The Transylvania Epic folks recently posted in Facebook that Jacquie Phelan is coming to the TSE and is looking for a team. WHAT!??? Legendary Jacquie Phelan? Holy shit. She's a phenom -- an icon in women's mountain biking history - and she's coming to Central PA? I'm not sure how many icons I can take. Rebecca Rusch. Sue Haywood. Selene Yeager. And now Jacquie Phelan. When I started mountain biking in 2000, my first "jersey" was a light blue cotton t-shirt. What did I know. I just wanted to ride my brand spanking new kale colored Cannondale and I didn't even know there were special clothes to wear on it. I bought the bike in the fall, and over the winter I started perusing bike catalogs and websites and realized, gee, I should be wearing that fancy special fabric all those biker-types wear. And one of the very first jerseys I bought was from this cool website called WOMBATS which stood for Women's Mountain Bike and Tea Society which was started by, you guessed it, Jacquie Phelan. At the time, reading a little more about her, I realized she was a co-founder of NORBA in 1983 and a legend in her own right. She raced and won races and was GOOD! Time got away from me and I sort of forgot about Jacquie until now. Today, she's even got an entry in Wikipedia! She's right up there with Lance. I'm humbled.
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