Into the Woods

Years ago—before my daughter ever stomped her sneakered feet on pedals and discovered the joy of setting herself in two-wheeled motion, before she comprehended what it meant for a cyclist to wear the stars and stripes jersey, and long before she understood the enduring honor of making a U.S. Olympic Team—I buckled her into her car seat and drove her North to spend an afternoon outdoors, just the two of us.

The conversation that day meandered, as conversations with four-year olds often do. Eventually our peregrine dialogue alit on the topic of our friend Lea, about whom my daughter asked three questions in rapid succession:

Does Lea like to be alone?

Why is Lea going into the deep, dark woods?

Is Lea scared?

These were thoughtful questions. They were earnest questions. I wanted to be sure that when I responded, I gave the thoughtful and earnest answers the questions—and my daughter—deserved.

I replied:

Yes, Lea likes to be alone.

She’s going into the woods because she has to.

And she’s probably a little scared.

When my daughter and I had this conversation we were standing in the middle of a grassy field, on a hillside in Vermont, on one of the most spectacular late summer afternoons of the season. We were watching a mountain bike race and the riders were winding their way up, down and across the hillside in great looping cloverleaves. 

The frontrider, Olympian and U.S. National Champion Lea Davison, held a courageous and hard-won two-minute lead on the field with less than half the race expired. Like a bestselling thriller at the midway mark, there were lots of directions this story could take and not all of them promised to end well for Lea.

So, yes, Lea was alone.

And she was headed into the woods.

And she was likely a little scared.

But what elite athlete in the throes of competition isn’t all of those things? Solitude, fortitude and fear are the fires that forge the iron of an endurance athlete’s character. Whether you’re a cyclist, a marathoner, or a nordic skier, if your paycheck is cashed on the back of your ability to ask superhuman efforts of your heart, lungs and mind in concert, then you’re spending a lot of time alone, a lot of time in the metaphorical woods, and a lot of time facing down fear.  

To hone her craft, a cyclist endures daily training sessions at the red line, flooded with apprehension and pain, because that’s what she’ll have to do on race day. That same athlete will often train alone because she’ll race alone. (There’s no such thing as a tandem Olympic mountain bike event.) And if she’s exceptionally good, all that time she spends suffering alone in training occasionally earns her the opportunity to be alone, out front, on race day. And that was where Lea found herself on this particular day at the Catamount Classic, the final stop on the US Pro XCT Tour in Williston, Vermont.

But she was not alone. Not really. Lea, a Vermont native, had friends and family in attendance. And there was another group supporting Lea, too: the Little Bellas, a legion of bike-riding, pink and blue lycra-wearing, water-bottle toting, helmeted, muddy, beaming, enthusiastic young girls. They were the most recent crew of campers to enroll in the girls’ mountain-bike mentoring program that Lea and her sister Sabra Davison launched back in 2007.

Under the guidance of a group of talented cycling mentors, Little Bellas nationwide learn to pedal, ride, climb, descend, jump, crash, get up, dust off and keep on pedaling. They also learn how to clean their bikes, what to put in their water bottles, and what topical analgesics work best for “dirt rash.” Little Bellas program participants have been known to write persuasive letters on their own initiative to major bike manufacturers imploring them to feature girls—and not just boys—in their promotional materials. As Lea and Sabra rightly surmised at the founding of the Little Bellas: the confidence, community, camaraderie and world view developed astride a two-wheeled machine have their applications off the dirt as well.

On the day of the Catamount Classic, the Little Bellas had papered the race course with “Go, Lea!” signs; they had “Go, Lea!” painted on their cheeks; and they were wearing jerseys on which Lea’s autograph was indelibly marked. The course was expertly designed to allow spectators dozens of views of the riders and the Little Bellas had performed impressive reconnaissance. They were everywhere, cheering. This was their home turf and Lea was their hometown hero. 

When Lea headed into the rocky, forested, single-track section of the course, the Little Bellas cheered her entrance. And they were there again when she exited the woods, unscathed and still in the lead. Five times—once on each of the five laps—Lea rocketed into the woods. Five times she came out, alone. All five times the Little Bellas sang their delight. And though I may have been imagining it, I could have sworn she wore a smile that last time out of the woods, as if she’d found something in there and was bringing it out to share with us.

No doubt the constant pulsing baseline of the crowd’s approval blunted the pain of Lea’s effort and smoothed the edges of her fear. Some may say it even helped power her to the win. What endurance athlete, so often solitary, doesn’t enjoy a little broad-based support to help motivate and grant perspective? That is, in part, what the Little Bellas did for Lea on a regular basis over the course of her 15 years of competing: they helped her keep it real in a world of training, travel and racing that can so quickly turn myopic. And in return, she gifted them a convincing victory that day—one of dozens over the course of her career—complete with high fives and the waving of a Vermont flag up the finishing chute.

In the end, the Little Bellas provided the soundtrack for what will surely be remembered by Lea as one of her most joyful victories. But the greatest boon, the one that will last long after the maple sugar rush wears off, and long after the Little Bellas trade up their 24-inch frames for a Specialized Epic to compete in their day’s iteration of the Catamount Classic, is the lesson triptych that Lea put on display, and that Sabra and the other Little Bella mentors will continue to hammer home to girls like my daughter, now enrolled in her fifth year of the program:

Girls, it’s OK to want to be alone.

There is learning in the deep, dark woods.

And everyone gets a little scared. 

Now go ride.