I’m 34 and live in Madison, Wisconsin. I race my mountain bike as a “Cat 1″ in cross country events, especially the Wisconsin Off Road Series (WORS). This site is mostly about time I spend with bicycles.
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About biking:
I bought my first mountain bike, a Gary Fisher Big Sur, in April 2007. I taught myself to ride on Milwaukee’s River Trail, and began racing WORS in May, 2007. I rode in tennis shoes on platform pedals for my first race. My Sidi shoes arrived the day before my next race; I rode clipped in for the first time and took second. The first time I won a WORS race was at Crystal Ridge, in the mud. By the end of the 2007 season, I’d won a couple more times, and finished first woman overall in the Sport series. I upgraded to Expert for my last race of that season. Racing as an Expert has been great, although I miss the Sport women and men. For 2008, my boyfriend Matt helped me to build a Gary Fisher Paragon 29er. We had the frame painted black. This has led to some confusion: people have cheered for me as “superfly girl!” or sometimes “single-speed girl!” (although that second one might be because I’ve never met a hill that I didn’t want to mash).
About my Team, race reports and VeloNews:
I joined Team WORS for the carpool and biking advice, and have been there ever since. While we were setting up for our first race, the WORS director, Don, asked me if I was a “writer”. I misheard him, thinking he asked for a “rider”. I thought he might need me to get on my bike. Team WORS duties otherwise consist of lifting insanely heavy steel framed equipment, and so I answered with an enthusiastic “Yes!”. I have been the WORS race reporter and photographer ever since. In 2008, we began to submit news of WORS races to VeloNews, and I also write those reports.
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Other stuff:
I have a Ph.D. in Neurobiology and work as a research scientist (the neurobiology of addiction, obesity and Parkinson’s disease) and college professor (biochemistry and endless faculty meetings). If you are interested in my academic career, you can visit my lab website. I am also a freelance biomedical illustrator, mostly for fellow scientists. While I’m working on a better site for my illustration work, you can see some of my art here.