How all-female cycling club The Skinny Lattes helps heal and improve the life of women

It started on a whim: why don’t we take up riding while our husbands and partners are busy with their cycling? Two decades on The Skinny Lattes are making a difference.

They call themselves The Skinny Lattes, which is tongue-in-cheek, but this all-female cycling club is very serious about helping women get fitter and have a better quality of life.

Felicity Laing was part of forming a women’s cycling club 20 years ago and it has now become a regular feature at the Challenge Tour at the Tour Down Under, presented by The Advertiser.

It is humorous, the way The Skinny Lattes began: their husbands and partners were in a cycling group and they decided to have a go on their own, away from the men.

Laing, who is the president of the Skinny Lattes, takes up the story:

“It’s almost 20 years now,” Laing said. “We basically were a group of women whose partners and husbands were cycling and we didn’t want to be left out of the picture.

“Twenty years ago we were married — most of us are not married to them anymore.

Felicity Laing and sister Belinda Bramley from The Skinny Lattes cycling club. Picture: Tricia Watkinson

“But four of us started riding up Linear Park and it grew from there.

“We were on mountain bikes then and now we are on road bikes and have about 70 members, I think the first and only at this point in time women’s cycling club registered in South Australia.

“We basically support women of all abilities to learn how to ride and then encourage them to progress.

“We provide racing in a very supportive and non-threatening environment.”

The Skinny Lattes, named after their post-ride choice of beverage, include bigger stories.

Laing’s sister, Belinda Bramley, was part of the TDU community ride back in 2015 and became unusually fatigued around 20km out from the finish line.

The girls helped her get to the finish but a few weeks later she was diagnosed with throat cancer.

The best part of that story is that she has been in remission for three years.

Laing puts it well when she says it added another level of significance to the TDU rides and that The Skinny Lattes would not miss it for quids.

She was also confident that cycling played a big part in healing Belinda.

“We ride every weekend and she’s doing really well,” Laing said. “You can certainly attribute her success and her health to the fact that she’s riding that bike.

“I think it helped her a lot with her stress and all sorts of things.”

The Skinny Lattes will provide ambassadors for all of the female teams in the 2019 teams in the TDU, offering everything from a spare set of hands to hold bikes of sunnies and offering a bit of local knowledge.

Presumably, it will include where to find the best caffeine hit after racing.

Originally published as How all-female cycling club The Skinny Lattes helps heal and improve the life of women