Female Cyclists I Dig - Puck Pieterse

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We are nearly there: the Tour de France is nigh. The men’s race is in July, the women’s Tour starts Aug 1st. Yes, there is a women’s Tour de France, officially, the Tour de France Femmes Avec Zwift. And while I have not seen the official squads yet, I’m assuming, barring injury, these ladies will be at the starting line on day one. So here, in no particular order, are some of my favorites. We’ll start with Puck Pieterse (the commentators pronounce her name “Peters,” so that’s what I’m going with.) Puck Pieterse is a young Dutch cyclist, born 2002, presently racing for Fenix-Premier Tech. A former World Mountain Bike Champion and current National Cyclo-Cross Champion, Puck also races on the road, and has found success early, having won a Tour de France Femmes stage in 2024, when she also won that Tour edition’s Best Young Rider (White Jersey, under 26 yrs) classification. In 2025, Puck won the prestigious La Fleche Wallone Femmes classic (she finished 2nd this year, as she also did at this season’s Liege-Bastogne-Liege.) I always root for the mountain bikers when they start moving over to the road (that’s where the Big Money is: a World Champion Mountain Biker can earn more $$ as a domestique working for the team star on the road than as the champion in mountain biking,) so it’s natural that I would root for Puck. She’s been racing mountain bikes recently; I’ve been watching the highlight footage all weekend, so I’m hoping she makes the Fenix Tour squad. Link is to some short footage of Puck winning a World Cup cyclo-cross race in Europe: