Grace Brown, who recently retired from professional cycling, takes on a new role as President of the Cyclists' Alliance (TCA), highlighting safety, salaries and fair working conditions as just a few of the areas that will help the organization continue its work towards improving women's cycling as a whole.

Brown retired from the sport in 2024 with an individual time trial, both in Liège-Bastogne-Liège, which won gold at the Paris Olympics, and in the Rainbow Jersey, which won gold at the Zurich World Championships. 

In a recent Q&A on Tca's Instagram feed, Brown explained that moving to her new role as head of the Association would help her maintain a connection with the sport in a meaningful way.instagram.At Com, Brown explains:

"TCA's mission is strongly aligned with my vision and passion for cycling, women's sport and gender equity. The role of president was a great opportunity to continue to have a positive impact on women's professional cycling, even away from the race," she said.

Women's cycling has seen significant improvements since Brown signed his first professional contract in 2018 to race under WIggle High5. She continued to race for Mitchelton-Scott and FDJ-Suez before retiring at the end of the year.

Meanwhile, UCI announced in 2020 that it had added minimum salary requirements and maternity leave provisions, as well as other securities such as insurance, to its women's world team contracts, but some teams had already included these types of provisions in their rider contracts before UCI's policies.

"I had a relatively short career in professional cycling, but at that time I witnessed a major change in the sport. The most concrete change is rider salaries, which have more than quadrupled for high-value riders in the past five years," Brown said. 

"We also see teams with more resources across the board. One of the best changes has been the increase in the broadcasting of women's races, which in turn has brought many fans to our sport."

In addition, race organizers who were part of the Women's World Tour were required to provide a minimum of 45 minutes of live TV coverage if they wanted to maintain their top-tier status and brought more visibility to women's cycling than ever before.

The UCI also confirmed at a recent WorldTour seminar in Nice, France, last month that it would introduce women's prothems in 2025. The 3 teams - the World Team, the Pro Team and the Continental Team - bring the structure of the women's professional team in line with the men's team. 

We also confirmed that 7 women's teams have already applied for UCI Women's ProTeam status in their first year and that several additional teams have already expressed their desire to participate at this level in 2026. 

Still, there is growing concern that the lowest tier of teams on the continent are lagging behind, despite significant improvements made to the top tier of the women's race. The Continental team is not obligated to pay a minimum salary to riders, but some teams do.

The 2023 TCA Annual survey revealed that among Tier 2 teams, riders who responded to the survey indicated they were "struggling to make ends meet." In addition, those who responded to the survey indicated that "economic reasons" continue to be the 1st reason most women consider leaving the sport earlier than planned.

"Despite the positive growth of the sport, there are still some areas that are lagging behind. We are particularly aware that growth at the top does not always drip," Brown said.

"For example, continental-level UCI team conditions still leave that many riders still want, without a salary. We want to make sure that this cohort of women is not left behind, especially because they are in the critical and vulnerable development stage of their careers.

Brown said rider safety is also a major concern at the forefront of TCA's strategy for improving women's cycling.

"As women's levels of peloton increase each year, the dangers of sports are becoming more common. This is something that all stakeholders in cycling, including riders, need to work together to improve."

Brown said she is committed to maintaining a "unified voice" across all three layers of women's cycling so that she maintains the leverage needed to negotiate concerns between the Pelotons.

"It is also necessary for riders to continue to advocate for conditions for riders at the continental level, as well as for riders in areas other than the road, to realize that just because the top tier of the sport has significantly improved the situation does not mean it is universal," Brown said.