Evelyn Stevens

by alex

the quiet cannibal

By David Anthony

 

Quite a few NYers had excellent performances at Green Mountain: Brian Gabele of South Africa won the 3 Overall and Matt Cutler had a breakout ride too, winning the Cat 3 road race. Rodger Aspholm enters the 40+ and…wins! Other excellent NY rides in the 40+: David Taylor takes 2nd with Mark Alden and Rob Lattanzi rounding out the top 10.

But the biggest story of Green Mountain was Evelyn Stevens, who dominated every race she was in. Though she has won races before, she is so new to the sport and so unassuming that it was easy to sleep on her. In fact, in the space of just over month, she has gone from a beginning Cat 4 to a Cat 2 – she just put in her upgrade for Catskills.

Here is a summary of her racing this long weekend:

In the TT she put 27 seconds on 2nd place.

In the circuit she soloed of the front of the race for about an hour or 2/3rd of the race, was caught and still managed 2nd in the sprint.

In the road race, showing shades of Alex Gulla – she attacked on the Queen of the Mountain hill, and then rode so hard she singlehandedly caught and passed the Pro 1/2 women’s field, which started 5 minutes ahead of her. Also, like Gulla, she rides an older heavier bike which made it more fun to watch when she pulled alongside the pros with their team carbon fiber rigs kitted with SRMs. She was leading the P/2/3 field until four or five of them bridged back up and passed her with a few k’s to go on the finishing climb. In the end she won her race by five minutes.

On the last crit stage she just sat at the front of the pack virtually the whole way and whittled the pack down to 4 women who were able to hang on, placing third. She set such a brutal pace only eight women finished the race without getting pulled. We coaxed a few words out of the shy Stevens:

NYVC: Did you excel at endurance sports in college?

ES: I played tennis in college. After I graduated and moved to the city I worked so much I need to get outside, so I ran a lot. But not really competitively. I ran a few races though, a half marathon.

NYVC: What kind of time did you get?

ES: about an hour and forty five minutes. 7.5 minute pace is what I would run.

NYVC: So, how did you start riding?

ES: I started riding in California – my sister’s fiancée is a racer – when I visited her when I was still in college I would ride with her then. Over Thanksgiving last year I rode a bike with clipless pedals for the first time and even tried to do a cyclocross race. I started riding in New York last March and did the Women’s clinic; Etsu Taniguchi of Avenue A encouraged me a lot and helped me get started. This month I really started training in a more focused way for Green Mountain.

NYVC: Though you had success in the handful of races you previously did, were you surprised with your result in your first stage race?

ES: Yes very, I though my climbing was coming along alight but it really went better than I could have imagined.

NYVC: Would you quit your job and go pro, if given the chance.

ES: (laughs) I’d love to get the chance to ride at the highest level in the sport, but I have a lot of learning and improving to do before then.

31 Comments

Wheelsucker

I’m glad she is finally getting some attention, she could be one in a generation for NYC, stay tuned. Congrats Evelyn

Wheelsucker

Gulla? Hopefully not a good comparison. Alex had a load of natural talent but was never interested in learning bike racing. He left alomost as quickly as he arrived and never went beyond being a Cat 3.

complainer

To those who complain about work getting in the way of riding – Evelyn is an investment banker and works 60-80 hrs a week. Serious talent!!!!

Wheelsucker

is really doing a good job of supporting the local NYC racers by giving them the recognition they deserve. hard to have pure hate/baby cobra/anonymous bashing when we are producing riders like stevens, gabele, and cuttler in the big northeast races.

Wheelsucker

she spun me (and most of the field) off in the 3/4 gmsr race; im glad she’s upgrading 🙂 she is a modest powerhouse with great natural talent and i really hope she advances to the pros. definitely the buzz girl at gmsr. great great job evie. epo-no ~am

A

It annoys me that Adler posts so much about their team on this page. Can’t they just do this over their own email or something. Or make their own website to talk about themselves.

T-Rock

It’s good to see two modest powerhouses come out of the Stevens household – the real star of this family is risking his life to protect our borders.

oh, who cares...

running a half marathon at 7.5 min/mile pace without much training and winning GMBR after as much as one (new york city) season on the bike makes me wonder…….you are either:

1. modest
2. a freak of nature
3. doped

if 1 or 2 applies to you, i must say: you are awesome!

Wheelsucker

any contact with USAC federali??? What team would be the next logical step? Cheerwine is gone…Aarons gone…Colavita????

let us know!

West Coast Reader

I was wondering when someone from NY was going to post something. Pretty cool result considering her experience.

Comments are closed.