Mike Vandeman[_4_]
June 10th 11, 08:24 PM
There is seriously something psychologically wrong with this girl, and
many who continue to pursue mountain biking incurring such severe
injuries. She is young, right now, but all her injuries will be
catching up to her when she becomes a bit older, in the form of
arthritis, among other debilitating medical problems. Sadly, this daft
young woman will be a "very old woman" before her time.
It’s tough being a ‘girl’ downhiller
Richard Winton
10 Jun 2011
IT can’t be easy trying to be feminine while picking bits of gravel
out of your face. The observation sparks a snort of laughter from Bex
Reilly, followed by a pause as the 19-year-old ponders the difficulty
of the situation in which she finds herself.
As a mountain biker, she has had her share of disfigurements;
agonising tendinitis in her knees, strained ligaments in one of those
joints, an over-rotation of a shoulder that left it an inch lower than
it should have been and so many haematomas that she has given up
keeping count.
Indeed, just last week she was rushed to hospital with a broken wrist
and suspected broken leg after losing control of her bike on a run at
Glencoe and falling almost two-and-a-half metres, clattering though a
small canyon of rocks. Safe to say touching up her make-up was not
Reilly’s primary concern.
Yet for all that, the Galloway teenager cites track sprinter Victoria
Pendleton and skeleton racer Amy Williams as inspirations, their
ability to retain their womanliness amid brutal sporting environments
something she yearns to replicate.
“You’ll be at a race with 300 guys and 10 girls and sometimes you
are considered one of the guys, which is fine, but I’m a girl,”
she protests. “I was always sort of a tomboy but as I’ve got older
it’s changed. I’ve become more confident because of cycling and
now I like to get dressed up and wear make-up and that can be lost
because it’s all muddy but it’s important to try to stay feminine
because I’m a girl and it’s who I am.”
"You learn from every crash how to fall and react and you have to
accept it will happen"
And, as a girl, Reilly fiercely defends her right to cry. Lying amid
the rocks and dirt at Glencoe after crashing in the third round of the
British National Series, experience told her she had not broken a leg
but the pain and swelling suggested her wrist was fractured.
As she was stretchered into an ambulance, fears about missing last
weekend’s UCI World Cup event at Fort William swirling around her
mind, she maintained her composure but admits bursting into tears when
the diagnosis was delivered.
Reilly describes the incident as a “big scare” but her fear is not
entirely founded on the physical discomfort. She is hurting, too, that
the incident prevented her from making the cup at Fort William,
finishing 33rd in an event in which she probably should not have
ridden given the wrist injury and massive haematoma on her leg.
“I’d put so much into that one race and to mess it up the weekend
before was gutting,” she admits. “You know you’re going to get a
bad one eventually and I remember my first major crash; I caught a
pedal on a rock, went through a wall and flipped about 15m just
missing an oak tree. I just treated it as part of the sport but it was
the start of me realising just how painful and brutal the sport can
be. You learn from every crash how to fall and react – and you
have to accept that it will happen or you would be too scared to race.
That might have been one of her earliest lessons, but Reilly’s
education is still ongoing. With this her first season as an elite
rider and member of the British downhill squad, she has been exposed
to a whole new level of competition but is thriving on the challenge
of continuing what has already been a rapid ascent since she first
raced in 2008.
Having always ridden as a child “my Barbie bike when I was six was
my favourite” she and a couplle of friends from the village of
Auchencairn attended cross-country skills days run by Reilly’s
father but decided downhill was more glamorous. Exhilarated by the
speed and danger, Reilly rode recreationally for 18 months before
being talent-spotted by the national coach and welcomed into the youth
development programme and rising through the ranks from there.
“I remember the first time I went on a downhill bike with the full-
face helmet, goggles,” she says. “I had so much fun even though it
was only a couple of minutes and that fun is still there now even
though I’m riding competitively and have to try to balance the
budget.”
As a student, money is never far from her mind. Indeed, Reilly has had
to abandon plans to compete in tomorrow’s UCI World Cup event in
Austria because injury to one of her team-mates makes her subsequently
increased share of the petrol money flyying is too expensive
prohibitive. Instead, she will be in Dunkeldd for a Scottish Series
race and preserving her pennies for trips later this summer to France
and Italy.
Were it not a bursary from the University of Strathclyde, Reilly
admits she would have been unable to continue competing, but instead
she is able to continue her studies in product design as a distraction
from the intensity of training and racing.
With only three or four girls on the course, she finds herself in a
familiar position but if downhill cycling is unable to impinge on her
quest for femininity it is unlikely that an engineering degree will be
able to manufacture any insurmountable barriers.
http://www.heraldscotland.com/sport/other-sports-news/it-s-tough-being-a-girl-downhiller-1.1106130
many who continue to pursue mountain biking incurring such severe
injuries. She is young, right now, but all her injuries will be
catching up to her when she becomes a bit older, in the form of
arthritis, among other debilitating medical problems. Sadly, this daft
young woman will be a "very old woman" before her time.
It’s tough being a ‘girl’ downhiller
Richard Winton
10 Jun 2011
IT can’t be easy trying to be feminine while picking bits of gravel
out of your face. The observation sparks a snort of laughter from Bex
Reilly, followed by a pause as the 19-year-old ponders the difficulty
of the situation in which she finds herself.
As a mountain biker, she has had her share of disfigurements;
agonising tendinitis in her knees, strained ligaments in one of those
joints, an over-rotation of a shoulder that left it an inch lower than
it should have been and so many haematomas that she has given up
keeping count.
Indeed, just last week she was rushed to hospital with a broken wrist
and suspected broken leg after losing control of her bike on a run at
Glencoe and falling almost two-and-a-half metres, clattering though a
small canyon of rocks. Safe to say touching up her make-up was not
Reilly’s primary concern.
Yet for all that, the Galloway teenager cites track sprinter Victoria
Pendleton and skeleton racer Amy Williams as inspirations, their
ability to retain their womanliness amid brutal sporting environments
something she yearns to replicate.
“You’ll be at a race with 300 guys and 10 girls and sometimes you
are considered one of the guys, which is fine, but I’m a girl,”
she protests. “I was always sort of a tomboy but as I’ve got older
it’s changed. I’ve become more confident because of cycling and
now I like to get dressed up and wear make-up and that can be lost
because it’s all muddy but it’s important to try to stay feminine
because I’m a girl and it’s who I am.”
"You learn from every crash how to fall and react and you have to
accept it will happen"
And, as a girl, Reilly fiercely defends her right to cry. Lying amid
the rocks and dirt at Glencoe after crashing in the third round of the
British National Series, experience told her she had not broken a leg
but the pain and swelling suggested her wrist was fractured.
As she was stretchered into an ambulance, fears about missing last
weekend’s UCI World Cup event at Fort William swirling around her
mind, she maintained her composure but admits bursting into tears when
the diagnosis was delivered.
Reilly describes the incident as a “big scare” but her fear is not
entirely founded on the physical discomfort. She is hurting, too, that
the incident prevented her from making the cup at Fort William,
finishing 33rd in an event in which she probably should not have
ridden given the wrist injury and massive haematoma on her leg.
“I’d put so much into that one race and to mess it up the weekend
before was gutting,” she admits. “You know you’re going to get a
bad one eventually and I remember my first major crash; I caught a
pedal on a rock, went through a wall and flipped about 15m just
missing an oak tree. I just treated it as part of the sport but it was
the start of me realising just how painful and brutal the sport can
be. You learn from every crash how to fall and react – and you
have to accept that it will happen or you would be too scared to race.
That might have been one of her earliest lessons, but Reilly’s
education is still ongoing. With this her first season as an elite
rider and member of the British downhill squad, she has been exposed
to a whole new level of competition but is thriving on the challenge
of continuing what has already been a rapid ascent since she first
raced in 2008.
Having always ridden as a child “my Barbie bike when I was six was
my favourite” she and a couplle of friends from the village of
Auchencairn attended cross-country skills days run by Reilly’s
father but decided downhill was more glamorous. Exhilarated by the
speed and danger, Reilly rode recreationally for 18 months before
being talent-spotted by the national coach and welcomed into the youth
development programme and rising through the ranks from there.
“I remember the first time I went on a downhill bike with the full-
face helmet, goggles,” she says. “I had so much fun even though it
was only a couple of minutes and that fun is still there now even
though I’m riding competitively and have to try to balance the
budget.”
As a student, money is never far from her mind. Indeed, Reilly has had
to abandon plans to compete in tomorrow’s UCI World Cup event in
Austria because injury to one of her team-mates makes her subsequently
increased share of the petrol money flyying is too expensive
prohibitive. Instead, she will be in Dunkeldd for a Scottish Series
race and preserving her pennies for trips later this summer to France
and Italy.
Were it not a bursary from the University of Strathclyde, Reilly
admits she would have been unable to continue competing, but instead
she is able to continue her studies in product design as a distraction
from the intensity of training and racing.
With only three or four girls on the course, she finds herself in a
familiar position but if downhill cycling is unable to impinge on her
quest for femininity it is unlikely that an engineering degree will be
able to manufacture any insurmountable barriers.
http://www.heraldscotland.com/sport/other-sports-news/it-s-tough-being-a-girl-downhiller-1.1106130