The parallel races are a great idea. The iconic names in the cycling calendar are the ones the public know (if any). My own experience as a fan who has taken to going to races over the past 5 years or so would bear it out.
My partner and I went to the nationals in N Yorks earlier this year. Sarah Storey's race-long attempt to catch the leading quartet was the stand-out performance of the day. We'd not have seen it if the race was not at the same course.
Sending the women out on the ToB course a few hours before the men would give them a roadside audience of millions in this country.
If anyone commenting had the slightest idea how much a race like ToB costs, then double it for all the extra staff, police, motos, commissaires, teams, etc, then can suggest a sponsor who would double their input to support a women's race on what would have to be a shorter route (stage of 200km at what pace??), and need another TV crew to provide about three minutes of "highlights" a day, send your answers on a postcard to the ToB organisers. I'm sure they would be pleased to hear from you.
In essence, combining women and men racing on track, at cyclo-cross, MTB works because the logistics work - UK national trophy cross races are an example.
On the road it's an entirely different matter, and putting women on the same route and distances as men would make a very poor comparison. ASO tried a "Tour Feminin", with stages around 120-130km (I was involved a little at one point), and it simply didn't work economically, and as the organisers of big races are in the main commercial operators there has to be a profit in it to pay the extra staff and costs.
Simply trying to force the organisers to run a women's race ahead of/after the men's race will probably make them raise two fingers and go off to run other stuff, like golf, less problems and more cash, which would only leave struggling amateurs.
None of this is a solution, but is reality, and I think the future for women's racing could be good, but needs careful marketing and sensible wage rates for riders and staff, decent well promoted stand alone races, piggy-backing on men's races where it works, and quality racing. The blocks I can see are the poor strength in depth of the professional women's peloton, and the financial one.
It's chicken and egg, enough big events to aspire to, more women race, quality goes up. But you have to look at figures, for every woman racing there are about 8 men, so the base of the triangle which eventually produces top riders is larger.
Easy solution - there isn't one, much as it would be nice to say there is.
. Just to add, Emma Pooley and Sarah Storey [both highly intelligent women] both want to compete over the same distances as men and they have a little better insight into what is going on than most, if not all of us on here.
