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Another Saturday morning, Susan and I are having coffee in bed, it's 39 degrees outside and raining hard. I have to go into work today, since we are in death march mode until the end of the month, and all our waking hours are supposed to be spent fixing bugs. I had planned to ride my bike the ten miles to work, but was not looking forward to the prospect. So after a lot of whining, Susan offers to drive me to work. So here we have a moral dilemma. Being a right thinking cyclist's cyclist I should of course have said no, but considering the weather the offer was looking more and more attractive. So after a couple of rounds of "I can do it, no problem," I caved and accepted the offer. As we're driving in I remarked that if I were a real man, I would of course have ridden my bike. Then we got to talking about other role models in the club, and finally came to the conclusion that if I were a real woman I would have ridden my bike.
Take Melinda, for instance. I know some pretty hardcore riders, but given the opportunity to be driven to their destination in truly foul weather, I'm pretty sure they'd be in the car. Not so with Melinda. The only time I've seen Melinda drive a car when a bike would do is in the dead of winter with snow everywhere. Then she contents herself with filling all the daylight hours snowshoeing, skiing or running. So I'd put money on Melinda taking the bike.
Then there's Pamela. Pamela had signed up to do the 300K brevet that weekend, and this would be a severe test of real womanhood if she actually showed up to do it. Getting up for a 4AM start is bad enough, but that added to the prospect of spending the whole day in a cold rain would have made lesser women quail. She did in fact show up for the brevet and did fine. Pamela is one of the few people who doesn't seem to mind rain, actually enjoys it. Probably a good thing she teamed up with an Irishman, for whom rain is a way of life.
Then there are the ironwomen of CRW past. Lindy King figures prominently in that arena. I distinctly remember one Velo Vermont weekend, when we had all driven up to Warren, Vermont, all except Lindy who decided it would be fun to ride her bike there from West Roxbury. The weather was less than perfect, she did end up getting a ride the last few miles, and she looked like death warmed over when she arrived, but she made it.
Then there's Cathy Ellis. You'd never suspect anything out of the ordinary when you first meet Cathy. She does happen to be one of the first women to enter RAAM (the bicycle Race Across AMerica) and did in fact place first in the women's field the year she rode it. My first inkling that Cathy was destined for greatness was on one of the famous Wonalancet Death March Century weekends. Robye and I had spent the ride jousting for position, and had both collapsed in our respective easy chairs back at the cabin, when in walks Cathy, looking fresh as a daisy, remarking at what a lovely ride it was. Robye and I having spent the last hundred miles staring fixedly at the other's rear wheel could not comment, but I knew then we would be seeing more of Cathy.
We had a small part to play in Cathy's ultimate victory. She needed to get some training simulating desert conditions, and the closest she could come to this in New England was riding her wind trainer in our attic in the summer. Now that's true grit!
Lindy, Cathy and Melinda at various times were all competing against each other in BMB (Boston-Montreal-Boston), another ride not for the faint of heart. Lindy and Cathy have both retired into motherhood, but Melinda's cycling career has become even more impressive, having won the women's first place in the prestigious Paris-Brest-Paris ride. All in all a formidable showing by the women of CRW.
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