We normally don’t cover local racing too much, that’s not our blog beat, but it’s worth noting the growth of Womens’ Racing in the Northwest. Yesterday, at the Olympic View Road Race, I watched the Womens’ 1/2/3 race for the last lap. Suz Weldon bridged to the break and then drove it to win a long, tough competitive race. As impressive a win as I’ve ever seen.
Later at the race finish I heard her say,
“now I need to go home and put a boob in my baby’s mouth.”
She had a baby last Fall and is out winning races this Spring. Word.
When I started racing, the women just raced with the Masters Mens, Cat 4, or the Juniors. There was a handful of them and usually girlfriends and wives of the guys that come out to the races. That doesn’t mean any of them didn’t take it seriously. There just wasn’t a local scene for them. They’d have to travel to national or regional races to get into a big field. When they did have a local field, us guys would joke that the racing they did was at a tea-party pace. Slow enough for them to gossip. Well, today that “tea party” is a group of hard-women racing with tactics, skills, and speed. I didn’t hear any gossip, but yelling at each other about lines, and corners, and cursing like truckers. Before the races they’re talking their plans and afterwards how those plans went.
Pam is close to her upgrade to a 3 and is racing with the 4s in fields that regulary reach their limit. Early season, they had to split the fields into two. She sprinted to 4th yesterday from this field.
Now if we could get that many juniors coming into the sport.
More photos, womens’ racing, and more womens’racing.
Also see Martha’s post on the Velocity blog.
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