Name: Virginia Solomon
Category: 1 MTB/3 Road
Race Age: 34
Current team: CRCA/Rockstar Games
Day Job: Art History Professor

How you got into cycling: I had speech development issues when I was a kid, and a speech therapist recommended to my family that I ride bikes, since through the magic of science there is some connection between bike riding and speaking (aside from not being able to speak when I go fast!). I used to ride around the neighborhood pretending to ride to school, but then I started mountain biking. Because it’s more fun to be dirty. I mean get dirty. Dirt.

How you got into racing: After finishing up being a full time student in college (hey, it took me some extra part time time, don’t judge), I got a job at a bike shop in San Francisco. Even without sleeve tattoos. It’s possible. Funny story – at the second place I worked I worked with one of the managers extraordinaire at our awesome sponsor shop NYCVelo, Martin Werneth!! Small world. I played DI lacrosse in school, and thought that I missed competing at something. Turns out what I missed was being a part of a team. The shop I worked for sponsored what is the best, most coolest bike team west of the Mississippi, now called Metromint p/b The Freewheel (cool. pure. mintwater. buy some if you’re into that stuff). I joined the team and no one cared that I didn’t know not to wear underwear under a chamois or had never raced or trained before and was a good 20 lbs overweight – like real overweight, not just Josh Sakofsky overweight – and from the first second of my first race (where I was promptly dropped) I was hooked! Though maybe I harbor resentment that someone let my first race be a mass start hill climb…

Favorite local course and why: Every mountain bike race I have done around here has been awesome in its own way. The riding here is so different from what I’m used to out west, and all of the courses in northern NJ vs Upstate NY vs LI are so different from each other. And so fun!! My absolute favorite is probably the Round Top XC course, because it has a great mix of technical rocky stuff but also some flowy descending, which a lot of courses here seem not to have. Railllll bermzzzzzz.

Greatest achievement racing: I have two moments that stand out from a thoroughly and happily mediocre racing career:

The first was the women’s B crit at UC Berkeley my first year racing collegiate. The Cal crit course is stupid (and awesome) – .44 miles around one Berkeley block where they don’t fix potholes because that would limit the free expression of the tarmac’s feelings. Turn three is sketchy and the uphill finish is no joke. Thankfully this particular morning in 2006 there were no ridiculous walks of shame home from the frat houses that line the street above the crit course, so everyone was able to focus on racing. The front of the pack whittled down to me and 8 Cal riders, with another Cal rider off the front. We went around and around and a mix of cat B grasp of tactics and a real pickle given a Cal rider up the road and Cal riders wanting to drop me but not bring their rider back amounted to them dragging me around for however many thousand laps make up 10 minutes of that course. I won the field sprint for second place. Me vs Cal. They beat me most of the time that year, but I took that one.

The second was collegiate MTB nationals in Angel Fire, NM, in 2012. Angel Fire starts at 8k ft. I came from Los Angeles, which is at 0 ft. Oxygen is real, y’all, and the altitude wasn’t the friend of any of the racers from California! My goal for both the XC and STXC races was to be top half, not a mean feat given the number of racers from altitude. I was able to hit those goals with some well timed attacking and smoother than I’ve ever ridden descending, and then I ate LOTS of NM green chiles and it was heaven. Especially the green chile beer.

Worst memory of a race: Collegiate nationals 2011, also in Angel Fire. Snow and peanut butter mud. Walking most of the 2.5 mile climb. Unable to clip in because of icy mud in my cleats when I did try to ride (a friend of mine who was behind me said she could tell when the terrain was rideable because she could hear me swearing and banging my shoe against my pedal). Without a doubt the most miserable I have ever been on a bicycle. Each time I think something might come close, it doesn’t.

Goals/Aspirations: Just keep having fun on the bike!! Work is too unpredictable to have results goals, but I race to hang out with friends in pretty places that provide some relief from living in NYC anyway, so who cares :D. And to continue to work to develop new riders and racers, through what I do directing the Western Collegiate Cycling Conference and new adventures coming up!

What’s the most fun thing you missed out on in order to do a bike race: Beer and french fries. Though I was at a stage race once and there were these two sisters whose dad was a total stage dad and he made them miss their prom to go race around in circles in Bakersfield (think desert and oil rigs). We decided that that was sort of sad.