Woman Racer Spotlight: Mel Scrivin

Name: Mel Scrivin

Hometown: Dunoon, Scotland

How did you get into cycling?  As an asthmatic kid I did very little sport – cardio was just not accessible for me. I met my partner in 2013 and she was a serious cyclist – one of the first ‘dates’ we had was me supporting her at Ride London (which she completed in 6 hours – so far ahead of schedule that I nearly missed cheering her on at all!) She bought me a bike as a housewarming present when we moved in together, but our first (tiny) ride nearly killed me. Due to work travel and because of me not riding, she had practically stopped cycling and was getting quite seriously depressed. In July 2016 I said “‘”Right, you need to start riding again, we’re cycling. Together!” I told her if after a mile she hated it she could go home, but that I was riding the 7-mile loop from our home. Of course by 1 mile, where there’s a little hill (to me at the time!) she was out of sight and I was puffing up it like a snail. Miraculously I discovered I COULD cycle, and in July 2017 we did Ride London, and in 2018 London to Paris.

When Covid hit, and cycling was one of the few things you could still do, we decided to join a local cycling club to discover new routes (and cafes once they were open again). It became apparent that there was very little provision for women who couldn’t ride far and fast, and, shockingly, unexpected resistance to such provision from those women who *could* ‘hang with the boys’. I’m a fairly strong personality (as you’ll come to see 🤪) so if I felt utterly rejected, how on earth did less forceful women feel?

This lead to me training as a British Cycling Breeze Champion (women’s ride leader), and I quickly gathered a group of regular riders. Soon, though, they reached beyond the limitations of Breeze (especially living near the Cotswolds, where a limitation of 12% gradients was near impossible to stick to!) and I ended up forming a women’s cycling club called the Severn Belles. Many of the riders had no cycling wardrobe and once they got beyond short flat rides they were in need of more technical kit. I designed a striking kit for us which always gets lots of looks and comments when we’re out and about.

The progress by some of them was incredible – from shy ladies simply wanting to improve confidence on their tri cycling leg, to confident women tackling some pretty long and spicy sportives. 

How many years have you been racing on Zwift? I started riding on Zwift in Oct 2023, because even if it’s not cold or wet where I live it’s windy, so I was never going out. I decided to have a go at racing in about April 2024 because the barriers are so much less than outdoors – no entry fees, no slogging back to your car if you have a mechanical or get terminally dropped, no bad weather, no potholes, and no chance of falling off (unless you sprint REALLY hard and topple the turbo 🤣) I really enjoyed it and was soon jealous of the folk in teams getting to ride WTRL TTT and ZRL, then in July 2024 there just happened to be a call for C and D cat riders, and I’ve never looked back. 

Are you part of a Virtual team? Yes! eSRT were looking for riders last summer and I was so lucky to join them. We have some of the best racers on Zwift (check out the ZwiftPower rankings of some of our guys!) and women who’ve raced for Sweden in the eSports World Champs, but they’re SO encouraging and supportive of all the lower cat riders. We joke that there’s no ReST in eSRT, but we just like to go hard when we race. I just love them and have really found my home 💙💖 I’ve even started learning Swedish on Duolingo for the odd occasion when someone posts in Swedish or links to a Swedish event or website, and so that when we have IRL meetups (yep this really happens, despite the geographical spread, and yes, ABBA is a universal theme 😂) I can try to repay some of the riders’ brilliance in conducting everything in a foreign language. Ja är hemma med eSRT 💙💖

What do you love most about racing? I love that I just can’t let someone get away from me. Racing makes me push myself far harder than I would on my own, even in a workout. I may not have the power or endurance to catch the girl in front, but I’ll push myself to and beyond my limits trying! 

What is your favourite style of race (e.g. points, scratch, iTT, TTT, Chase, duathlon)?  TTT. There’s nothing like racing with a bunch of friends to share the pain. 

What is your favourite Zwift women’s race series? Iceni, probably cos I won it 😂 

What is your most memorable racing experience, inside or outside or BOTH Flamme Rouge Racing Tour France Queen Stage on Quatch Quest. Honestly that was the hardest 10 days of my life! We even had ZRL on the rest day. 9 stages, 221 miles. I may not be the lightest or the strongest or the fastest rider on Zwift, but I’m probably the most bloody-minded – when I decide to do something I’m committed to seeing it through. I must admit, though, I questioned this several times during the event, and swore never to ride the France map again 😬 By the final stage I was resigned to just dragging myself round (and to facing divorce if I ever tried anything this stupid again) and I just watched the other riders streaming away. I wasn’t going to be beaten though and on I plodded (climbing is DEFINITELY not my strength, and we’d done an iTT up La Reine the day before…) but as I crept up the Alpe my nemesis popped up on my rider list. I assumed it was a glitch of the hairpins, but then the time gap was suddenly only two minutes. That really fired my motivation so I kept slogging away, watching the gap inching down, until suddenly there she was, stopped on the side! A real tortoise and hare moment. I gave it another burst to try and get as big a gap as I could while she recovered but once she started moving again she was soon eating into it. I was SO determined not to be caught though, and I guess having gone into the red she was the one at a disadvantage.  Somehow I held her off – she was right on my heels – and I won the Queen Stage for my category. I was completely astonished and so proud of myself (and nearly in tears because my good racing pal Manon Holtman totally unexpectedly teleported to the end of the race to cheer me on)

(Also fairly fond memories of eSRT Flashcore winning round 1 of ZRL this season – my first outings with the team.)

What is your favourite food to eat post race? I like a good soak in an Epsom salts bath after a hard race. I haven’t really got a sweet tooth so my usual in-bath protein hit is nachos and houmous. If I’m not in the bath it’s a blueberry smoothie (milk, frozen banana, frozen blueberries… freezing the banana gives you the ice cream creaminess without the excess sugar, and blueberries are full of inflammation-zapping antioxidants and immunity-boosting vitamin C👌)

I also have a weakness for Powerbar 30% Protein+ Chocolate. I’m not great racing in the evenings, but after ZRL I have tortellini with cherry tomatoes and feta. It means I can cook for my wife before the race, and then cook mine in about 5 minutes post-race.

What advice would you give to a woman entering her first Zwift race? JUST DO IT! Warm up first because Zwift race starts are HARD (my go-to here is the INEOS Pre Race Warmup workout on whatever course you’re racing. The routine of completing the same warmup each time relaxes you and prepares you for the race). But get in there, be prepared to be pushed harder than you’ve ever been pushed before, and be prepared to have FUN. Prepare seems to be my mantra here 😂 

Any upcoming race you are looking forward to? Always ZRL racing with my Flashcore teamies, but also looking forward to Iceni coming back round to see if I still have what it takes. And of course the unique ‘All cats in one pen’ eSRT Tiny Races, which are brutal but if you’re a powerpack who is good at drafting you can get the A cat girls to drag you along until you die 🤣 I’m usually totally out of watts by race 3 though.

Where can people follow your racing adventures? If you want to follow me you’d better get yourself in the D Pen for a race, hadn’t you? 😉