomings: they tend to slide down they tend to dig into your gut and make you uncomfortable or feel roll-y they don't protect a sweaty low back in cooler conditions a lioness doesn't wear diapers Sometimes the shammy pad feels like a diaper and that doesn't make us feel powerful. Though we saw that there are a lot of different pads out there, we could all agree on a few important elements that the dream pad should have: ventilation - a must for sweaty fierce ladys (talking about your downstairs lady) a soft cushion (duh) the right shape - a lot of pads tend to go to wide beyond the saddle width and cause chaffing flexible instead of too constructed is often better, since every lady is unique tight, but not too tight Typical goldilocks, always looking for that dream medium amount! We found this rule applied itself to the cuff at the bottom of the shorts and also the material. CUFFS when cuffs are too tight at the bottom they are uncomfortable and create a sausage effect on our powerful legs too loose and they flap around in the wind! FABRIC when the material is too tight or thick it feels like a pair of jeans after Christmas eve dinner, you can't move, it leaves rolls in all the wrong places and just isn't helping anyone too thin and you are showing everyone you bum crack or lacking support where you might need it The judges are still undecided on: - colour - waistline (high rise, bellybutton height, etc) - and how to manage the suspender + boobs conundrum We need your voice! Have something you can contribute, expertise, experiences, photos of you rocking your favourite pair? Please fill out this form or get in touch with us for more.

I first met Amy at the University of Calgary through a friend. Since then, she has blossomed into an authentic storyteller whose personal mission is to help others be heard. As a warrior woman and cancer survivor, Amy uses her pencil to gracefully portray the inner strength of women through her designs and after seeing the beautiful work she was doing and the mission she was on, I knew she was the perfect person to ask to channel our vision @ rawr. In this video, she speaks about the flowers she chose and the deep symbolism behind the piece which covers our website and will cover our bodies once the kits launch! Can't wait to wear the design of this incredibly strong woman and use it's imagery to help pull more women into the sport and inspire generations to come. More about Amy http://theupside-down.com/ @amyreding

We just got back from a successful trip to northern Italy to visit with our producer! I brought a long list of demands collected from our previous RAWR workshop, your survey data and we spent the entire day (including a mandatory pizza break obviously) going back and forth in our discussions about what's possible, trying on existing models, touching fabrics and playing around with pushing the limits. Next steps? The producer is going to cook up a sample pair of shorts to see if we can make our dreams a reality. Once we get the physical sample, we will meet again to discuss the strengths/weaknesses and of course, colour options! ASK: We're looking for help with legalities: if you or anyone you know is proficient in patents - please get in touch! Additionally if you have a contact in garment production already, lemme know! In the meantime: time to get the juices flowing on the jersey. If you feel inspired by anything you see on Insta, don't be afraid to tag @riderawr and tell us what you love. If you have an original idea - send it our way riderawr@gmail.com. Next workshop will be coming soon in November! Stay tuned! And remember, as the weather gets colder, time to turn up the volume on your RAWR!

Yesterday we got together for our second workshop @ Kaffee Kranz in Lucerne, Switzerland (shout out to Patrick for always making us feel at home in such a cozy, creative, bike centric, caffeinated space). After much deliberation we have some take-aways, teasers for you and are opening the door to your feedback in this early-ish stage! takeaway one after a lot of discussion we decided to leave the signature print off of the jersey, though we are all passionate about the symbolism behind it, we decided not everyone loves to showcase flowers and it was a little more gendered than we want to portray. not to worry, this bad ass design will still make its way into the collection! takeaway two we needed a logo, something to symbolize our mission: team effort, working together towards a common goal, strength, resilience, kindness to ourselves and to others and when the honey bee came up in discussion -- the excitement in the room was palpable! honey bees reflect our community centric effort to build on the cycling movement, they represent strength, intelligence, teamwork, sustainability AND a little bit of sass/sting when needed ;) also who doesn't love honey?! design takeaways Shorts: dark grey with iridescent riderawr text on left leg + new geometric honey bee logo on right hip + ... should we add text above the bum? undecided! Jersey: mono-colour beautiful SAGE with blonde mirrored logo type-font on chest and some honey bees on the back along with a few little secrets we aren't quite ready to disclose Baselayer: white, silky, with our signature print - the powerful gladiola flowers and headless girls on bikes! Jersey 2: the majority of women preferred toned down, earthy, natural colours that a flattering and fit every skin tone - can't argue with that BUT some of us (cough, me) likes to be a little nuts and I'm thinking of some bright blues, mustard/copper yellows! Some geometric honeycombs?! What do you think? Looking for someone who is creative and passionate about design - or at least more fluent in Adobe Illustrator- than I am to support this! Remember, your voice matters, what do you think about these concepts? Do you have ideas of your own you'd like to introduce to the world? send us an email, DM, or brainwave, we want to hear you.

We know group rides and registering for events can be intimidating! That's why we've created the hive ride, a day-long women's cycling event centralized in one location (the hive). There are three different rides to chose from which all meet back up at the hive! You can participate in 1, 2 or all 3 and every time you participate, you get entered for the draw prizes supplied by our generous partners! We wanted to empower women to ride by not only providing community and a great group of women to ride with but by providing resources and knowledge! That's why included in the hive ride is a "fix it yourself" workshop. A mechanic will be on-site to help you with all your questions and provide tricks about changing those pesky tires. And of course, what would a ride be without cake and coffee? Our partner Vertical Coffee Roasters will be on site to grind up your favourite roast and make sure you stay fuelled for a day full of cycling and community! REGISTRATION COMING SOON, tickets will be 20CHF and gets you coffee, cake and a ton of confidence on your bike! Location: Spichermatt 17 6370 Stans, NW Switzerland (super easy access via public transport - Bahnhof Stans)

written by Kerry Maher Shaffer From the moment you find out you are pregnant and you make your first doctors appointment, to the hours after birth there is always someone holding your hand. They make sure you and baby are healthy and walk you through getting your baby into the world. Then, the second you walk out of the hospital (depending on where you live & your choice of care givers) you are alone. Just you, and if you’re lucky your partner, walking into a quiet house thinking “now what?”, as you stare at this tiny human with so much love that it hurts. I am almost 4 months postpartum. If you look at the photo above you will likely notice an extra chin, an ill-fitting sports bra, a soft belly and dark circles under the eyes, and a smile. Would you believe me if I said this is an improvement from the last couple months? The smile in this photo has a story. It grew out of late-night feedings, a baby who wouldn’t stop screaming, a condition called DMERS that makes pumping a literal nightmare, a husband who is away a lot for work, trying to keep up the house, and trying to take care of and feed myself. It came after finding out that our baby wasn’t getting enough food, after having to change our breastfeeding plan so she would start growing, after building our “village”, after learning to trust our baby to tell us when she needed something - and ultimately stepping past the fear of “what if”. Fear. Yup, fear. I felt like a shell of the strong fit high performing athlete I once was and had no idea how I was even going to have time, let alone energy, to get in the saddle again. But I did. It took overcoming the fear of not completing a workout because the baby woke from a nap, or the fear of only being capable of slow and steady because my body was still recovering from labor, delivery, and lack of sleep. I still struggle with some anxiety when I get into a workout and worrying about the baby waking before I finish - but I am slowly realizing that my once seemingly selfish goals are shifting. They involve this little girl: our sweet, beautiful, and strong little girl. My goals are not just about me being my best, or standing on a podium. They are about teaching my daughter about perseverance, overcoming adversity, facing challenges head on, and adapting to them. It’s about teaching her how to compete and win with grace and humility. And right now, if she wakes up from a nap and I have to pause a workout to trudge in my cycling shoes up the wood staircase, wrap her in a dry towel (so I don’t soak her in sweat), and put her in her bouncy chair next to me so we can finish the workout together, so be it. Because although I am a new mom, I have big goals, and the journey just got a whole lot more exciting.