Riding with the boys

Jacquie Phelan was once one of the sole women in mountain biking, back when mountain biking wasn't even a sport yet, but "a party," as she put it. These days, groups of women can be seen on the roads and the trails – a development Phelan feels both proud of and responsible for.

"They may not know it, but they're my daughters," she said.

Phelan takes her role as a mountain bike mentor very (un)seriously.

In fact, Phelan tries not to take any of it too seriously. When she first met Susan DeMattei, a Terra Linda native who went on to take the bronze in mountain biking at the 1996 Olympics, Phelan may have been wearing bunny ears. But, the two hit it off with their combination of fun and a competitive edge.

In the 1980s, Phelan was one of the sole women in mountain biking. And Marin was one of the hotspots of a budding sport. Similar things were happening in Utah and Colorado, but here the issue of trail access was at the center of a political debate over environmental preservation. The sport was dominated by guys and marketed with dirt and grit and sweat.

Phelan was winning every race she entered and beating lots of the guys. Races were more like parties, events where all the men and women started together, everyone went to get a beer after, and results were tacked up with a stapler. Phelan's husband, Charlie Cunningham, was at the forefront of the sport and hand-built her bike that she rode to her wins. It was miles lighter than anything else on the circuit and sent her miles ahead of the competition.

As a pioneer in the sport, particularly in the women's arena, Phelan offered guidance and support to DeMattei and to other women coming up in the mountain biking scene.

"I slowly grew the farm team and looked forward to getting beat by my students," said Phelan.

She traveled to Europe to race, bumming rides and counting on the promoters to provide meals. She even competed in a race against horses in Wales.

In 1987, Phelan founded WOMBATS – Women's Mountain Biking and Tea Society. The idea was that by focusing on things that seem overly feminine, like tea and lace, it would make a joke of the overly-masculine culture of mountain biking and encourage women not to feel intimidated.

"The idea was to demystify and make less horrible-seeming all that stuff you do out in the woods. You don't have to come back all bloody and broken," said Phelan.

In fact, Phelan has taken that message to the masses. She will be hosting "Mud Life Crisis," a bike get-away and clinic for women over 40, at Kirkwood from Aug. 24 – 27. She also hosts a number of beginner clinics, specializing in teaching "cool things" and getting people over their fear.

The goal, now, is to encourage women to get into the sport and convince them it's not as scary as the ads have made it seem.

In fact, Phelan thinks the marketing of mountain biking as a dangerous, manly sport was a massive miscalculation considering the number of women looking to be active and finding their way to cycling.

Phelan used to present "Golden Testicle" awards to the companies that most missed the mark. Things like Diamondback's ad bragging "more balls, more beef, more bike" won Phelan's ironic award.

The disparity between the men and women in the sport is something Phelan has never left go by quietly. One time, she accidentally received the sixth-place man's prize purse of around $460, instead of the usual $37 prize pure she got for winning the women's race.

"I sort of am glad to be a problem," she said.

The sport has changed in the three decades since Phelan first started mountain biking. It's found more money and more cyclists. Races are bigger, more glamorous, with more sponsors. There are more bike companies involved at the highest levels. There's certainly more women – though still not as many as there are men.

Phelan still rides with toe-strap pedals (instead of the clip-in binding system most cyclists use) and still rides the same old bike her husband made for her. She sees no need for fancy new stuff every year. And she doesn't like to join the huge groups of cyclists that hammer through the streets on the weekends.

And she races one race a year – the single-speed world championships – because it's "what mountain biking used to be," she said: laid-back, fun, casual.

Still, two yeas ago, Phelan dressed in a suit for the race, because it's becoming more monetized and corporate. What happened to mountain biking will happen to single-speed as well.

"The suits are coming," she said.