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Tag: Mo Pro II

Into the Sunset – Mo Bruno Roy Retires

Our good friend and sponsored rider Mo Bruno Roy announced her retirement from pro racing yesterday after 12 years at the top. We think it’s best for you to hear it in her words, but we would be remiss if we didn’t point out the highlights of our time together as builder and rider.

Mo raced over 200 races on a Seven, including 31 wins, 63 podiums and 158 top-tens.

Of those, 143 were UCI races and included 5 wins, 31 podiums and 111 top-tens.

She raced 13 World Cups, 10 National Championships, including 3 wins (1 Masters, 2 Single Speed) and 6 top-ten Elite finishes (out of seven Elite races).

She was Single Speed CX World Champion, 2014, Cyclocross World Championships team member, Tabor, CZE 2010 and Winner of the 2009 USA Cycling National Calendar.

In all that time, she turned in one DNF (Did Not Finish).

BUT….those are just results. Sure, they’re important. At the pro/elite level, you race to win, and Mo won a lot. For us, there is much, much more to it than just winning, though. Mo is an ambassador of the bike. She brings people into our sport. She epitomizes what we think of as a pro cyclist, not just for the way she rides on race days, but by the way she rides her bike to work, to the grocery store, and to visit us here at the shop. And she does it all with a smile on her face. THAT is why we are proud of her, and proud of our partnership, because it’s more than a sponsorship.

Maybe sponsorship is what happens on race days, and partnership is what happens every other day of the year. Mo’s “career” as a pro racer might be over, but she will go on being a great cyclist for a long, long time, and that’s why we wanted to work with her in the first place.

We congratulate her on everything she packed into that career and wish her the very best for every mile to come.

Geaux Meaux!

Here are just a few of our favorite shots of Mo from over the years:

Photo by Brad Jurga

 

Photo by Chris Milliman Photo by Dave Chiu At Grand Prix of Gloucester (photo by Jon Henig)

On Course at CX Nationals with Mo Bruno Roy

We finally got the chance to catch up with Mo Bruno Roy after her National Championship winning ride in the single-speed race last week in Austin. She got to Austin via the Resolution Cross Cup in Dallas, where she got on the podium one of the two days in the Women’s Elite category, so she was feeling good coming into Nationals.

She says, “Early in the week (Ed: before the course turned to a muddy bog and the racing was postponed), it was dry and fast, which doesn’t really suit my strengths, but there was an off-camber, twisty section and there were three run-ups, where I thought I could make some time.”

With nearly 40 women in the field, the single-speed race more than doubled in size from 2014, and the talent reflected that growth. Zilker Park in Austin was packed with racers from all over the country, and while things went a little awry later in the week, the single-speed races went off without a hitch on Wednesday.

Mo says, “The hardest part of the race was actually a block headwind of 20-30mph you had to fight through at the beginning of every lap. For the first three laps I had 10 seconds, and at that point one mistake can kill you. I don’t normally think about that, but the announcers are saying it over and over again, which isn’t all the way helpful. I mean, you hear them. They give you the gap, which is good information, but they can also plant the seed of doubt if you let them. So at that point, I just tried to focus on what I was doing. The ground was loose and slippery, so I couldn’t go fast through the off-camber section. I had to make my time on the run ups.”

Mo throws her arms up in victory

In the end, she had 40 seconds on the nearest competition and was able to celebrate alone-in-photo. This was her ‘A’ race for the year, the goal she wrote down on paper before a single race had gone off, so winning validated her plan to shift focus to races that are more fun. It was a big departure from her previous World Cup campaigns.

She says, “I seem to enjoy single-speed events throughout, not just afterwards. World Cup racing is really stressful, and single-speed isn’t like that, so that’s been working for me. As defending champ, I felt pressure. I was supposed to win, so after this one I felt a little relief, a little happiness. Mostly I was glad not to have to ride into that headwind anymore.”

If it is possible to say how proud we are to work with Mo too many times, we hope we never get there. It’s hard to describe how good it is to see good people do good things on your bikes.

See more of Mo’s bike here, here, here and here. Connect with MM Racing here. Or watch a post-race interview with Mo here.

Photos by the talented Chris McIntosh.