Fast women
On a good day, women make up just 15 percent of the field at a mountain bike race. Who are these strong women, and what makes them show up at events that are so dominated by men? A secret society of warrior princesses they are not, and they certainly aren’t there for a peek at guys in tight shorts.
To find out who they really are, I assembled a panel of the toughest women on two wheels and set out to discover what brings them to the front. These are the ladies who turn heads at races because they ride in front of the majority of the guys.
What makes them so fast? Is there some impenetrable mystique totally indecipherable by men? Alas, I discovered no mysterious sisterhood out to neuter mankind. Their secret has nothing to do with chromosomes.
While these women are definitely competitive, they also have perpetual smiles on their faces whenever they ride. It’s not that they share some private joke that they keep from the men. No, it’s the simple fact that they have a ton of fun on their bikes, and that is the main secret to their success.
Having fun at the front
At last year’s Chequamegon 100, there was a portion of the course that overlapped where I passed Wisconsinites Beth Wagner and Jen Barden coming from the other direction. I heard the hoots and giggles of Wagner, four-time Wisconsin Endurance Mountain Bike Series (WEMS) champion, and Barden, 2014 Badger State Games Fat Bike and Wausau 12 Hour champion, long before I actually laid eyes on them. They were having a grand old time as they rode together. Wagner, 36, and Barden, 41, practically tied for the win, leaving out the cut-throat sprint to the finish that would have tarnished their team effort.
Cooper Dendel, 23, of Marquette, Michigan, also loves to goof around with friends on a ride. She insists that both wheels have to leave the ground at least once during every ride and admits she likes beating guys in the super technical enduro races. She’s done just that en route to winning the women’s elite division in the 2014 Wisconsin Off-Road Series (WORS) and Lake Superior Gravity Series.
I can personally confirm that Denise Coppock, 41, of Green Bay, Wisconsin, talks and jokes during a race. I’ll never forget the time she trash-talked me back onto my bike as I lay flat on my back with impending heat stroke. As a four-time WEMS long course winner, Coppock knew I, an eventual six-time series champion, would take the bait. The joy of chasing her down got me going again on a sweltering day.
Carrie Seipp, 40, of Eagan, Minnesota, says the best way to have fun is to find a supportive crew with which to ride. A group should get you a little out of your comfort zone, but a rider also has to remember that they are supposed to be having fun out there.
Seipp likes to mix things up to keep her attitude fresh, and also to boost her skills for her main emphasis, cyclocross. She was, in fact, crowned the 2014 Minnesota Cat 1 & 2 Cyclocross champion.
I first met Seipp riding with the lead group of guys up the massive B-road climbs of the Ragnarok 105 gravel race, which she was the first woman to finish. Later that month she brought out the road bike for the weekly State Fair Criteriums where she races in the men’s and women’s events.
Seipp said she finds the women’s points race to be more active with attacks and recoveries, while the men’s race is consistently faster. She’s been known to hang with the lead group, averaging 28 mph for an entire race, because that is where the fun is.
Seipp only started out as a mountain biker when her college friends forged her signature on a Chequamegon 40 entry form. She still says that mountain bike races are fun no matter what happens. She loves the challenge of the trails, and will add the Thursday night races at Buck Hill to her agenda as ‘cross season approaches.
She said she loves to duke it out with guys on fat bikes, too, and has been seen riding her ‘cross bike on the Lebanon Hills singletrack on the way home from work. Carrie even holds a BMX license, so that she can get gate practice at the Twin Cities tracks.
To really give a new meaning to fun, let 26-year-old Andrea Cohen of Iowa City, Iowa, describe what goes through her head over 330 miles of gravel:
“I think about anything I want to. I sing as loud as I can. I yell at the skies and cows. I whisper to myself that I should keep going. I love these long alone times. It is one of the happiest places I can take myself. I don’t have to worry about anything other than myself and what I am doing. That sounds a little selfish, but I wouldn’t appreciate the time riding with others if I didn’t take the time to be by myself and figure out how I function without any other support.”
Hanging tough through adversity
Obviously these six women have a crazy amount of fun, but they take the challenges seriously. As she trained for the Wausau 24, I saw Coppock ride a stationary trainer all day in a parking lot with her arm in a sling because of a broken collarbone. By the time the 24-hour race rolled around, she was strong enough to have guys on relay teams still drafting her on lap 19. She finished 5th among the guys at Wausau before hypothermia caught her off guard and ended a her bid to win the 24-Hour Mountain Bike National Championships in 2011. She came back the following year, however, to take the title.
Then two years ago, Coppock was off the bike altogether with bone fragments floating loose from her pelvis and vertebrae that will need to be fused one day. For months she even avoided stairs. Initially, doctors told her that any type of fall could end in paralysis. But she sought a second opinion and returned to form.
Last year Coppock pushed Wagner for all 24 hours at Wausau, several laps ahead of the next racer. Now she has her sights set on the 24 Hour World Championships – in addition to finishing her physical therapy degree and raising five kids. She said she has neared burn-out, but when that happens she reminds herself not to take it all too seriously or make it all about winning.
She tried her first singlespeed race last year and loved it, happily discovering that she had the power to push a single gear, although a 40-year-old who can crank 215 bpm should not have been too surprised.
Cohen has finished rides that few men even enter. She rides whenever and wherever she can. Last December she had to get from Iowa City to Des Moines for a rider clinic, so she mapped out a gravel route and jumped on the bike at 4 a.m. With spare clothes in her Revelate bags that have become almost standard equipment for bike packers and gravel grinders, she had one of her luckiest rides ever.
Cohen has had her share of bad luck, you see, especially at the Trans-Iowa gravel race over the years, but so has nearly everyone who has attempted that grueling event. From getting lost her first year to the 35 mph gusts of 2014 to the deluge that shut the whole race down this year, Cohen knows adversity. As humbling as the storms were, she is grateful for events like Trans-Iowa that offer an adventure so overwhelming and potentially transcendent. There exists the very real possibility that no one will be up to the task on the day of that event. Yet she survived all 326 miles, pedaling many of them through a cold night, in 2013.
Cohen didn’t mind the sub-zero start of the Tuscobia 75 this past January either. During that fat bike ultra, she fought alone to maintain contact with a motivated paceline of five seasoned men and was able to roll into the first checkpoint just minutes behind them. She maintained her solitary pace to finish sixth among the men the following night. Cohen is drawn to stupefying challenges and seems as at home portaging her bike through Oklahoma mud and Minnesota marshes.
Humble beginnings
These six women are inspirational, for they have conquered great feats. Women new to the sport of mountain biking would do well to take their advice or at least remember that even the toughest competitors were once beginners.
While a practical joke brought Seipp to her first race, the demise of Cohen’s car started her putting on the miles, and Copprock started out as a WORS Citizen class racer. It’s funny to look back and remember how much persuasion it took for Wagner to sign up for her first WEMS six-hour event. She went on to win the series three years straight. And then last year, needing a new challenge, she took on the longer distances.
One rider often inspires another. Wagner, for instance, is the one who got Barden past the infamous Red Trail Bridge in Copper Harbor. That particular trail feature can be intimidating, but Barden now ranks the trail as one of her favorites and has brought home more than one trophy from up there.
Yet four years ago, Barden was newbie racer. Catching her at a vulnerable moment, we got her to sign up for a six-hour duo with her husband, Gary. Last year she struck out solo and won the Wausau 12-hour women’s race, almost catching Gary for second-place overall.
The women tend to work together instead of seeking to intimidate others out of the sport. At World of Bikes in Iowa City, Cohen is assistant manger and teaches classes for women on everything from fixing flats to tweaking derailleurs. With an elementary teaching degree in hand, Dendel wants to start a mountain bike school. Seipp sees the number of women at Minnesota events growing and points to organized high school mountain biking as a spurring an increasingly competitive female field. Wagner and Barden both contribute a huge chunk of time to the sport by trail building, race directing and cheerleading.
They’ve all been mentored and inspired by women who pushed the limits before them, and they know they can learn a lot from the right guys, too. Wagner and Barden learn a lot by chasing their husbands, Paul and Gary, and in turn, they give them a real chase.
Dendel studies the downhill prowess of her boyfriend, Phil Ott, and she is coached on the physiological side by four-time WORS champ Brian Matter.
A youthful Cohen got her life lessons from a world traveller named Audrey Wiedemeier. She was also inspired by the grace of Karen Borgstedt who kept Cohen in tow for all 150 miles of the 2014 Gravel Worlds.
I don’t know who inspires Coppock to ride fast, but I don’t doubt she’ll inspire some members of the next generation of women racers. I was once passed by a 10-year-old girl in the lead-out run at the start of the Wausau 24. It came as no surprise to find out that she was Denise’s eldest daughter, who is now a high schooler who also runs like the wind.
All of these women are encouraged seeing other women out there riding dirt. And they have plenty of advice on how to have fun and be fast.
Kit & equipment choices
Bike choice and accoutrements are important considerations. These ladies all ride plenty of bikes, and their opinions vary on their favorites. Most prefer a full-suspension ride, but Coppock swears by the better balance and speed of her hardtail. She tested it and found it to be 11 minutes faster over a singletrack lap.
Seipp has been frustrated with so few bike manufacturers offering top-of-the-line bikes or shoes in smaller women’s sizes. She rides a men’s bike with brake levers that fit her hands just right.
Coppock doesn’t worry about matching outfits, and Wagner wonders why so much high-end women’s gear comes in pink.
Cohen, on the other hand, said adds fun by shopping at Target. That’s where she found a ridiculous selection of patterned things including the polka-dot binder clip that holds her cue sheets. Her bikes are downright bedazzled. There’s a panda light on the gravel bike, a butterfly bottle cage for the mountain bike, and some flashy headset spacers for the fat bike. I’m just a regular dude who buys the first thing he sees, but I have a hunch that the shopping possibilities could really be a draw for biker chicks.
Favorite venues
The best thing for women new to the sport is to find the right trail. Dendel says everyone should come to Marquette to ride the miles of plush and exciting singletrack there. Coppock would send you to the curves of Nine Mile County Forest Recreation Area near Wausau, while Wagner would recommend the multilevel trail systems around Rhinelander.
Wherever you go, find a trail that’s just a little bit tougher than the last, and before you know it the rocks of Levis Mound or the climbs of Copper Harbor might not be so intimidating. And do as Barden recommends and ride those trail with a group that’s going to push you just to hang on.
As accomplished as this panel has been on two wheels, they still find satisfaction in seeking new challenges. They know there is no end to the rides they could take so they have unanimously resolved to simply enjoy the ride.
Rider ambitions
Barden will find satisfaction focusing on downhill cornering this year and has her sights set on the Badlands of the Maah Daah Hey 100 someday. Wagner wants to jump into the two-day Heck Epic on gravel this year. Seipp has finished as high as eighth in a UCI cyclocross race, but she’s aiming for a top-three podium spot.
The rider I most expected to have lofty professional goals was the bubbly WORS champ Dendel. However, she was uncommitted about her ambitions and seemed to have made a refreshing commitment to simple love every day she’s on a bike.
These six happy ladies do stretch our perception of the possible. They know that going fast is a lot of fun, but they show us that the surest way to fast is to have fun. They make it look easy, but remember that they struggle sometimes, too. On the next windy day you’re out riding, remind yourself that stiff headwinds and crosswinds cause cursing by these six remarkable athletes as well. And learn to love the climbs as they do, because there has got to be a rocking downhill on the other side.
Chris Schotz is a six-time WEMS long-course champion, winner of the inaugural 21-mile Badger State Game Fat Bike Race and director of the Thunderdown in the Underdown WEMS race. Polly LaMontagne, a novice rider who completed her first ForkHorners47 last year, assisted with this article.