Bicycle Face

The story of women and bicycles has never been easy. When the bike appeared in the 19th century and began to become popular among women, it was a revolution. Suddenly, women could go further than their own neighbourhood, they could do so without permission and without asking anyone to take them. In fact, the bicycle became especially popular among suffragettes, becoming a symbol. Which some sectors of society did not take kindly to.

So, doctors at the time invented what would become known as Bicycle Face. A fictitious disease that supposedly affected women who rode bicycles and caused dark shadows under the eyes, generated masculine facial traits and even led to depression, breastfeeding difficulties and miscarriages.

However, they ignored the warnings. And women cyclists and women’s cycling in sports are currently experiencing a hay day, with the official celebration of the first ever Vuelta Femenina. An event that began in Torrevieja, Spain, on 1 May and finished with an ascent to the Covadonga Lakes on 7 May.

On the occasion of the event, Škoda, the Official Sponsor of La Vuelta Femenina, and Proximity Barcelona came up with an initiative to celebrate the fact that women never stopped cycling and that women’s cycling has been becoming more and more popular over the years. So, they are launching a photography project to redefine, positively, what Bicycle Face means in 2023: a face showing the effort of getting to the top of a hill, the satisfaction of finishing with the best time or, in other words, the face of empowerment on two wheels.

With this aim, from the start of the competition, the sports photographers Naike Ereñozaga and Lara Ortiz de Zárate took on a photographic challenge: they took moving portraits of the cyclists as they raced to show all of the competition’s faces. In their statements, Naike said, “I have witnessed what it has taken for women’s cycling to get here. We’ve come a long way, but there is still further to go.” And Laura acknowledged that, “It is an honour to be able to take part in this project, to be a part of the change, and to have the opportunity to immortalise these moments struggling to win the race that represent the female attitude.”