Why I Love Coaching Girls

In my fourth year of coaching the Teton Region team, which has grown so large it's now split into Teton Valley and Jackson Hole, I've gained confidence in myself as a leader. For the first two years I was so hesitant, unable to articulate lessons and advice, concerned I didn't have the respect of my audience. Last year I grew comfortable talking to the kids, yelling at them, teaching them. This year with additional training I've embraced the title of coach and, watching the kids progress through the program, I can now say with certainty that it has a positive impact on their lives.

Especially the girls. I've done some coaching clinics and led group rides with women but I much prefer girls. Women are busy and hard to pin down, and their fear has calcified and they aren't willing to challenge themselves as much. I've seen exceptions, women who charge forward into a new sport with passion and motivation, but girls are more reliably open to learning and hungrier to improve. It seems like girls have a more articulate learning style than boys. When I take a girl aside, give her praise, and then make a suggestion, I can see the processing. She thinks about it, tries it, analyzes the results. Boys are much more susceptible to actions than words so the best way to teach them is to beat them. (On the trail, not bodily.)

Our team has always had exemplary girls. We haven't gone a single race without at least one girl standing on top of the box. The coaches can't take much credit for it--most of these girls are genetically gifted athletes. However, we certainly don't hurt them.

It's not bragging to say that Amanda Carey and I are great role models, women who are strong without being too type-A and intense. All we care about is the kids, not our own racing, and we've been a consistent presence for the team through the years. Having women who are role models is great for the boys too. I don't think any of the boys who have stuck with the program think that female riders are weak or inferior--their coaches and teammates prove that false all the time.

The girls generally ride with the boys, divided up by skill level--they're not tagging along, they're in the mix, jostling for position. But once in a while we let them segregate and go on girl rides, in which the older girls thrive as leaders and the younger girls chase them, challenging themselves and feeling part of a separate, awesome group. Now we have the third generation of new riders coming up and while they were nervous and uncertain at the first couple of practices, now they've tasted success, grown in skills and confidence, and enjoyed the shock of being told they won spots on the podium. I absolutely love seeing that.

What Is It About Santa Cruz Bikes?

Every time my old mountain bike is nearing at the end of its life, I try my darnedest to constantly borrow bikes instead of further beating my dead horse.

Last year I bought a house instead of a new bike, and as a result this summer my Bronson has seen the inside of the shop more than it has seen singletrack. I want a new pony. I borrowed a top-of-the-line Trek Fuel EX and found it was a great bike but not the right steed for me. It didn’t fit right and rode too much like a 29er…whatever that means these days. I borrowed a Trek Remedy, which was an absolute delight. It required a little bit of adjustment in my riding style but was thrilling downhill and even uphill. Then I rode both a Santa Cruz Nomad and a Juliana Strega, which are the same bike, so I’ll just refer to the lady version. Zero adjustment, to bike or style, immediate heart-pounding adoration.

Why do Santa Cruz bikes always feel like home? It might require some serious digging into geometry charts or a better understanding of pivot points than I have, but every Santa Cruz I’ve tried through the years felt intuitive and so, so fun.

Jumping!

The Strega is a big bike. I’ve never considered getting one because at almost seven inches of squish, it’s overkill for everything I ride. It’s a downhill sled dressed up as a trail bike. Or so I thought. I took it on obligatory lift rides at two different bike parks and it was joyous. It’s so muscular but manageable, so playful, so jumpable!

But then I took it on an aggressive thirty-mile all-singletrack trail ride. I climbed for hours and hours on it, motoring over chunky rocks and up steep loose switchbacks. The Strega doesn’t even have a shock lock-out, but hot damn can it climb. The pedaling platform is much more efficient than on my current Santa Cruz.

My only hang-ups were literal pedal hang-ups. I guess everyone else in the world is skilled enough to cope with modern, low bottom brackets but that is going to take some figuring out on my part. Also it’s a heavy bike. When I stopped racing, that stopped mattering to me, but the Strega is not begging to time trial up dirt roads or anything.

Cornering!

While I was riding a beautiful ridgeline through a burn zone in Montana on a perfect bike, I remembered that I have had a very torrid and abiding love affair with Santa Cruz. Long long ago, Sycamore Cycles was in downtown Brevard and Wes carried Santa Cruz for a while. When I was eleven I saw the first iteration of a Juliana and was convinced that I needed to own one someday, because it’s basically my name, duh.

One time, when I was in middle school, a family friend let me take her Superlight out for a ride and I remember so distinctly that amazing feeling of clearing, for the first time ever, the steep root-baskety left-hander on the Middle (Upper Lower?) Black Mountain climb.

When I first threw a leg over what is now my Bronson, it was Tim Koerber’s bike. We were riding Teton Pass laps and I was on a different borrowed bike, because I wanted to be done with my Specialized Era. I had done a lot of research and narrowed my next purchase down to a couple different XC’esque bikes, but then I got on the Bronson and didn’t make a single adjustment and found myself boosting root gaps on Jimmy’s Mom. By the bottom of one short DH run I made Tim an offer.

All of which is just a long way of saying, I’m going to buy a new Bronson ASAP because version 3.0 just got released and it has the same suspension design as the Strega. Yes please.

Climbing!