Search for Transcendence

Image 1 of 5

(Image credit: Beth Seliga)

An interview with Sue Haywood, May 23, 2005

With two races in the books in the 2005 U.S. NORBA mountain bike series, West Virginian Susan Haywood (Trek/VW) has a clean grip on first place. She stood on the podium at both the Texas opener and the Arizona follow-up and with an almost three-month gap until the next NORBA, Haywood has plenty of time to rest, recover, train and peak for the remainder of the series, making her a favourite the rest of the way.

The fact that she is the leader of the series is a testament to Haywood's persistence and determination to make a career out of mountain biking. Since her first race on a Trek Antelope in the early nineties, to her two short-track national championships and her third place in the 2004 XC national championship race, Haywood has developed slowly into her role as one America's leading mountain bikers. In fact, if you had looked at her career throughout the last fifteen years, you probably wouldn't have predicted this kind of success. For seven years after that first race she was no more than a serious amateur. When she did make the transition to the pro ranks, she struggled, saying she underestimated how tough pro racing was - thinking that because she could ride nasty, technical terrain, she'd be able to succeed.

But Haywood wasn't discouraged, and her dedication to the sport culminated in 2004 when, after a year-long battle for UCI world-ranking points, she was named the lone US women's Olympic mountain bike representative. Anyone who followed mountain biking knows what happened next: Haywood was relegated in arbitration by Mary McConneloug, who contested the nomination due to what she felt (and was able to prove to the arbiters) was inconsistency in the way USA Cycling counted the UCI points used to make the nomination. To Haywood, it was a blow. She had just raced in ten countries, earned a third place in the world rankings and won the Olympic nomination by one point but ended up being named the alternate rider instead.

SH: Five or six years ago. I turned pro in 1998 but I really didn't know what I was doing; I didn't know what it meant to be pro. I struggled for a couple of years then I got a coach, made more of a time commitment; made a greater financial commitment and stopped doing all the part-time jobs and all that. Trek picked me up about that time and could pay me a decent salary. One thing led to another.

SH: I did a lot of regional and state racing. I was a serious recreational rider but I didn't know how to take it to the next level. When I first turned pro, I thought my technical skills would carry me to success - we ride really tough stuff here in West Virginia. I thought mountain biking was mainly a skill-based sport and I knew I had the technical skill. I didn't yet realize that it required a level of fitness I didn't have.

SH: Maybe the second race I did - at Seven Springs, Pennsylvania. It's a technical course and I should have done well but I got maybe sixteenth or eighteenth place. I realized then that mountain biking wasn't about how to negotiate a rock garden. So for the first couple of years I struggled with the whole uphill aspect of the sport. I'm not a pure climber. I'm heavier than a lot of the girls. Don't get me wrong, I've improved. And when the course is technical and gnarly, I get more comfortable. It was just something I needed to learn.

SH: I have. And there's still so much to experience. I like the way Bob Roll put it when he said 'the more you suffer, the closer you get to transcendence.' I'm still looking for that perfect feeling, that perfect race. I get glimpses of it and I'm like 'man, this feels so good,' when I have the perfect luck and everything I did in training seemed to be the right thing to have done for that race. I'm searching for perfection I guess, for the ultimate fun. That's what keeps me racing. And I accept that I may have to suffer in a hundred different ways to get to those perfect rhythms.

SH: I taught ski lessons in winter. I worked as a waitress. I worked at a kid's adventure camp for a couple of summers. But the regional team found some money for me and I was able to put a lot of that aside. I was also sponsored by the West Virginia Division of Tourism. West Virginia has always been into biking and mountain biking and thought it would be innovative to sponsor a racer. It was really cool while it lasted and they're still actually a great supporter of me in.

SH: I'm most proud of my two national championships (both in short track). They represent that I was good over the course of the entire season. Any time I can get a title like that, it's really special. This year, I also thought I could win cross-country nationals (contested in a single-day race rather than a season-long points system) and even though I was third, I'm really proud of that result too. I was only twenty something seconds off the win. It tells me that I'm getting better at my weaknesses.

SH: Absolutely. I still don't like the timing of it though; it shouldn't be held at the end of the season - in July when the rest of the world holds theirs; so we can gain UCI points that could help our world's start positions. (Starting positions in World Cup MTB races are determined by accumulated UCI points. A national championship is an opportunity to gain the highest possible single-race UCI points without a field crowded with competitors from other countries).

SH: Oh yeah. Although anyone who's seen the things that have gone on the last couple of years would be concerned about it. The UCI is out of touch with mountain bikers; and USA Cycling, although I have a lot of respect for the work they do, isn't generating a lot of warm feelings towards mountain biking right now. But yes, the sport is fun for me. And the grass roots in mountain biking is healthy. You can open any magazine and see mountain bike races happening all across the country.