Heather Makes the Local Newspaper
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
BY PAUL DANZER, Columbian staff writer
Heather VanValkenburg is in a hurry.
There are sixth-graders to teach. There are weights to lift. There are sponsors to find. There is fine tuning to do, on track and off. And, there are races to win. Big races. National championship races. World championship races. Heck, if everything fell into place, there might even be an Olympic race in her future.
But — even as she prepares for this fall’s national championships and a trip to Australia for the Masters World Championships — the 32-year-old Vancouver cyclist cannot afford to get ahead of herself. The only way her big dreams can come true is if she pays attention to countless details.
And so, the Lewisville Middle School teacher makes time for at least one daily visit to the gym. She spends time with bicycle mechanics learning minute details. Four or more times a week she travels to Alpenrose Dairy in southwest Portland, where she is pushed, encouraged, and counseled on the velodrome by a former champion.
That is reality for an athlete whose arena is the banked track where cyclists push themselves for every ounce of speed, a place where an instant of hesitation or one wrong move can render that speed meaningless.
Heather VanValkenburg has the speed. She found that out soon after being encouraged by road racing peers to try the track.
“My success early came from being strong, and I could ride my bike fast,” she said.
That changed when she advanced to the highest levels of racing.
“The best rider from the neck up wins races, because everybody’s fast,” she said.
With that in mind, Brian Abers challenges VanValkenburg at every turn. A former national and World Senior Games champion, Abers is the track racing coach for VanValkenburg and other members of Vancouver-based Rubicon Cycling Team.
“I’ll get on a bike and do everything possible to rattle her cage,” he said. “Hopefully no opponent will throw anything at her that I haven’t thrown at her 100 times.”
Intimidation is one of the ways that track racing on bikes is similar to track racing in cars. Match races, which usually pit two riders against each other, are as much a test of wits and daring as of speed and fitness.
“Bike racing is a lot like NASCAR, in that the person out front is expending more energy,” she said. For that reason, riders often try to be in second position for the much of a 1,000-meter match race, conserving energy for the sprint to the finish.
The bikes themselves are basic, with one fixed gear and no brakes. But, for the elite athletes they must be built to fit the rider.
VanValkenburg said her success also is tied to Bike Central, a Portland co-op with a mechanic who specializes in track bikes.
Riding a specially built bike she’s had for only two weeks, VanValkenburg placed third in the 500-meter time trial and second in the match sprint for women during the Oregon Bicycle Racing Association open championships, which were held Friday and Saturday at Alpenrose.
After enjoying quick and continued improvement over her first five years on the track, VanValkenburg said she felt she hit a plateau in 2006.
Abers, her coach, said that wasn’t a sign that she has peaked. Rather, the pressure VanValkenburg put on herself to compete at the sports elite level wound up slowing down her progress.
“The tighter you wind yourself up, the less likely you are to be able to react smoothly and fluidly during a race,” he said.
That is the challenge she faces. As she spends her summer preparing for the Elite National Championships, where her goal is a top-three finish in the match sprint, and a trip to Australia to chase world age-group championships, Heather VanValkenburg must not get ahead of herself.
Sure, she dreams big.
“If I continue to have success every year, it would be nice to make it to the Olympics in 2012,” she said.
But her focus is on October, when she will chase medals in the match sprint and 500-meter time trials at the U.S. Cycling Elite Nationals in Los Angeles, then head to Australia for the masters world championships.
“I’m such a realist,” she said. “So my goals get set about a year at a time.”
Did you know?
The bikes used for track racing have no brakes and a fixed gear. The cyclist generates all of the speed. They cannot coast, so at the end of a race they slow the bike by drifting up the track.
Women track racers reach top speeds around 35 mph in time trials. Match sprints are more tactical races that can involve moving at a walking pace to conserve energy and control track position.
The Alpenrose Velodrome Challenge, which takes place July 6-8, is an annual event that draws many top bicycle track racers to the southwest Portland dairy.
The Alpenrose track, built in 1964, and one at Marymoor Park in Redmond, Wash., are the only two in the Pacific Northwest.
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