Women's racing history: from Bordeaux in 1868 to the Tour de France Femmes.

The velocipede races (1868 and 1869)

A women's velocipede race in the Parc Bordelais in Bordeaux on 1 November 1868 is widely described as the first recorded women's race. Accounts that quote the French magazine Le Monde Illustre say four riders took part, named Julie, Louise, Louisa and Amelie, and that Mademoiselle Julie overtook the early leader, Louise, to win. We saw these accounts, from the Racing Nellie Bly website and Cycling Weekly, only as search summaries, and we did not see the original magazine, so the details are unconfirmed.

The year is not quite settled either. English and Italian accounts give 1868; a French website, also seen only as a search summary, gives 1898, which looks like an error but is recorded here as the other version.

On firmer ground, the Encyclopedia of Modern Europe says women's races were part of early French race programmes by 1869. How many women rode Paris-Rouen that November is disputed: a search summary of Racing Nellie Bly says at least three of the competitors were women, while a search summary of Wikipedia names one, entered as "Miss America", who finished 29th. Neither is confirmed.

Alfonsina Strada and the 1924 Giro

Alfonsina Strada, born Alfonsina Morini, is described by Wikipedia as the only woman ever to ride the men's Giro d'Italia, in 1924, entered under the name "Alfonsin Strada". Everything we have about her rests on search summaries, and the Giro's own article about her returned an error when we tried to open it, so the details below are unconfirmed.

• A summary of the Giro's article says the big teams boycotted the 1924 race and the organisers, short of champions, accepted her entry. On the stage from L'Aquila to Perugia she crashed, repaired a broken handlebar and arrived outside the time limit.
• Summaries of Bikeraceinfo say she had ridden the Giro di Lombardia, 204 km, in 1917, and that La Gazzetta dello Sport let her carry on after the Perugia stage.

The sources disagree about the finish. Adventure Journal says she was one of 31 riders to reach Milan. Wikipedia says 30 of the 90 starters finished. Bikeraceinfo lists her about 38 hours behind the winner, Giuseppe Enrici. Whether she was officially classified after missing the time limit is not settled by anything we read.

World championships and the UCI (1958 onward)

The UCI says women's cycling was formally brought into its fold in 1958. Search summaries of Wikipedia say the first women's road world championship was held that year at Reims, France, on 30 August, over 59 km, and won by Elsy Jacobs of Luxembourg ahead of Tamara Novikova and Mariya Lukshina of the Soviet Union. Search summaries of Cyclingnews add that the federations of Great Britain, France, Belgium and the Soviet Union had pressed for a women's race, that the UCI agreed in 1957, and that Jacobs also set the women's Hour record later in 1958. None of these details is confirmed, and even Jacobs's birth date appears as both 4 March and 5 March 1933 in different summaries.

The UCI's own record of the track programme is clearer. Its 125th-anniversary article dates the women's keirin and scratch races to 2002, the women's omnium to 2009 and the women's Madison to 2017, and the launch of the UCI Women's WorldTour to 2016. The UCI raised the women's individual pursuit from 3 km to 4 km on 1 January 2025. The women's Hour record holders since 2003 are listed on the Hour record.

Beryl Burton's twelve hours (1967)

Otley Cycle Club's history says Beryl Burton covered 277.25 miles in its 12-hour time trial in 1967, beating the men's 12-hour record, and that she reportedly passed the men's record holder, Mike McNamara, during the ride and offered him a sweet. The club says her distance also stood as the event and course record for more than 40 years.

What exactly she beat is framed differently. Otley Cycle Club calls it the men's 12-hour record. Search summaries of the Yorkshire Post and the Taipei Times frame it as a national record and say McNamara set the men's record of 276.52 miles on the same day. Those summaries, unconfirmed, also say she was British Best All-Rounder for 25 years in a row, from 1959 to 1983.

Women's Tours de France

Tour Magazin, in an article of 7 August 2026, sets out three attempts (the Tour organiser's own websites could not be read for our research):

Search summaries of Wikipedia say the 2022 edition ran over eight stages from 24 to 31 July and was won by Annemiek van Vleuten. Tour Magazin describes the 2026 edition as nine stages from Lausanne to Nice, covering 1,175 km with 18,795 m of climbing and a summit finish on Mont Ventoux; its results are on the Tour de France Femmes.

Olympic firsts

The UCI says the Los Angeles Games of 1984 brought the first women's Olympic road race, and its report on the Paris 2024 women's road race confirms that Connie Carpenter of the United States won it: it calls Kristen Faulkner, the 2024 winner, the first American to win since Carpenter at Los Angeles in 1984. Search summaries of Wikipedia, unconfirmed, date the 1984 race to 29 July at Mission Viejo, California, with Rebecca Twigg second and Sandra Schumacher of West Germany third. Search summaries of Olympedia and Wikipedia say the women's sprint was first held at Seoul in 1988 and won by Erika Salumae, an Estonian riding for the Soviet Union, who won again in 1992 for Estonia; also unconfirmed.

On the track, the UCI says the women's keirin joined the Olympic programme at London 2012 and the women's Madison at the Tokyo Games, which it says completed the matching of the men's and women's track programmes. More is on cycling at the Olympics through history.

Paris-Roubaix Femmes (2021)

The UCI records that the first Paris-Roubaix Femmes was held on 2 October 2021, starting in Denain with 129 riders, the first time women had raced the Paris-Roubaix cobbles. Lizzie Deignan of Great Britain won alone after 82 km on her own, 1 minute 17 seconds ahead of Marianne Vos, with Elisa Longo Borghini third. A search summary of Wikipedia says the race had been planned for April 2020 and was postponed twice because of Covid-19, which we could not confirm.

The dates on this page are gathered in the timeline.