Ready to Ride: Two months after hopping on mountain bikes, these young ladies are racing.
Imagine this spring was the first time you ever rode a mountain bike. Now imagine two months later was your first race—a grueling short track course at the Beaver Creek base area. Improbable? Highly. But that didn’t stop Ells Angels, Vail Valley’s newest mountain bike race team, from doing just that in 2011.
Of course, the Angles aren’t your typical cyclists. Nine Hispanic teenage girls race on the team, coached by Tamara Donelson, a white chick from Australia, now living in Edwards. Sixteen-year-old Estefania describes the girls’ first race experience best: “Oh my God, it was so much harder than soccer.”
The team was conceived as an offshoot of The Youth Foundation (theyouthfoundation.org), an organization that works to provide character-building recreational opportunities to kids in need. The girls were chosen based on interest, motivation to master a new sport and height—each racer has to be at least five-feet tall to fit an adult mountain bike, size xs.
Donelson, a personal trainer, former ski racer and the current Xterra Amateur World Champion, jumped at the chance to work with the unlikely mountain bike racers. While she doesn’t share the same challenges as the mostly Mexico-born immigrants that she coaches, the 36-year-old knows what it’s like to grow up a foreigner in an unforgiving culture where eating disorders, bullying and bitchiness are the rule rather than the exception. “I really believe that putting girls together with sports equals self-esteem,” Donelson says.
With the help of husband Brett, also a former ski racer and personal trainer, Donelson reached out to gear companies for support, and was surprised at the favorable response. “Ellsworth bikes even emblazoned our bikes with Ells Angels, sort of a very limited edition frame just for us,” she says. Many companies, like Ellsworth, offered deep discounts, and some, like Smith sunglasses and Camelback, provided products for free. Of course, not everything went smoothly. “On the first day, I had to explain to the girls that you don’t wear underwear under your chamois,” Donelson laughs. “Their response: ewwww, that’s nasty.”
The Ells Angels made their debut last season at Vail Recreation’s Short Track MTB Series, which was also brand new. Find out more about them at donelsoncoaching.com/ellsangels, and more about the new short track series at vailrec.com.
