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Category: Sidesaddle Blog
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BEST EVENT RIDE OF 2025 FOR WOMEN? WE’LL BE THERE.
Beartooth La Femme is a women’s only ride up the iconic Beartooth Pass, widely hailed as America’s most scenic road and a definite epic for cyclists. Terry is proud to be a primary sponsor this year and we would LOVE to have you join us.
The Specifics.
What: supported 1-day ride limited to 75 women
Where: Red Lodge, Montana
When: August 18, 2025
Organizer: Jennifer Drinkwalter, founder of Montana Tour and expert in hosting major cycling events in the area
Registration: Beartooth la Femme
The Ride.
A 62-mile out and back on the Beartooth Pass to the Summit of 10,947 ft. The ride originates and ends in the town of Red Lodge which is 5,555 ft. in elevation so you not only double your elevation but you’ll see why the Beartooth Pass is not easily ridden. The climb is spectacular with a series of switchbacks and vistas that both take your breath away. You’ll climb above tree line, cross the border into Wyoming and end up with a 360 degree view of Beartooth, Bighorn and Absaroka mountain ranges.
Race? No, but we will crown one Beartooth La Femme Queen who reaches the summit first with our locally made flower crown. Clock will begin at 7:30 am. No timing chips and no mini cars racing around providing individual support like a European race tour. The pass has enough challenges; a team of volunteers provide support to all riders as one group.
You can choose to do the ride alone, or go deluxe with a stay at the historic Pollard Hotel in Red Lodge. Whichever you choose includes a custom Terry Soleil that captures the beauty of the ride in all its Big Sky glory.
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NEW GEAR FOR THE NEW YEAR.
All new and all designed for you – our 2025 season is full of innovations and new options that are guaranteed to get you riding more comfortably, without sacrificing on style. Coming soon to terrycycling.com…
New Merino
Introducing the softest, finest gauge Merino blend in 2 alternative styles for cycling. There are so many natural benefits of riding in Merino wool and once you take this step, you’ll wonder what took so long.
NEW Merino 3/4 
NEW Merino SS Jersey 
New Bottoms
From our new Cargo Short with dual stacked pockets to more color and leg band options in our best sellers, there’s something new for every rider in our core riding bottom lineup.
NEW 4-pocket Cargo Short 
Long Haul Short in NEW blackout 
NEW Bella Free (no leg gripper) 
NEW Petunia-toned Bike Bermuda 
Holster Short in NEW indigo New Saddle
We are pleased to launch our first new saddle in several seasons – the Topo Gel. Designed primarily for mountain biking, but also ideal for gravel riding and available in two different cover options.
New Party Shirts & Venture Bottoms
Kitschy blouse, serious work shirt, super light & flowy fabric – it’s hard to say what we like best about the new Snap Shirt. And our new Venture Bottoms are give you fit and color options that can be used on or off bike thanks to a separate liner.
NEW Snap Shirt, NEW Venture Short & NEW Full Finger T-Gloves 
NEW Venture Short/Relaxed Fit New Bike-Friendly Dresses & Skorts
NEW Easy Rider Dress (shown w/Easy Rider Short) 
NEW Venture 2-in-1 Skort New Soleils
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1985 – 2025: 40 YEARS OF PUTTING FEMALE CYCLISTS FIRST.
As we begin our 4th decade at Terry, we’re amazed at how much has changed. Many of you have been there with us for a huge part of our history. Here’s the first in a series of retrospectives about how things got rolling, in the words of our founder, Georgena Terry.
Who I am and Why We’re Here
Okay, let’s set the record straight. A lot of people say, “You started your business because you were short and you couldn’t find a bike that fit, right?” Wrong. Or, “You started your business to benefit maligned, frustrated women, right?” Wrong. I started my business to follow my intuition. No ulterior motives here at all. About 30 seconds after I popped out of the womb, a guardian angel landed on my shoulder and said, “Georgena, you’re a misfit and a maverick. Don’t even think about conforming. You simply can’t do it.” My nascent brain chewed on that for about a millisecond and then agreed, wholeheartedly.
With this precious bit of insight about my future in hand, I began my life’s journey. I dove headlong into whatever I wanted to do. Against my Dad’s wishes, I bought my first bicycle, a fire engine red, single speed Schwinn girl’s model. I rode that bike everywhere. It ignited a little fire in me that has burned with varying degrees of passion over the years. The freedom, the exhilaration, the independence, the solitude of cycling–just perfect for me.
By the time I started my fourth job in eight years, I knew I wasn’t long for the corporate world. It was just too hard to like somebody else’s project. I’m not a team player. Yeah, yeah–I know what the books say. Listen, the real secret in life is not to spend hours of time analyzing and trying to improve your weaknesses–it’s playing to your strengths and forgetting about your weaknesses.
Bicycling was continuing to call me. Not that I wanted to ride all the time; I just wanted to feel like I was riding. I have a degree in mechanical engineering. I have some imagination (heck, I had a control panel from the Enterprise’s bridge in my bedroom in 1956–it controlled every function in our house). What to do, what to do? I didn’t know. I just knew I had to know more about the bicycle. Not the components, the frame. The metallurgy, the construction, the flame that made it a reality.
When I was finishing my B.S. in Mechanical Engineering, our senior project was to build a vehicle. Each group was given a nice little two stroke engine and told to make something neat…efficient…totally cool. Some of us were cyclists, so we set about building the best of both worlds. I found the tubing and Ed supplied a torch, flux and rods. We worked out of the basement of an old house. On a hot September afternoon, I watched Ed brazing a joint. There was something very appealing about the glare of the torch on his face, the perspiration. And it wasn’t a romantic appeal either. Maybe it was because we were in Pittsburgh where the steel mills were still pumping and it was heady to be in the presence of all that awesome power. Midnight drives to the J&L mills to feel the blast furnaces were a popular diversion. Say what you will about pollution and the plight of the working man. The country was humming.
I wanted a piece of that. So when Ed took off his goggles, wiped his face and said, “wanna try it?” I grinned and had my first lesson in brazing. It was like looking at a nonsensical throb of hot color. I couldn’t tell base metal from rod, from flux. Everything swirling around. I must have done okay, because the joint held, but I didn’t know why and that intrigued me.
So two years later, I bid a very fond farewell to the corporate world, bought a torch and some rod, read up on the metallurgy of brazing, and had a friend teach me the basics of safe torch operation. And then, in my own basement, I began the process of learning to build bicycle frames. It was as confusing at the outset as it had been in Pittsburgh, but, bit by bit, the pieces fell into place. Soon, brazing was like a good bike ride. I just got into the ryythym of it and it seemed like I could will the silver to go anywhere.
Eventually the word got out and I found myself building for others. I noticed a lot of women coming to me with common complaints–aches and pains, no off the rack bikes available. The MBA part of my brain pushed past the engineer and screamed, “Wake up! Crunch the numbers. Let’s go! Your personal revolution is about to take off.”
All these little voices inside me. They eschew even the slightest suggestion that someone knows more about me than they know. They’re apolitical, selfish little fiends. They provide the fire, I chase down the flammables. These little pals are inside everyone. You just have to shut down the interference and listen. When all is said and done, it’s going to come down to you and them. I’m really glad I heard mine from the beginning.
Our sincere congratulations to Georgena for being one of five inductees into the US Bicycle Hall of Fame later this year. You can reach her through her custom bike building site, georgenaterry.com.
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GEORGENA TERRY TO BE INDUCTED INTO THE BICYCLE HALL OF FAME.
On behalf of all of us at Terry Cycling, I am thrilled to announce that our founder, Georgena Terry, will be one of five inductees into the US Bicycle Hall of Fame in the fall of 2025.
Georgena discovered the freedom of riding a bicycle early on and never looked back. The bike became her wings and with them she explored the roads of Montgomery, Alabama. The energy crisis widened that wingspan to bike commuting at college in Pittsburgh, fueling her desire to get a mechanical engineering degree from Carnegie Mellon and her ultimate decision to ditch the corporate life at Xerox to start Terry Precision Bicycles in Rochester, NY.
Using herself as a guinea pig and her basement as her workshop, Georgena taught herself the fine art of brazing a bicycle frame. Others began asking her to build them bicycles…what she noticed was that most of them were women who complained about not being comfortable on their bikes. She conducted an in-depth study of the anatomical differences between men and women which led her to a different approach to frame geometry that recognized those differences and ultimately would fit women better. Inspired by the French practice in the 1800s of using a smaller front wheel, her no-compromise approach helped define her bicycle line and was the dawn of women-specific bicycle design.
Her business multiplied from 20 bicycles in 1985 to 5,000 in 1987. Initially all bicycles were handbuilt by Terry and a small cadre of like-minded engineers outside of Rochester, NY.
Once the bicycles were rolling, Georgena took on the next frontier: saddles. Her customers were complaining about saddle pain, so In 1992, she designed and patented the first Terry Sport Saddle. What made it innovative was the removal of the plastic substrate under the saddle’s nose, relieving pressure on the front of the saddle. From there, she eventually engineered complete cutaways and voila, another major revolution was born.
Since those early days of saddle design, cutouts have become common (imitation being the sincerest form of flattery), styles and materials have improved, and a full range of men’s and women’s saddles are now available to meet various cyclists’ needs.
In addition to her passion for product design, Terry also launched Team Terry, a pro women’s racing team to give young female cyclists an avenue for building their racing skills, founded the Wild Goose Chase, a benefit ride for Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge that has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars since its inception in 2008 and took up computer programming to launch the first Terry website.
Georgena sold her interest in Terry Precision Cycling and returned to her roots as a bike designer at georgenaterry.com, working one on one with customers from around the world. In 2012, Syracuse graduate student Amanda Zackem created an award-winning short film about Georgena, debuting at the New York City Bicycle Film Festival. Click here for 5 minutes of her own personal storytelling: https://community1.terrybicycles.com/sidesaddle-blog/catching-up-with-georgena.
As the lead associate handling phone inquiries at Terry, I often hear success stories about Georgena’s impact. These stories inspire me daily and reflect her core mission which is still a vibrant bike-building business today (https://georgenaterry.com).
A customer recently shared her experience with a persistent tire puncture issue. She was amazed that she could work directly with Georgena to resolve it and noted that Georgena went above and beyond to find the cause and solution… she also mentioned that she is just 4’10”!
For the past 15 years, I have cycled her signature ride, “The Wild Goose Chase,” in Cambridge, MD, explored the farmlands of Vermont, Zwifted through the pandemic, and exchanged stories with Georgena. We’ve discussed everything from cycling and Le Tour de Femme to baseball and birds. I consider her a dear friend and an incredible role model, and I am still starstruck to call her my friend!
Cheers to you, GT, with your signature glass of Milk and a Nutella treat.
Lisa Wilkes runs the customer service department at Terry along with our partnership marketing efforts with Blue Cross Blue Shield of Vermont and events around the country.
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PFAS & CYCLING APPAREL…THE RULES ARE CHANGING.
Effective January 1, 2025, two US states, California and New York, have banned the sale of products containing PFAS (Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl substances). These are chemicals that have been used in all kinds of consumer products since the 1950s, because they have unique characteristics that, depending on their use, can keep food from sticking to cookware, create firefighting foams that are super effective, make carpets stain resistant and make clothing with weather protective qualities. For cyclists, PFAS has been a blessing when it comes to technical outerwear. The downside is that the carbon-fluorine bond that makes PFAS effective, comes at a price – it doesn’t degrade easily and, over time, can have an environmental impact on water, soil and air.
What manufacturers are doing about it.
Companies have been hard at work to re-engineer technologies to remove PFAS from their products. Going PFAS free has not been an easy mission as other materials don’t have the same caliber of hydrophobic surfaces for water- and windproofing.
GORE, the leader in cycling outerwear, has developed a new GORE-TEX membrane that, “Is light and thin yet strong, and enables durable waterproof, windproof, and breathable performance. Bonded with carefully selected textiles, the resulting laminates are PFAS-free* and have a reduced carbon footprint.” The new Spinshift collection is the first of its kind in the GORE outerwear line to use this technology and fortunately, we were first adopters. It seems to do all the things we’ve come to expect from products with the GORE-TEX label, though it does come with a premium price.
Showers Pass was the first company to introduce a new, waterproof/breathable fabric called Porlite, which they describe as follows:
“Porlite is a microporous membrane technology like PTFE, but it’s made from polypropylene, a simple polymer containing only hydrogen and carbon atoms. It’s extremely efficient to make and work with, reducing the consumption of electricity, water, and raw materials during production. Porlite performs as well as PTFE in standardized water resistance and breathability tests, making it the ideal candidate to replace PTFE in our product line.”
In the meantime.
There’s never been a better time to buy outerwear that has yet to make the shift to PFAS free. Many companies are discontinuing styles and discounting existing inventories, Terry included. Check the deals out here >
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BLACK FRIDAY & HOLIDAY PRO DEALS
The BIG WEEK of BIG DEALS is on at Terry. Don’t miss our Holiday Pro Deals, Black Friday surprises and all kinds of fun this week. Shop it all at terrycycling.com.
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INNOVATION ALERT
A New Approach to Waterproof Protection from Showers Pass
What would previously have sounded like an oxymoron is now a definitive truth: fully waterproof and breathable gloves and hats with a KNIT exterior of all things.
How’s that possible you ask? It all comes down to 3 bonded layers: a wear resistant knit exterior, a waterproof/breathable Artex membrane and a Coolmax moisture-wicking, antibacterial knit lining, working together so you can focus on what you’re doing and not the weather (Pro Wool glove features a luxurious lining of merino wool that naturally offers temperature regulation and odor fighting properties).
Our one complaint about winter cycling gloves is that they can be stiff and un-accommodating if they aren’t a perfect fit. Terry testers went from skeptics to advocates over this latest technology to come out of the Pacific Northwest. In addition to the outstanding performance properties and grippy palms, the gloves feel great next-to-skin and fit a variety of hand sizes.
Beyond the gloves, there are Crosspoint Beanies made of the same 3-layer knit that also provide both warmth and waterproofing. Great for winter, great for gifts, great value, as well.
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MEET THE NEW US.
We’ve had some work done at Terry – a new website with a new web address. Introducing terrycycling.com, your destination for a more robust shopping experience. The new terrycycling.com is a faster, more intuitive website designed to provide you with everything you need at your fingertips. It makes shopping smoother and more enjoyable, with added features that deliver even greater value.
Easier Navigation & Speedier Checkout
Easy-access product guides and a smoother, faster checkout process await. We’ve expanded the options with Shop Pay and Apple Pay where one-click shopping gets you back in the saddle, lickety split.
Faster, More Reliable Performance
Quick loading times: Pages and product searches load faster providing a smoother experience. Mobile optimization: Improved design for mobile shopping across any device.
Promo Tracking at Checkout
Will help you maximize savings and quickly take advantage of current promotions.
New Chat Feature
Confused about sizing or how to choose between a few items? You can now quickly chat with our super knowledgeable cs team via chat.
Customer Account
Simplified account management for tracking your order and managing your preferences.
Improved Returns Experience
Easier, less expensive returns, And, since we all know it might take a couple tries to find the perfect pair of bike shorts, our website makes returning items much easier.
Prepaid Returns Option
A seamless process where you can opt in for $2.98 when you place your order with the option to return it for no additional fee. We designed this process to give you convenience and flexibility while supporting eco-friendly practices. Don’t worry – all orders get the same streamlined returns experience on our new site. However, if you did not opt in to prepay for your return you will be subject to $8.00 handling fee in the return process.
How it works:
Prepaid Return at Checkout:
When you check out, you’ll notice a small additional fee called “Pay $2.98 now to unlock free returns” added by default. This fee allows us to prepay for your return shipping label upfront.
Flexibility to Unselect:
If you don’t anticipate needing to return items or prefer not to prepay, you can easily uncheck the Offset option at checkout. No pressure!
Streamlined Returns:
If you choose Offset and later decide to return an item, you’ll already have the prepaid return label, making the process quick and hassle-free.
Sustainability Bonus:
Offset helps reduce waste by encouraging thoughtful purchasing decisions, aligning with our commitment to sustainability.*2024 Extended Return Window for the Holidays:
Items purchased between November 11 and December 31, 2024, can be returned through January 31st, 2025, for a full refund/exchange, excluding any final sale merchandise.The Road Ahead
In the near future, we will be adding more functionality so look for more streamlined ways to find the products you need for the type of cycling you enjoy.
As we approach our 40th year in business, one thing remains constant…our commitment to getting more women riding comfortably, safely and beautifully. Take our new site for spin and let us know what you think.
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2024 CYCLIST GIFT GUIDE.
Light it up with Fun for All.
The gifts of cycling last a lot longer than the holiday season. Pick up some meaningful bike bling for yourself and all your cycling pals.
Wearable Tech
Soleil LS in Holiday Lights 
Merino Cyclosox and Jerseys 
Exclusive Pendant designed for Terry 
Fleece-lined, multi-use Alpines from Skida 
Thermal Gravel Hoodies – with 3 rear pockets! 
Fire & Ice Solmate Sets 
PJ (bike) Party Creative Gadgets
Something for the Cook 
For the Bag Ladies 
For the Gearheads 
For the Tender Footed 
For those you Love Oh What Fun
From our door to yours, happy holidays!
Holiday Door Mat
