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Guest: Alison Tetrick
She really wanted to wear skirts and get her nails done, but Alison Tetrick, while remaining ever the fashionable girl, is a feisty competitor – in all sorts of ways.
Starting out as a tennis player in high school, she played in college on a full ride where she studied biochemistry. She worked in drug discovery research for Amgen, and then….with all her energy and competitive urges, was egged on to bike racing by her grandfather Paul Tetrick, who found his passion for bike racing in his 60’s and raced well into his 80’s. (scroll down to see Paul & Ali’s info)
Alison’s trajectory toward success on the bike was almost instantaneous as you will hear in our conversation. But it wasn’t all unicorns and roses.
As strong and capable as Alison is, she tells us about some of the things that will take a person down – physically, mentally, and emotionally – and learning to deal with them – asking for help, realizing you can’t always do everything on your own, will shape you in new and perhaps much better ways.
Our conversation runs the gamut from her early successes on the bike to the work she is doing now to get more young girls into the sport. And her honesty, humility, and frankness are refreshing!
You can follow Alison and her journey @amtetrick on social media. Check out her bandanas to help and support more girls and women on bikes.
Here is the link to Gloria Liu’s article, Cycling’s Silent Epidemic.
And if you find yourself at either Unbound or Sea Otter, look her up! She’ll be there.
I’d like to let you know that there is now expanded content for most episodes on my brand new Substack page.
Next time on the show, I’ll be speaking with Sarah Barnes, another podcaster and journalist who specializes in micromobility – especially autonomous vehicles – and urban geography. We’ll explain that too.
Ex-pro racer Levi Leipheimer will also be joining me to talk about his Gran Fondo as well as his ideas about how to reboot road riding here in the U.S. I’m ALL ears on that one!