The team that hauled me over the finish line: (from left) Jim, Allison, Butch, my sister-on-law Sandy, my husband Leif, me & my brother Joel.

By Sasha Aslanian

I’ve had a few days to savor the sore muscles I earned on the ride. I wanted to do a wrap-up of sights and sounds of the Seattle to Portland Ride (STP), and leave future rookie riders with some advice. (See how Sasha’s ride went on Day One and Day Two.)

Sounds: The clicking of tens of riders snapping cleats into pedals when the light turns green. Mini-bike concerts: I noticed a bunch of teen or 20-something riders who’d strap little sound systems to their bikes. I’d hear a little snippet of something as they’d pedal by. One guy had some experimental music screeching as he passed, and his dad came up beside me and said, “Something wrong with his bike.” Overheard conversations from passing riders (my brother thought a woman was calling him a f^@*a$$*% and looked up in surprise.  “Oh sorry, I was talking to my husband,” she said.) , whirring gears on the long coasts, mist from sprinklers at water stops. I should have stopped for the kid playing guitar at the lemonade stand 5 miles before the end of day 1. Sorry kid.

Sights: Pointy Mount Hood against a blue sky as we pulled into Portland, ponies, horses and llamas on farms along the way, lumber trucks, the guys wearing the ridiculous matching orange rain booties who bounced up and down like jesters and made me laugh during a particularly dark patch of my ride, the woman who flipped off the red pick-up for passing too close and almost blowing three of us off the road, the mom and son passing me on a tandem at mile 94, his red sneakers pumping the pedals, crossing over the steel bridge in downtown Portland,  feeling the bubbles blown in my face at the finish line.

Here are my closing thoughts for Rookie Riders:

1) Train. The training schedule called for back-to-back rides on weekends. It was tough for me to steal more than a whole Saturday from my family, but it would have increased my endurance. It was crazy the number of people we met who had not trained AT ALL for the ride. One woman admitted her seat was so sore she felt like she had just given birth and she had welts “bigger than the padding on my bike shorts.” Yikes. Don’t do this to yourself.

2) Be part of a team, and ideally, be the worst one. We sort of stumbled into a team because this group of my brother’s friends was doing the ride together. We didn’t really know how long we’d hang together. Each of these people helped pull me through. They let me draft off them, they distracted me with interesting conversations so I kept pedaling, and I just didn’t know them well enough to be my real self. I kept a good attitude on the ride because I thought, “you can’t be the worst rider AND have a bad attitude.” Cheerfulness counts.

Over margaritas with my team at the finish line, I toasted to the riders who stuck with me even though I knew it killed them to be passed by far weaker riders. Thanks Joel, Sandy, Leif, Butch, Jim & Allison.

We have a lot of unanswered questions: What happened to the two Russian guys who tried to sleep overnight in a space blanket (those crinkly tinfoil wrappers) wearing bike shorts and shoes? Did the woman who told us she hadn’t been on her bike since last year’s STP actually make it over the finish line? How did that unicyclist do the ride in one day? There were many triumphant finishes ahead of us I’m sure, and stories about each of the riders whose bikes were piled on cars miles from the finish line. 10,000 stories from 10,000 riders. Thanks for reading mine.

By Sasha  Aslanian

Tent City

Pulling up the stakes this morning in our tent city. Felt like college when we rolled in last night: beer garden, pizza, dorm showers. Found a great old pool hall in town with a special carbo-loaded menu for STP riders.  

The nice part about such a long-standing ride (STP began in1979) is they’ve really worked out all the kinks with bike storage and the care  & feeding of 10,000 cyclists. We’re a little short on cash though after all the 5 bucks here & there for showers, bike storage, etc.  

Yesterday the best riding by far came in the second half of the day  once we hit the bike trail in Yelm. Today it’s the opposite- nice in  the beginning and less serene as we get to Portland.  

The great old pool hall with a special carbo-loaded menu for STP riders.

The Great Chamois Butt’r Debate

Forgot to fill you in on a very earnest pre-trip discussion the team had about Chamois Butt’r. A female member of the team asked, ‘Where  exactly do you put it?’ The guys got all embarrassed and thought she was kidding. What she meant was do you use it like a bandaid and put it where it hurts? Or apply like sunscreen ahead of time? If you’ve never used/needed it, is game day the time to start?

A little sample pack came with our registration packets. I busted mine out at mile 70 on day 1. As the ride went along the little packets were piling up in the corners of the Biffies. Since this is not a litterbug crew (I think Seattlites compost their dental floss) I was surprised to see all the little used packets lying around. Could it have been a courtesy to fellow travelers in need? Then one of my teammates–who shall remain unnamed–admitted to using a bit from a discarded tube. I can only imagine the hairy guy who used it first.

20 Miles to Breakfast & the Paper Army Keeps Flying By‏

Late-ish start this morning (7:30) and the bike rack was nearly empty when we got there. So where do these bikers keep coming  from that are passing me? I call them the Paper Army because they’re all wearing the paper STP windbreakers that came with our registrations.
Enjoying a fine breakfast at the American Legion in Winlock. The dust up here is that the Lion’s Club is stealing customers with a rival feed.  

Knee-Deep in Pain

Mile 43 and we’re a sorry lot. The one-day riders are looping back passing us on their climb back to Seattle. More bikes passing–lashed to the back of support vehicles. My batteries are low…literally & figuratively. 

Crossing Into Oregon

The good news is we made it to Oregon. The bad news is that we’re riding on a highway shoulder all the way in to Portland. 

Finish Line

7:05 p.m. we crossed the finish line. My sister-in-law, team leader Sandy, rode in behind me and caught the rear view of my ‘photo finish.’ I think you can imagine my grin on the other side. Next post will be ‘Rookie Rider’s Lessons Learned.’

By Sasha Aslanian

The Night Before:

There will be 7 of doing the ride together–3 women and 4 men all in our 40s. One of the guys, Jim, did the ride last year. I take it as a good sign that he’s returning.

Over a dinner of fish tacos on by brother and sister-in-law’s deck in Seattle, the team agreed to a few things:
1) We’ll stick together the first 25 miles or so. It will be crowded, so faster riders won’t be able to zoom ahead anyway, and the slower ones will be powered by adrenalin.
2) We debated circumventing the chaos of the opening line and joining a half-mile in but a bunch of us felt we had to do the true start to feel good about it.
3) We went over pace line etiquette–no overlapping wheels, signal danger to the person behind you, i.e. point out potholes and be extremely careful swerving or stopping.

We are still unsure if my sister-in-law Sandy who’s had a low-grade fever for 4 days will join us but she packed her gear and wants to try.

Hitting the road at 6:00 a.m.

The photo is of my teammate Allison's Rollergirl biking outfit and the little bunny she's carrying for her daughter Kate.

Over the Hump

The legendary mile-long climb comes at mile 43 so you have that hanging over you as the ride winds out of Seattle. Fortunately the route planners somehow managed to craft a path with relatively few climbs. ‘The Big Hill’ is pretty hyped, but it actually has a few level patches to break the climb. We’re at mile 53 in Spanaway and our team is still together. Keeps usbusy keeping track of each other. Polite riders, cheering children and amplesnacks. Long biffy line gives me a chance to write this post.

The photo is of my teammate Allison’s Rollergirl biking outfit and the little bunny she’s carrying for her daughter Kate.

Onward to Centralia!

The Parrot Team who have ridden in the STP for five years

Blood on the Road

The ride got very quiet outside Roy as we were asked to dismount our bikes and walk by the scene if the accident. I stepped over fresh blood on the pavement. Does anyone know if the guy hurt in Roy is OK?

On a brighter note, we are finally off the shoulder of the road and riding a beautiful trail from Yelm to Tenino.

We’re 3/4 of the way there. Our team split so the ’sprinters’ could reserve tent space in Centralia. It tooke 20 miles to realize the ‘advance team’ includes everyone but me. It’s OK, the day has turned stunning.

The attached photo is of the Parrot Team, a family from Seattle that’s done STP for 5 years. It makes it easier to find each other, they say. I like how when they pass me the parrots wave their wings at me.

Mile 95

Check out how Sasha did on Day Two and the lessons she learned as a “rookie rider.”

The 202 miles are a raincheck. Two years ago, my little brother missed our ride across Norway so he invited me to ride Seattle to Portland this year. Together with our spouses, we’ll ride 202 miles in 2 days. I should explain: I’m not a stellar cyclist. I’m a 42-year-old public radio producer and a mom. I signed up for STP because I believe setting impossible goals is the only way to get things done.

I’ve been training on the Paul Bunyan Trail  in Minnesota where I live. July 3rd I made it 85 miles to Bemidji  in 89 degree heat. I’m hoping that means I’ll be ready for 100 miles in lower temps, with a vehicle carrying my camping gear.

I have visions of the other 9,000 riders on STP being hollow-cheeked, balloon-calved Seattle bike messengers. 74% of the riders are men. Some riders do it one day because 100 miles a day is “”too boring.”" The party begins in Portland at 3:00 p.m. on day 1 for the speediest riders. I’m hoping I beat the street sweepers cleaning up Portland on day 2.

I want to keep this blog to spur me on. The shame of failure in public is a powerful motivator. I kept going across Norway because I had given family members commemorative magnets of the trip. Quitting wasn’t an option.

My top fears on this ride:

–Tingling and numbness in my hands becoming unbearable
–Annoying my riding mates by going too slowly
–Getting bored inside my own head

What do you think about on long rides? I met a woman yesterday who’s planning to do STP in 1 day. She’s a scientist and she works out scientific problems in her head, and turns numbers she sees on signs into math problems. She also sings songs to set the tempo for her legs.

How do you get into the zone? What keeps you going?

Seattle to Portland Route

Check out how Sasha did on Day One and Day Two and the lessons she learned as a rookie rider.

A few years ago, Kirstin Luff was enjoying a day of mountain biking with her friends, when quite suddenly her right side went numb and her speech became slurred. It was just a temporary condition that disappeared as quickly as it came on, but she went to a neurologist who was not able to diagnose it. It happened again while she was road biking. It took a few years more before Kirstin was finally diagnosed with multiple sclerosis at age 39. Kirstin said it isn’t uncommon for people to go for years undiagnosed and yet it is critical to start treatment as soon as possible in order to help them function after an attack, prevent new attacks, and prevent disability.

These days Kirstin is still an avid cyclist and continues to enjoy both mountain biking and long road rides. Her MS treatment consists of a once-a-month infusion of a disease modifying drug, and she is looking forward to the release of an oral pill that could be available in six months. In the meantime, she is still an avid cyclist and continues to enjoy both mountain biking and long road rides. That’s important because for people who suffer from MS, exercise not only helps with cardiac health, stamina and mood, but it helps manage many MS symptoms as well.

Kirstin braved wind and rain a couple weeks ago to ride in the Tour de Cure, a ride that raises funds to fight diabetes. But this weekend, Kirstin and her team are taking part in a ride with a cause very close to her heart:  the 24^th Annual Bike MS Ride: Harmon’s Best Dam Ride on June 26-27 in Logan, Utah. Bike MS is the largest organized cycling event in America with 100 rides in 48 states. Over 100,000 cyclists take part and have raised over $82 million to fight MS. It is making a difference. The last 15 years have seen huge advancements: the first six disease modifying drugs have been discovered to help people with multiple sclerosis.

This is part of Team Kirstin from last year's ride. The 24th Annual Bike MS (aka Harmons Best Dam Bike Ride) will have about 3000 riders. The 2010 fundraising goal is to raise $1.6 million for the fight against MS.

A Few Facts About MS

• Multiple sclerosis is an unpredictable, often disabling disease of the central nervous system which interrupts the flow of information within the brain and between the brain and the body. Symptoms can range from numbness and tingling to blindness and paralysis.
• Most people with MS are diagnosed between the ages of 20 and 50.
• More than twice as many women are diagnosed with MS than men.
• MS affects more than 400,000 people in the US

• “If I can ride, anyone can! I’m coming up on my third year and I’m so excited. I love to soar down those hills and feel powerful and strong. I think when you have the horrible walking-with-bricks feeling of MS-related fatigue you learn to cherish those fabulous I-Can-Conquer-The-World moments.” (Marianne Hales Harding, St. George, UT.)
• “When my wife, Donna, was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis it changed our lives. We finally understood why she occasionally had trouble walking or sleeping, why she sometimes lost her vision, and why she was always so tired. It also turned our entire family into activists. As my daughters have said, “We ride for those who can’t, in the hopes that someday they can.” (David Bernstein, Park City, UT. “Team Fredcast“)

By Tara R. McKee

Maggie Sullivan has been called the “Grande Dame of Women’s Triathlons”. She has been at the forefront of women-only triathlons since the very start when she took on and built the Danskin Triathlon series beginning in 1990. Now at the helm of  the aptly named “Xxtra-Mile,” she produces both the Danskin Triathlon Series and the Trek Women Triathlon series. Back in the early days of Danskin Triathlons, the triathlons often had several pro-level women triathletes, but the intent is now firmly on making the sport accessible to women across America.  The distance for both series is  doable, yet challenging: a sprint distance consisting of a half mile swim (.75K), a 12.5 bicycle ride (20K) followed by the 3.1 mile run/walk (5K.)

Maggie Sullivan, director of both theDanskin & Trek Women Triathlon Series

The two series are slightly different in feel, even as there are subtle differences between the events from city-to-city. But the basic intent of the 15 women’s triathlons is to make the sport accessible to women across America, and it is a bit slanted toward the novice.  The age group is a broad one with women who are between the ages of 14-87. The diversity of the participants doesn’t stop there as Maggie points out:   “There are women who have competed in sporting events, women who have never done anything competitive, gals who work out 5 days a week in the gym, as well as gals who have never been in a gym.”

Maggie is often asked, what is it  that brings so many women from so many backgrounds to these races? Do they really want to be athletes?  The participants often voice the reasons they are there lined up at the start line of these triathlons: “It’s about doing something that will improve me;  I want to do something that’s going to be good for me. I want to do something that is going to challenge me and push the boundaries that I may have put on what I can do in my own life.  I want to do something with my friends;  I want to do something with my sisters, with my mom.”

As Maggie sees it, doing a triathlon for so many women goes way beyond the sport.  It becomes something so much more, it is something they once thought they could never do, and now they are doing it. They feel the support of these well-organized triathlons. They know they have the support they need to complete it safely and they will not be left behind, in fact, they will finish! The Danskin/Trek series has learned to offer that type of environment and they don’t differentiate unless they know one participant’s skills aren’t as sharp as the others, in which case they will keep an eye on you. They want it to be a positive experience for everyone.

Over the years she has noted some distinct differences between women’s triathlons and men’s triathlons. In a co-ed race, people will sometimes jump right over another racer during the start of the swim portion and sink them. In the women’s tri series it is common for others to stop and ask, “Are you ok?” Women will often stop to help another change her tire or that type of thing. Maggie adds, “It sounds cliché, but it’s not, when we say that ‘finishing is winning.’ Women are often competitive with themselves, but they are not at the expense of another person who might need a leg up or a hand extended to them. It’s truly remarkable to see!”

Sally Edwards starts the triathletes

Sally Edwards, who is one of the pioneers in the sport of Olympic triathlons and has written many books on triathlons, is now the “Chief Inspirational Officer for the Trek woman Triathlon Series.  She is there to offer her inspiration, expertise and motivation to help all women finish.  During the weekend of Trek Women Triathlon, she will often ask, “How many of you think you might be last to cross the finish line?”

That kind of heart is in both series; the mission is to support women and try to make a difference as they do it with an active lifestyle. They offer support from the beginning with training seminars taught by Sally Edwards, held in the host city several weeks in advance of the triathlon itself. Barriers are broken not only for novices of all types, but for those to who could really use the uplift. Last year, they had a category for women who had lost their jobs in the past year. Maggie’s reasoning was that women who have lost their jobs already have one problem on their hands and they shouldn’t have to choose between doing something that would be very good for them mentally and emotionally and the lack of money. So the entry fee was waived for these women who made up 10% of the entries for each triathlon.

Over the years, the Danskin series was associated with the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation, and now are partnered with the Breast Cancer Research Foundation. As Sally and Maggie considered what could make a real difference in the lives of women dealing with cancer, they were in the right place at the right time to help launch the Team Survivor program in 1995 as an offshoot of the Danskin Women’s series. Team Survivor was for women of any age and fitness levels who were in cancer treatment or recovery. It gave them a program and team of their own to train with as they prepared for the triathlon. Team Survivor is open to women who have been diagnosed with any type of cancer and age range from the older woman who has been in remission for two decades to the 28-year old going through it now. Both of the triathlon series have special divisions for Team Survivor members and they often start the race together and support each other the whole way along the course.

As I concluded the interview with Maggie Sullivan, I couldn’t help but feel there is a whole other aspect at the heart of triathlons when they are designed especially for women. The atmosphere is supportive; there is more of a feeling of sisterhood rather than competitiveness. When you know what it feels to cross the finish line after completing your first triathlon, and you have felt that sense of achievement from completing a physical challenge, you want to share that with others. I have seen women finish triathlons and then run back to give support to those who are still on the course. If you take a photo of women at the end as they cross the finish line, exhausted, but exuberant, you have the gist of the reason that Maggie Sullivan continues to enthusiastically do the women’s triathlon series year after year in cities across the US.

We recently completed our list of Women’s Only Triathlons across the USA, including the Trek Women/Danskin Triathlon series. To visit our page, click here and find one to “TRI” near you!

Jenny Fletcher (see previous article about her here) made her a career change from model to pro-triathlete and had her first major races since turning pro in the last few weeks.  She competed in her first ITU (International Triathlon Union ) race in Mazatlan in late March, and last Sunday she mounted the podium when she came in 2^nd in the Classic division of the Nautica South Beach Triathlon. We were excited to hear from her as to how it went.

Jenny finishes the swim leg of the 2010 Mazatlan ITU Triathlon Pan American Cup

Jenny:  ”I am so thrilled with how this race went… from my focus, to how it felt, and for this new level of drive I’ve never had before. The power I felt in all three events and the fitness level was a new high for me. My bike average was 23mph, and my run average was a 6:06min/mile…. and I felt that I had just touched the beginning of a new era…. to be able to cross that finish line with a smile not really concerned with the overall result… but just knowing I am at a place I have never been before had me so-ooo excited. I stood on that podium in second place smiling knowing I’ve trained hard and raced hard to achieve this!!!”

Jenny, a Canadian, will also be on the cover of the May 2010 edition of UK-based Triathlete’s World magazine. Her next  races will be St. Anthony’s Triathlon in Florida on April 22^nd, and then her favorite race, Escape From Alcatraz on May 2^nd in California! This weekend (April 18th) she will be participating in a 6K walk/run in LA with thousands of others to help raise awareness of the world’s water crisis. It’s called the Dow Live Earth Run for Water, you can see the website here.

Sandy Earl is going to take part in a race that is called the World’s Toughest Bike Race. It is 50% longer than the Tour de France and racers are expected to do it in 12 days or less, and they are not allowed to draft. This 3000 mile race is called the Race Across America (RAAM) and competitors come from around the world to compete in it. Teams and even tandems compete in the race, but the stars of this intense competition are the solo racers.

Austrian Wolfgang Fasching has won RAAM as a solo racer three times and he has also climbed Mt. Everest. In his opinion, climbing Everest is more dangerous, but the RAAM is harder. In 2010 RAAM, 32 competitors from around the world will race solo and of those, only 5 are women. Sandy is in rare company and she will be doing it on a recumbent bike—the first woman to ever do so! Only one man has done the RAAM on a recumbent bike before: John Schlitter did it in 11 days, 2 hours, 50 min. Sandy hopes to break that record. “When I do the math, I feel like I should come in at 11 days even,” she says.

Sandy hasn’t been on her recumbent bike for long. She has been riding her upright bicycle for years, ever since she first decided that the cycling leg was her favorite part of a triathlon. Sandy found she had a talent for the Ultra-cycling (distances of 150+ miles) and often came in one of the top women finishers, if not the top woman of many Ultra-Cycling races. She first qualified for RAAM in 2002 and was disappointed when she had to pull out after 1000 miles. She qualified again for RAAM in the Race Across Oregon which she did with the upright bike for half and the recumbent bike for half. She has had her recumbent bike for about a year now and finds its main advantage is comfort. The recumbent has a carbon fiber hard-shell seat with lumbar support and it offers an aerodynamic advantage on flat or windy areas. The steep hills are challenging for recumbent cyclists, because as Sandy notes, “you can’t stand up.”

The All-Important Crew

To finish the race within the 12 day time limit (for solo women, the time cut-off is 12 days, 21 hours,) racers can’t afford to sleep more than 4 hours a day, and since Sandy is aiming to finish in 11 days, she plans on only sleeping only 3 hours a night. Sandy needs to have a smart, efficient crew to help keep her riding the other 21 hours a day. The six-person crew, which includes her 22-year old daughter, will make sure Sandy is drinking enough and eating enough. During the race, Sandy will need to consume about 8000 calories a day to keep her going. That includes solid foods like bagels, bananas and sandwiches as well as a fair number of gels.

Her crew will monitor her temperature, telling her to put on a jacket or pair of tights when needed, such as for a mountain descent. Her crew will navigate and will drive behind her at night, bathing her in the car’s headlights, so she isn’t blinded by the lights of an oncoming car. They may even play music for her to keep her focused. Some racers can get so tired that reality shifts and some hallucinate. Her crew will have to pay attention to her condition and keep her safe.

The Training

There is only so much you can do to train your body for the necessary endurance. Sandy often does back to back 200-mile days and uses other endurance races such as the Davis 24 hour Challenge as training races (She still holds the women’s 24-Hour solo course record there.) Living in Oregon, Sandy has to be creative when it comes to heat training. Following a 2-hour all-out stationary bike workout at the gym, she sits in a sauna for 30 min. She’s well-aware of the drop-out rate in the first two days where intense mountain climbs will be followed by riding through searing desert heat. The RAAM will start for the solo women on June 8 in Oceanside, CA and wind its way across the continent to Annapolis, MD. Physically, it is a tough race, but as Sandy has learned through her years as an ultra-cyclist: “It’s a hugely mental race.”

With the years of ultra-cycling experience, and the training she has had, I’m sure Sandy will do well in the RAAM. Sandy, we wish you a successful race and look forward to following you in the race and we hope you finish well!

To keep up with Sandy, you can check out her website here!

In the early 1980’s, a woman had few choices in the bike shops. She might have found a pink bicycle, but most manufacturers were designing women’s bicycles as if women were just smaller men. Many women kept riding the unisex bikes that were available, hoping they would just get used to the aches and pains it gave them. The saddles available at the time gave real meaning to the phrase “a pain in the butt,” and even women who raced, made do with made-over men’s cycling clothing. No doubt about it, the cycling world was a man’s world.

It was in that era that Georgena Terry, who had both a degree in mechanical engineering and an MBA, learned metallurgy and soon began to build bicycle frames. Her friends told her how they could not find bikes to fit them and she began her study of the geometry of a good bike fit. The average woman stands 5’4” and right away she saw the lack of bikes for women on the shorter end of the spectrum. Georgena carefully noted some general physical differences between men and women: generally, women have shorter arms, torsos, smaller hands, narrower shoulders and longer legs. The bicycles they were riding were giving these women aches and pains because they were not properly fitted for them.

Georgena in 1986 giving demos of her bikes

As word spread about the bikes that Georgena was making in her basement, the demand grew. Georgena made the leap, leaving her job at Xerox to launch her niche business of designing and making bikes for women: “I figured if the message was coming so clearly from friends, there was a bigger world out there in need of bikes that fit properly.”

Terry Precision was launched in 1985 selling quality steel well-fit bicycles made specifically for women. She gave special attention to the design of bicycles made for women who stood 5’2” or shorter: the standard wheel size was changed and she altered the top tubes so women could reach the handlebars comfortably. Whether women were shorter or taller, there were other anatomical differences she took into account: the proportions of arms and legs and the placement of muscle mass. She designed the bicycles to not only fit comfortably but to position women on the bicycle for better performance.

One frustration for many women was that few saddles were designed to fit them comfortably. A good saddle should support a cyclist’s sit bones, not the whole butt. (“Sit bones” are actually the ends of the pelvic bone that touch the seat as one sits down.) The front of the saddle is supposed to support some of a cyclist’s body weight. The problem is there is a lot of sensitive tissue there and it can be quite painful. In those early days, Georgena recommended to her friends that they take a hacksaw to their seats and make a crude cut-out to relieve the pressure in that area. Georgena is familiar with cycling history and recalls there were cut-out seats for bikes as early as 1903, but she took them to a new level as she began designing bicycle saddles with cut-outs in 1992. Terry bicycle saddles were so popular that she started designing them for men as well. Terry bicycle saddles are designed for a variety of bicycles from hybrids to racing. They are designed at Terry and made in Italy.

Terry introduced their line of cycling clothing in the 1990’s. The women’s cycling clothing was another great niche that had been underserved. The clothing was well-designed, actually pretty and like the bicycles, the clothing would fit a variety of different women (not just the tiny, trim women). Terry’s clothing designers have put creativity and a fresh sense of style into their clothing over the years.

Liz Robert, former CEO of Vermont Teddy Bear, bought Terry Precision Cycling but Georgena has stayed on to  continue to design the bicycles. Some favorites like the hybrid bicycle, the Susan B. (named after Susan B. Anthony) will be brought back. The bicycles are still fairly custom fit, and can be ordered from Terry Precision Cycling and a Terry Dealer or any local bicycle shop can build and fit it for you.

The impact Ms. Terry has had on women’s cycling is amazing if you really think about it. She doesn’t take credit for making the first bicycle designed for a woman, but when she launched her company, she started a movement in cycling that for the first time really took into account the needs and wants of female cyclists. Larger cycling companies caught on and have put their own research & development into developing bicycles, clothing, saddles and accessories for women, but the modern revolution in women’s cycling truly began in a basement in Rochester, NY.

You had a great season last year; what were some of the highlights?

“Definitely my third win at the 24 hour Solo World Championships, three in a row, which was the focus of the season. Then three weeks later, totally unexpected, the icing on the cake, was winning the Leadville Trail 100 just as an afterthought.  It was a very exciting season.”

Was Leadville a fun race for you?

“Leadville was a blast because I’d already achieved my main goal for the year which was the 24-Hour Solo World’s. I went, and I had always known about this race and went in without  having a lot of expectations because it was just 3 weeks after World’s and I wasn’t sure I had really recovered yet and I didn’t know what I had. It was definitely a big surprise and a very big highlight to share the podium and have the same trophy as Lance Armstrong and to do a race with so many cyclists. The energy was really amazing!”

How would you compare Leadville to other endurance events?

“Leadville is a really different event because it’s a weird combination of a road race and a mountain bike race. Because there are fire roads and there is such a large crowd of people, there is some pack jockeying and drafting and trying to get into position especially at the beginning. Then there are these killer, massive climbs, and then you’re just mountain biking on your own. It’s also at 10,000 feet elevation which adds an interesting factor, so you have to pace for that.”

Rebecca is wearing the much-coveted belt buckle from the Leadville 100, that racers receive for finishing in less than 12 hours.

Which is the bike you prefer to ride?

“I raced with two different bikes last year. I raced the Specialized Era in the 24 hour World Championships. It is the women’s version of the men’s Epic. It is a fantastic bike with full suspension and with the Mini-Brain technology on the suspension. It is the best of both worlds between the hard tail and a soft-tail. The difference between the Era and the Epic is that with the Era, the forks are tuned to a women’s weight. The forks on a men’s bike in your size might be tuned to the men’s average weight of 180 lbs, so no matter how you tweak that, it won’t be right for a woman. Then there is the geometry and the fact that women’s bikes are lighter because they can use a little bit less carbon and so the Era is lighter than the Epic.

“For the Leadville Trail 100, I chose a different bike. I rode Specialized’s 29er Hard-tail (S-Works Stumpjumper Hardtail 29er).  It was a really good bike for that race because it was a combination of a road and mountain bike race. The bigger tires and hard-tail were really the way to go.

“It’s like you can’t have just one pair of shoes, you can’t have just one bike. I’m finding there are definitely different tools for different courses.”

Do you have another bike that you ride for fun?

“I have a Globe that I take to grocery store with panniers on it. Of course, I also train on a road bike & a cyclo-cross bike. I switch it around but I do most of my training on the Era or the 29er.”

Do you do another sport during the winter?

“I live in Ketchum, Idaho and obviously, you can’t ride your bike outside in the winter because it’s buried under snow. So I do a lot of Nordic skiing. It’s been good for my fitness and good for my mental peace of mind.  Getting off the bike for a break is actually really nice. Then spring comes and I’m ready to get back on the bike. I think it’s also a good balance. With biking you’re leaning over the handlebars the whole time and it takes a conscious effort to not get into a hunched-over position. Adding stretching, swimming and yoga are super important for the longevity of an athlete. “

How did you get into mountain biking in the first place?

“It was a fluke. I had been adventure racing for a lot of years. I used to hate mountain biking; it was my least favorite sport of the whole adventure racing thing—I was awful at it. Adventure racing was drying up a bit, our team lost a sponsor and I had one sponsor left for another year and that was Red Bull. They said, ‘Do something else for the year.’ So I went to 24 Hours of Moab with a bunch of girlfriends. I just went for fun and we ended up winning the women’s division and I had the fastest lap times of everyone there–of the women. I was thinking: ‘Maybe I should do this.’ It was a career change that fell in my lap.

“I was not a very technical rider. I had the endurance from adventure racing, so I thought the 24 hour race might be okay for me, physically, but I didn’t know how to ride a bike very well. I lost a lot of time because technically, I wasn’t very good. I would jump off and run down (steep declines) and then get back on to catch people on the uphills, and then they’d pass me on the downhills. So I’ve worked on that over the last few years. I’ve been riding and racing mountain bikes for –just going on five years and it’s been cool. It’s been a steep learning curve.  I’ve gotten better as a cyclist, and it’s kind of reinvented my career.”

You give a lot of hope to people!

“It’s never too late!”

Do you have advice for young riders who are thinking of getting into mountain bike racing?

“What’s important is a support group: people to go riding with, whether it’s a club from your shop, or group from school, or just some girlfriends. For me, I’m a lot more inspired when I’m going riding with one of my buddies and I learn from them and vice-versa.

“As far as getting into racing, the hardest part is just lining up at the start line. It’s scary and it’s intimidating. It’s still intimidating for me. But once the gun goes off, no one cares how you finish but you. I just tell people: ‘Line up. Race is not a four-letter word.’ It’s actually a really good experience to push yourself because I will always work harder in a race than I will while doing hill intervals up Mill Creek Canyon. There’s something about the energy of other people that’s really a positive experience and it’ll make you try harder and work harder than you would if you were on your own.”

If you’d like to keep up with Rebecca, you can check out her blog here. Check out the inspirational film about the 2009 Leadville 100, titled  Race Across the Sky. Rebecca has been taking the Race Across The Sky film on tour in the ski/recreation towns of the Rocky Mtn. West (Jackson, WY. is next) and she has been helping raise money for the building of local mountain trails in all those towns. There is a raffle with many great items from her sponsors such as an S-Works Helmet, which she says she wears on her rides and loves–and all proceeds go to make more great trails to ride on!

For a really great adventure, you can enter a Mountain Bike Sweepstakes and win a fabulous time in SunValley, Idaho with a half-day mountain bike ride with Rebecca Rusch and lots of great swag from her sponsors. Enter Here! Drawing will be on June 27, 2010