The former bassist of the Sex Pistols, long nails on race day and crosswinds all came up in a recent conversation Sidney Swierenga had on the Canadian Cycling Magazine Podcast.
The occasion for the chat was a result the Vancouver rider attained in early May. Swierenga landed on the podium of the Grand Prix du Morbihan Femmes in France. While the second-place finish marked her first elite-level result, she’s no stranger to medals. In 2025, Swierenga was second overall at both the Redlands Bicycle Classic (one of her favourite races) and Tour of the Gila. She also won a stage and the GC of the Tour du Gévaudan Occitanie Femmes.
Those 2025 results caught the attention of the Liv AlUla Jayco Women’s Continental Team, to which Swierenga signed for this season. On the podcast, you can find out about what’s ahead for the rider. But after the jump, you can read three fun facts about the stage racer whose talents are growing.
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A very nice Sid Vicious
Swierenga credits Jordan Cheyne, her former sports director at TaG Cycling, with dubbing her “Sid Vicious.” Swierenga may be a competitive rider, but her energy seems completely the opposite of the sloppy, punk icon’s. Also, she doesn’t really know the Sex Pistols at all.
The nickname hasn’t gained a lot of traction as it only seems to be Cheyne and TaG co-founder Lesley Tomlinson who use it. “It’s like an inside joke that I don’t even understand, but I’ll go along with it,” said the easy-going, good-natured rider.
Nails on race day
After Swierenga was on the podium at Grand Prix du Morbihan Femmes, she posted on social media, “[It] turns out I can have a good race with grown out nails after all.”
Swierenga likes to have her nails done roughly once a month. Once they grow out, they’re not ideal for a cyclist. “I’ve done a couple races where they’ve looked really bad. I always think I’m not gonna race well because my nails are ugly. I feel like shifting when they’re long that they could get stuck.”
The team had some time ahead of Morbihan, so Swierenga recruited some of the mechanics to take her to the one local nail salon near Plumelec, Brittany. It was booked for the next two months. She admitted that racing with sub-optimal nails was ultimately fine. So could a four-week-old nail job be the recipe for race success?
“I’m not going to start that,” she said. “That’s not going to be a thing for me. I like having new nails for races.”
Sidney Swierenga: A student of the sport
“When the racing gets harder, even if it’s on narrow roads, but there are climbs and descents and it stretches out, then I can actually position pretty OK,” she said.
Swierenga, a climber, naturally does better when a course tilts upward. More even terrain is tricker.
“Racing in a flat Belgian race—where it goes narrow, wide, narrow, wide—it’s just a huge fight every time. It’s just not something that I’m able to do quite yet. I mean, I definitely think I’ve gotten better.”
At an early season race in Spain, Swierenga discovered a new challenge: crosswinds. “I was super happy with my climbing and I made the front group,” she said. “Then we had a big long descent and then a flat section. We got caught by a bigger group from behind, so we became about 30 or so. Then there were some crosswinds. I’ve never really raced in crosswinds before. I was kind of at the back and was like, whoa, OK, this is really hard. What’s happening?
“As a junior, if something was really hard, I could just rely on my legs and would be fine. But at this higher level, in the wind, it was just something I’ve never experienced before. I actually got dropped from the front group. I’d never been dropped like that before. I did not like that feeling. Next time, I’m not going to let that happen.”
It seems cycling can be vicious, but Swierenga is determined.