Barbarella, Queen of the 'cross Galaxy

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(Image credit: Russ & Nancy Wright)

An interview with Barbara Howe, October 10, 2005

The 'thing' that you want to see Barbara Howe do is ride off the front of US cyclo-cross races. In 2004 alone, she stood on the podium in almost every national-caliber 'cross race in the season, winning three along the way. In fact, the only race she didn't do well in was the US National Championships in Portland, Oregon (Howe finished on the lead lap but three minutes and eight places behind winner Katie Compton).

Howe wasn't always the Queen of the 'Cross Galaxy. She discovered athletics at eight years old in a very traditional way: gymnastics class. "I did gymnastics through the end of high school," she says from her her home in Marin, California. "I was doing ballet but switched because gymnastics was much more interesting - there was a trampoline opposed to standing around in front of a mirror hanging on a bar." Howe says she took gymnastics seriously enough but adds: "I was competitive so I guess that's not mediocre, but I liked bouncing and swinging myself around much more."

Joining the cycling team exposed Howe to racing. Her first race involved a half-day drive to Las Cruces, New Mexico. "I think I might have come dead last," she says about that first learning experience. "I didn't take a sip of water or any food during the whole race. I rode so hard, I was sick all the way home. And I learned not to put your bike behind a car on the start line; someone backed over my bike right before the race." Strangely not discouraged by the early missteps, Howe made it to a bunch of races after that. "And I don't know how but I actually did okay in some."

But you can't live in Mammoth without being exposed to mountain biking and soon enough, Howe found herself getting pedaling again. "The summers in Mammoth are awesome. I rode my mountain bike just because it was good way to check things out and get further than walking. It was 2001, the last year they had NORBA Nationals before the break. I did the Sport race just for fun and crushed everyone. It was awesome."

Like most expert-class racers, Howe financed those early seasons herself; sharing rides and even scheduling an East Coast trip to her parent's home in Pittsburgh at the right time to make the Snowshoe and Vermont NORBAs. "I drove to Durango with two friends of mine that summer too and we took some stupid route that I decided on because I didn't have a map. It took us like 18 hours in my Volkswagen van without air conditioning. It was 100 degrees the whole way. It was epic. I routed us down dirt roads. It was pretty sweet."

After a season in the expert ranks, Howe made the jump to pro. "The next year (2003), I won the Sea Otter expert-class race by several minutes so I upgraded to pro. I did Big Bear, Snowshoe, Vermont and Sand Pointe, Idaho." The jump pushed Howe back in the standings. "It took everything I had to finish on the first page of results," she says about her early races. "I was like 38th or 40th most of the time."

In a foreshadowing of her breakout career in cyclo-cross though, Howe says she was actually stronger in Short Track. "I finished 20th in a Short Track my first year and I'm not sure why it was better for me. Maybe I have those kinds of muscles. Maybe because you don't have to plod along for hours on end, it was easier for me to ride with intensity. Maybe because Short Track's aren't so technical. Maybe because the kind of courses where I learned to ride – Mammoth, Sea Otter, Big Bear – are made up of lots of dirt roads and smooth trails; there are no crazy roots and muddy downhills like at Snowshoe."

Whatever the differences between Short Track and Cross Country, Howe learned that she preferred shorter, harder efforts over longer endurance races. When she tried cyclo-cross that winter, something clicked. "I moved with my boyfriend from Mammoth to Marin to make the travel to races a little easier. There is just every option in cycling available to you in Northern California. Gina Hall, Carmen Delusio and Rachel Lloyd - all multi-time national cyclo-cross team members - all lived and raced here so when I went out and tried 'cross, those guys were there. It made it cool."

Howe admits than she was in "way over my head" at first but she could sense that she had potential and was hooked on the format. It helped that the coach she worked with to make her a better mountain biker was hot for 'cross. "I was a pro mountain biker just not that good of one," she says. "I got a coach mainly for mountain biking. But my coach (apparently a guy simply named Elmo) works with a lot of the top women and is really into 'cross. It rubbed off on me."

With success, Howe could finally see how she might make part of her living from racing, although in 'cross, the opportunities are rare. "The prize money is actually pretty good compared to the other riding I was doing; I won all of 10 or 12 dollars racing mountain bikes and you have to be on fire for seven days in a row to win a road race with a great paycheck like Altoona. In 'cross, I can get my entry fee back in 40 minutes."

Beyond prize money though, the sport is financially thin for the athletes. "I don't know of any salaried cyclo-cross women," Howe says. So instead of chasing a non-existent factory team ride, Howe races with Velo Bella. "Velo Bella is a lot of things," she explains. "It's a gigantic club first of all. Within the club, there are the racers. Within the racers, there is the elite road and 'cross team. It's interesting; you could feasibly start on the team doing your very first race and then down the line, you could still be on the team and be racing at the elite level. We're very developmental."

Besides help from Velo Bella, Howe will work full-time to fund her 2005 campaign. "I work at the Bicycle Odyssey in Sausalito, California. It's a neat shop; we specialized in high-end road bikes. The owner used to race and he's really supportive of my racing. There are times when I say I need to go train for three hours in the morning and he'll let me come in at noon and I take a week off here and there to go to races."