'An absolutely beautiful moment': How the inaugural Tour de France Femmes can change women's cycling

By Issy Ronald, CNN

Updated 1012 GMT (1812 HKT) July 28, 2022

The 2022 Tour de France Femmes is the first official women's Tour de France in 33 years.

(CNN)It seems somewhat of an understatement to call the Tour de France a bike race.

It transcends cycling, shutting down every mountain pass, village, town and city it passes through, drawing huge crowds along the roadside like some kaleidoscopic carnival.But — except for a brief period between 1984 and 1989 — women have been excluded from these festivities and, therefore, a place at the very pinnacle of the sport.«The biggest race that most people have ever heard of… is the Tour de France,» pro cyclist Ayesha McGowan tells CNN Sport. «And so whenever I tell people what I do… they would always ask, 'Oh, like… you ride in the Tour de France?' And I'd have to inform them that women didn't currently have a Tour de France. But now I don't have to do that anymore.»Read MoreOn Sunday, the same day as the men's race finished, the inaugural edition of the Tour de France Femmes began beside the Eiffel Tower in Paris as the women's peloton set out on its own eight-day odyssey across France.The Tour de France Femmes began in Paris on Sunday.This week, it winds its way eastwards through the vineyards and gravel roads of Champagne, climbs mountains reaching altitudes of more than 1,000 meters, and finishes atop La Planche des Belles Filles — a wooded mountain with upper slopes rearing upwards at a frighteningly steep gradient of 24%.'A rebirth'The road to the Tour de France Femmes began in September 1955 when French sports journalist Jean Leulliot launched a five-day women's race won by the Isle of Man's Millie Robinson. A sequel was not held until 1984 when it assumed a different form,