Text by Mark Jones, Photography by Roman Roth and Scott Hart
I can’t speak for the rest of the world, but in America, we like to root for the underdog. Take any sport and throw in some competition from an unlikely hero and an American crowd will cheer louder than ever. Such is the case with Mary McConneloug. Spectators have been going berserk over the lady in the green Seven Cycles’ jersey. You can’t help but love her cheerful tone and energized spirit. And then there is her racing. Without a huge factory sponsorship deal behind her, she won the third XC national at Mount Snow, worked her way to second place at the Pan American Games and finished as the top American in the overall National Championship points standings to earn herself the women’s title. Mary is truly living the —old school— mountain bike racer lifestyle, following the NORBA circuit in a van and trailer along with her Seven Cycles teammate and boyfriend, Mike Broderick, who ended up 11th in the national series. With great support from friends and family, they are making the best of what they have and enjoying every minute of it. Now, it seems like they have everyone else enjoying it, too.
What made you start racing mountain bikes?
When I graduated from college I got a bike. I would I just go out in my jean shorts, T-shirt and Converse high tops to cruise around Mount Tam. I didn’t get into competition until four or five years later. My boyfriend at the time thought that I would really like racing so I tried one and I was instantly hooked. I was living in Bend, Oregon, and that was in 1997. I was working full-time as a seamstress, training during the week and racing on the weekends. I loved it. A year later, I upgraded to pro because I was kind of dominating the Pacific Northwest scene. I was ready to try my luck. [then she cheerfully adds] I finished in the top thirty that first year, you know, just suffering. Over the past five years, I have sort of developed my own program and with the help of many friends and families who have been my number one sponsors to get me to this point. I have really come a long way, I think.
So no more day job?
It is just my bike. I realized that to be competitive at this level, I can’t divide my energy working another job. This is my job and it is full time. It is not just training. It is spending time preparing food, doing lots of laundry, stretching—I have incorporated Yoga into my program. I didn’t really do any stretching until this year. I kind of found it out of necessity. I was having back pain and just overall soreness so I got into Yoga and that takes dedication and time, for sure. Also, I like to sleep a lot, at least nine hours every night.
The Power of Two; Team Seven Cycles
Mike [Broderick] and I are partners in life. We developed this lifestyle of traveling around the country together and supporting each other. Then we got sponsored by Seven kind of as a package deal and we just have this fun lifestyle that we are super-psyched about that we are sharing. Hopefully, it will rub off on some people that you don’t need to spend a lot of money to have fun and that there are alternative lifestyles out there. We really feel like what we have going is pretty special. We like the freedom of choosing what races that we want to go to. We want to continue with this. We have a great sponsor base but we are looking to build it up a bit stronger because I would like to buy a house some day. [laughs] Actually, I’d like to get by. Well, we’re getting by, but it is tight, for sure. The main thing is being nice to each other and respecting each other and that means screening out thoughts sometimes [laughs]. I was brought up to be a nice person and now I have a perfect arena to practice in.
How long have you been doing this?
We have been doing this for about four years together. Pretty much since we met and it has just been better every year with more support from the industry.
Travelers: Mike + Mary
I met Mike in Fairfax in ’99. We met at a race and then two days later we met again. He was with someone that I knew and we had stopped to talk. I had just finished a mountain bike ride that morning and he was about to go out. I had mud on my face, you know. We all ended up having coffee together. We were attracted to each other at first sight and we exchanged numbers. Our first date, two days later, was a 60-mile road ride. It was so much fun. We hit it off instantly. The next week was the first National at Big Bear [California] and I was looking for a ride down and he was going so that was pretty much the beginning of our love affair. [laughs]
Home is Where the Van Is
I grew up in Fairfax, California, but I guess home is the van now. This fall we will be going back to the East Coast, so that will be my next home base on Martha’s Vineyard where Mike grew up. His family is really supportive with letting us stay there out back in our own little shack with electricity and no running water. [laughs] It isn’t insulated so we have to leave when it gets really cold and that is when we migrate west. We may go back to Marin or somewhere in Northern California for the winter to train.
Favorite Spote
There are a lot of little nooks and crannies. I really like it up on Vancouver Island in B.C. [Canada]. I liked Sandpoint [Idaho] a lot. I love Fairfax [California] and Hawaii in the winter. Actually, Martha’s Vineyard [Massachusetts] is amazing. It is really beautiful there and peaceful but I would never be able to afford a house there. We have a little shack to go to and it is good enough for me. I like Vermont. I like small towns. I don’t like big cities. I would like to live in the woods. Really, we look on the map for state parks where the little triangle tents show up and we find these random places. There are so many beautiful places across the United States. Anyone can travel like this. I like that we are traveling now. It is really sweet because I am not really ready to settle down. It is nice to see things from our van. It is just fun to travel. I love it. I wouldn’t say we’re modern-day hippies, just serious athletes following our dream, trying to do the best we can with what we have. We are lifestylists concerned about today, living in the moment…and trying to find that health food store.
Hotels
We never really check into a hotel. We have in the past when we were traveling in the Saab. In the middle of the winter, during cyclocross season, we got a hotel in Denver once. At this point since we have the van there is no need. Plus, we have friends and family on the road. We are super-grateful for all the people in our lives that help support us. We really couldn’t do it without them.
Roadside Dining
Mike and I cook all our own food on the road. It is a crucial part of our lifestyle—eating healthy and fueling up on good foods. We eat a lot of whole grains, organic if we can find it, which we usually can. We eat mostly vegetarian. We were, pretty much, all vegetarian up until this year when we started eating more meat. Like we’re thinking that we raced today, so we’re having steaks tonight. We like to go for the natural meat without antibiotics or hormones. We are conscientious about that. We stock up on organic food when we find it. We have gotten good at finding the natural foods stores when we roll into town. Actually, all you have to do is look them up in the phone book. It is pretty disappointing seeing the huge, nasty food chains all over the country and people packing up their carts with bad food. I hope more people can learn to care about what they put into their bodies.
Transportation
We have scrapped through some cars before we got this van. I used to drive a Volkswagen bus, which was our family heirloom. Mike had a little Toyota truck with a homemade 2-ton welded steel bed on the back that he and his dad built. That is what we first traveled in. Then after that we had a Saab, which was last year. We have several sob [laughs] stories. It barely got us through, but it did. We were packed to the hilt with five bikes in there and all of our camping gear. We are living in style in our big van now, especially with the trailer. I can’t believe it. We have AC and cruise control! We have moved up in the world this year. We put 20,000 miles on this thing since we got it in December. Mike tallied 20,400 miles as of yesterday.
Television
We don’t watch TV—ever. TV is crap, as far as I am concerned. Except for maybe ‘The Simpsons’. They’re good.
Vocal Performance
I was a voice major and I have studied music since I was fifteen. Then I went to study that in college. For a long time I was really into the opera and classical music. Once I picked up the mountain bike, I haven’t done much singing. Mike plays guitar and sometimes we just jam together. I have done more original stuff, improvisation and exploring with that. I haven’t really perfected anything because my main focus is the bike but we like to get down and dirty with the music [laughs]. It is usually around coffee in the morning or in the evening when I am cooking dinner, Mike will play guitar and I will chime in and sing if I feel inspired. But, I would say that there isn’t a lot of energy put into music. it is all pretty serendipitous.
Tunes For the Road
There are a lot of good college radio stations on the East Coast. Hip-hop, techno. I love reggae. I also like world beat and I still enjoy classical and jazz—pretty much everything but country.
Training
I train with Mike some of the time—quite a bit of the time, actually. I try to tag along on his wheel but I also train by myself like in the winter months, I just ride by myself mostly. We have a few places that we know on the road that we can ride but often times it is hit or miss. We pretty much look at the atlas and make it happen. We have specific objectives when we ride. We have a recovery day after a race and then I increase the intensity depending on our schedule. I usually clump together two or three days of workout and then I rest. When I pre-ride a course, I am usually mellow with a few short bursts to check myself. My hours are much less during the race season—about 8-10 hours a week.
Cyclocross
Cyclocross for me is for fun but it is not my focus. I love ‘cross because it is really fun and it’s nice to change it up in the winter. I use it to keep the fitness up and it has also taught me a lot about race strategies and timing. I love it. It is great, but I love cross-country racing even more. [laughs]
Mount Snow NORBA National
That was a big win for me. I surprised myself. I felt great that day and I just kind of knew that it was time to go when I saw Jimena miss-shift. I just had the legs that day. It was exciting. I had family members there and a lot of our sponsors were there, like Seven Cycles. It was an amazing day for me. I felt so proud and grateful. I know that I didn’t get there by myself. It was really cool with the crowd going wild. It sure was fun shaking that champagne everywhere.