New England sports fans don’t ask for much. Effort and some character are often enough to make them happy. And if their local teams or athletes are actually winning, New Englanders turn into a throng of partisan fiends—rabid devotees who will scream themselves hoarse to urge on their hometown teams. And best of all, their definition of local is extremely flexible.
Take the case of Mary McConneloug. She’s from California, but she rides for a New England-based bike company, Seven Cycles, and she spends part of the year at her boyfriend’s house on Martha’s Vineyard. Good enough to be a local favorite.
With those New England credentials, McConneloug didn’t need to do much else to earn loud cheers at Mount Snow, but she did. The 32-year-old former seamstress won the third stop of the NORBA National Championships Series, June 21, at Mount Snow, Vermont, dropping three-time world champion Alison Sydor (Trek-Volkswagen) on the final climb of the final lap.
Roland Green lacks local cred—he’s a Canadian West Coaster and rides for a Wisconsin-based team—but he made up for it with his rainbow jersey. The world champion’s stripes never fail to draw cheers, and with most spectators aware that Green had been recovering from a bad crash in the Tour de Georgia, the Trek-Volkswagen rider was showered with support as he worked with countryman Seamus McGrath (Haro-Lee Dungarees) to establish the race-winning move in the men’s cross-country.
Something About Mary
McConneloug is not your typical pro bike racer. She rides for a small, two-person team. She attributes her improved racing to a 30-minute daily yoga routine. She doesn’t train with a heart-rate monitor. And yet, despite flying in the face of convention, McConneloug has become one of the most consistent finishers on the NORBA circuit the past two years.
Consistent, yes. But spectacular? She’d been on the podium before, but never won a NORBA race.
At the start of the pro women’s cross-country it looked like Jimena Florit (RLX-Ralph Lauren) was on track to win back-to-back NORBA nationals. Feeling flush with the form that brought her a win the week before in West Virginia, Florit went straight to the front on the first lap of the three-lap race. The lithe 31-year-old Argentinean opened a healthy gap on Sydor (Trek-Volkswagen), McConneloug, Willow Koerber (RLX-Ralph Lauren) and Chrissy Redden (Subaru-Gary Fisher) by the end of lap one, but admitted that she overestimated the pace she could keep on a course with grueling climbs and technical descents.
“You have to keep some strength for the descent,” said Florit “I knew I couldn’t keep that pace, so I slowed down on the second lap. The descent had a good amount of pedaling so you really had to think of your gearing. One mistake in the gearing and you lose momentum and then you’re off your bike and losing time.”
As Florit’s pace eased, Sydor, Koerber and McConneloug bridged the remaining gap. Then Sydor and McConneloug set out on their own on the second lap’s main climb. The leading duo came through and received the bell for the final lap in tandem, but Sydor clawed out a narrow gap on the third lap’s opening wooded section. Undaunted, McConneloug chased and caught the Canadian by the base of the main technical climb, where she launched her counterattack.
“I got 10 or 15 seconds on the last climb and then didn’t make any mistakes on the downhill,” said McConneloug. “I got that gap and then told myself to ride it smooth.”
Sydor admitted that her efforts from winning the previous weekend’s Pan American Mountain Bike Championship in Colombia had left her tank empty when it mattered most.
“I had the lead, but I’m feeling a little tired today,” said Sydor. “Last weekend was very hard and then I had a lot of travel.”
Florit also passed Sydor on the last climb. While Koerber finished fourth, a best-ever result for the 26-year-old North Carolina rider. “Having Mary up there was inspiring to me, too,” said Koerber. “It’s just so cool to see new people up there.”
“I knew the course suited me really well and I felt great today,” said McConneloug. “When I went to West Virginia I felt a little rusty on my East Coast technical skills, so that kind of threw me off. But pre-riding before this race I went to check the course out. I just took one lap, and I just loved it. This makes me realize that I can be up there, too. This shows me that I can do it.”