Tag Archives: women’s cycling

Alison Powers: America’s Fastest Retiree

Alison_Powers_winning_2014_US_National_Championship_amgen
Alison Powers demonstrating her well practiced victory salute. Photo via Amgen Tour of California.

If you’re a fan of road racing, you’re no doubt familiar with Alison Powers. If not, you certainly should be. In her eight year professional career, Powers was consistently dominant, winning four national championships, a Pan American championship, two National Race Calendar (NRC) overall titles, and many, many more. Last year, she became the first American woman to win all three road national championship titles–criterium, time trial, and road race–at the same time. Powers followed up that tremendous feat by retiring from professional racing. And though she’s burnt out on being an athlete after 20-plus years of high-level ski and bike racing, Powers’ passion for cycling continues on through her coaching business, ALP Cycles Coaching. I spoke to Powers about her entry into bike racing, her lightning fast rise to the professional ranks, the glacial growth of professional women’s racing, her race career burnout, and her new life as a retiree.

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Katie Hall: the Hectic Life of an American Neo-Pro

UnitedHealthcare Pro Cycling Team December 2013 training camp.
Katie (center) with the United Healthcare team. Photo by Jonathan Devich via uhcprocycling.com.

Katie Hall is the sort of person who makes you question your time management skills. As a first-year professional for the United Healthcare cycling team, she’s racing a full American road season and dipping her toes into the waters in Europe at the Women’s Tour of Britain and the Giro Rosa. She’s also a full-time graduate student working on a PhD in molecular toxicology at UC Berkley. I spoke to Katie in a brief moment of spare time after she returned from Britain about her experience in Europe, late entry into the cycling world, balancing life as a neo-pro and grad student, the on-going evolution of women’s professional cycling, and much more.

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