The Bike Library sponsored a women's race team. It was awesome.

"To be honest with you, I've felt a little nihilistic about this whole thing over the past few weeks," Chris began. "And I wanted to get your opinion on it... Like, what exactly are we doing here?"

It was a good question. We were all back at the sponsor house - Lauren, Molly, Rachel, Chris, and me. We had, at our own pace, got out of our sopping wet race kits, taken very warm showers, and went out to the British pub down the street together for a bite. We were finally back, sitting around the living room – full, warm, dry, wondering What just happened? and Do we really have two more days of racing?

The Tour of Newport News (or ToNN for short) is a three-day, four-event race put on by Graham Costa of Team Hampton Roads (THR) Cycling. It hasn't even been around for five years and is already positioned to become one of the biggest criterium events on the east coast, competing with longstanding juggernauts like Speed Week, Athens Twilight, and the Armed Forces Classic.

Schedule (link)

• Friday afternoon: points race – a short, fast sprint race around a closed circuit at Todd Stadium. The ladies raced for 25 laps.
• Saturday morning: time trial – 5 miles against the clock. Staggered start, then go as fast as you can go, solo.
• Saturday night: criterium – a closed ~1km course around several downtown city blocks; fast, furious, with a high demand for cornering and handling skill. This is the keystone event of the weekend. The ladies raced for 30 minutes.
• Sunday morning: circuit race – a five-lap race around a three-mile course. Like the criterium, but with a longer course and fewer laps. This one is fast, fairly non-technical, and fun.

I came and raced here a few years ago solo. It, like many of the other criteriums I have traveled to and raced solo, was a ton of fun. However, I was jealous of all the teams that came with a pack of people. It seemed awesome – race, cheer on your friends, eat food, go crash at a big Airbnb. Super fun. Better than being alone.

Last year, I was unable to race because I was busy building a bike shop out of a shipping container. This year, I decided to trust the staff I'd hired to run the show while I skipped town with the team to get them some exposure to criterium racing. At a very basic level that is why we're here: To get more women into bike racing.

The Team

Lauren, duh, because she's my wife and she's a badass biker lady. After a conversation I had with her (that looked a lot like the playbook outlined in this blog post) she has been meeting her self-selected goal of 100 miles every week. This consistency has quickly made her into an incredibly strong and competent rider, and I knew she would have the legs for a weekend of racing.

Rachel is known far and wide in the Raleigh cycling community for being that really fast quiet girl on the occasional 100-something mile Saturday ride. She is, as they say, very fast. I usually rub elbows with her on the Jubala ride on Fridays. I asked her if she would be down to race this event if The Bike Library paid for her ticket, and she said yes. Boom. Now we've got two.

Molly is another Jubala rider. She is a sophomore at NC State, a member of the NCSU Triathlon team, and treasurer of the Crossfit club. After seeing her crush Jubala week after week, I asked her if she would be open to doing this event if her entry fee was paid for. Another yes. Now we have a team!

That's it. That's the playbook for building a team:

"Hey, do you want to do this race? I think you'd do really well."

"I'm not so sure, I don't know if I would be good at it."

"That's okay. No one is really good at it their first time."

So now, to answer Chris's question:

The Why

Yeah, yeah, part of it is about bike racing and getting more women represented in the sport. That is important, but is only part of the story. The women's field was around 40 deep, which was incredible to see! Let's go!

The other big part of it is to demonstrate that bike racing is a potent tool to get more people on to bikes in a utilitarian, urbanist sense.

Racing a bike requires (and builds) a high level of awareness of surroundings, intuition with the bike, balance, control, and of course: fitness. All of these things are key components of using bikes as practical urbanist transportation.

Picture, for a moment, two people who are weighing whether to use bikes as practical transportation for a trip to the grocery store down the street. One of those people is more comfortable riding in traffic, fitter, with better bike handling and more confidence. My money is on that person being more likely to say "yes" to the bike over the car.

Maybe I'm wrong about that. Maybe e-bikes are the solution. Maybe they aren't. Who knows. Either way, racing tests and improves all of those qualities, and that's why The Bike Library sponsored a team. Next year the team will be bigger.

As part of the mission to get everyone on bikes, not just dudes who would likely be out there anyways, we decided to go with a women's team for our debut.

Now, for the fun part: Race reportage.

Event 1: Points Race (Friday PM)