It’s a July evening, and scenes from stage four of the Tour de France flicker across the big TV over Scotti Wilborne-Lechuga’s head.
She and husband Ernie Lechuga, a former professional cyclist, are nursing beers at The Pantry, a west Little Rock restaurant. They’re talking about the fact that 30-year-old Scotti is about to set off for France, where she will race her bicycle as a new member of the U.S. National Team.
This team of about 30 racers is appointed and trained under the auspices of USA Cycling to develop world and Olympic champions.
She wasn’t supposed to be racing in France in July. She was supposed to be trying out for the team, in Colorado.
But team director Jack Seehafer saw her in action June 7-9 at the Tulsa Tough, a criterium series in downtown Tulsa, and decided to forget about that whole tryout thing.
He sent her a text welcoming her aboard. “I was blown away,” she says.
It has been quite a whirlwind spring.
But things happen quickly in Wilborne-Lechuga’s life.
For her maiden outing with the U.S.
national women, she expected to line up for a pair of four-day stage races - the Tour de Bretagne Feminin, which ends today, and the Tour Feminin en Limousin which begins Thursday.
She would click into her pedals on these starting lines with confidence bolstered by a 12th-place finish at the national championship road race in Chattanooga, Tenn., against the best racers in the country; another 12th at the Philly Cycling Classic in Philadelphia; and a 15th-place finish at the grueling Tour of The Gila in the mountains of New Mexico in May - where she realized that, surprise, she likes to climb.
Not bad for a pro cyclist. Really not bad for a cyclist who didn’t even ride bikes until about four years ago.
Oh, and she’s the mother of twin boys who turn 2 on Thursday.
OFF AND RUNNING
Called Scotti “from day one,” Elizabeth Scott Wilborne was born to Don and Beth Wilborne in High Point, N.C. The family moved around quite a bit, and Scotti spent most of her high school years in Indianapolis and Charlottesville, Va. By 12, she’d discovered track - and her competitive streak.
Her event was the 1,500 meters, and she attended Baylor University on a track scholarship. But she was nagged by injuries and, after redshirting her freshman year and then reinjuring herself, she hung up her spikes.
Graduating from Baylor with an English degree, she followed her parents to Arkansas (“I came to visit them and really liked Little Rock,” she says) and started dabbling in Xterra, an off-road triathlon series.
Her old and cantankerous Trek mountain bike had her beating a path to Little Rock bike shop Chainwheel for repairs so often that finally she just asked for a job.
“I was in the bike shop almost every week fixing something on that mountain bike. I was putting it to way more use than I should have been,” she says. “And that’s where I met Ernie.”
Ernesto Lechuga, who grew up in Mexico and southern California, had raced road bikes all over the nation and in Europe since he was a teenager. He survived a bout with testicular cancer early in his career, which included racing for the men’s U.S. NationalTeam, the Mexican National Team and American trade teams such as Jelly Belly and Mercury. He retired in 2006 and moved to Little Rock to work for Chainwheel.
“She came up to me and said, ‘Hey, I want to be a professional cyclist,’” Ernie says, still surprised. “She’d never even really ridden a road bike, but she wanted to be a professional cyclist. I was like, ‘Are you sure?’”
There had been one memorable group ride west of Little Rock where Scotti showed up in shorts, a T-shirt and sneakers, riding her father’s 1986 Schwinn. Pretty soon the Lycra-clad men and women and their shiny machines had left her far behind. “I looked at everyone else’s attire and said, ‘I’m clearly not a part of this gang yet,’” she laughs, her blond hair cut short with dark streaks and bangs that hang down her left cheek.
Still, Ernie lent her a bike and took her on a 40-mile group ride in the flat farmlands east of North Little Rock. His instructions were simple: stay on his wheel. In cycling parlance, that means to ride in the slipstream of the cyclist in front of you, allowing you to conserve energy, a daunting task for a newcomer.
This was in 2009. At the end of that ride, she was still on his wheel. Soon they were training two to four hours every day.
“He was doing Ironman training, so I would go sit in on these ridiculously long rides. It was a good way to learn,” says Scotti, who is a wraithlike 5 feet 8 inches tall and 120 pounds. With coaching from Ernie, she was growing stronger with each ride.
The pair would start their own training company, Leborne, in 2010. By 2011, twins Ethan and Eli were born and the couple married (the second marriage for each). But wait, we’re getting ahead of ourselves.
Cycling was a revelation for the former runner. “It didn’t hurt my body in the same way, so I found that I could still have that same feeling [of competition] without the pain of injury.”
When she finished the 2009 edition of the 100-mile Big Dam Bridge tour in three hours and 59 minutes in a group led by strong riders, after only three months on the bike, it was evident that she had some talent.
“I still had my doubts,” Ernie said. “People get tired, or bored. But when you can do 100 miles in under four hours, to be able to push yourself that much, that means you have some sort of ability. Cycling is not just about being physically strong, you have to be mentally strong as well.” SETBACKS
Her first race was a criterium series in St. Louis. Criteriums, or “crits,” are short, fast events over a course closed to cars that last about an hour.
On the first day, racing as an entry-level USA Cycling Category 4, she crashed out. Hit the deck. Tasted the pavement.
She got back up, and over the next two days she earned enough points to move up to Category 3.
But the old track injuries were still pestering her and she had to step off the bike for knee surgery.
By spring 2010, she was racing again as a Category 3 - until she finished second overall at the Joe Martin Stage Race in Fayetteville and stepped up to Category 2. In that category, she would race not only against other Category 2s, but also against the top-rated Category 1 riders and professionals.
Not long after becoming a 2, though, she was pregnant with the twins.
“Ooops,” she giggles. “Basically, I had about six months of competition before I had the boys … when they came, though, I knew that was the best thing that had ever happened to me. I love my little family.”
Three months after the babies were born (by cesarean section), she was back riding, easy at first, 20 minutes on the stationary trainer. With Ernie’s help, she found her old form.
“Ernie knows about being patient. He’s a cancer survivor. When he was in the middle of his cycling career as a really successful pro, he was off for about the same amount of time as I was, dealing with cancer. So he encouraged me to do it the right way and not overdo it.”
She turned a few heads at the 2012 edition of Joe Martin Stage Race, racing without a team and still finishing fifth on one stage. “I started believing then that I really did belong there and that with more experience I could race against these women,” she says.
TURNING PRO
Racing again in St. Louis, Scotti got the attention of Laura van Gilder, one of the top sprinters on the circuit. Van Gilder’s Mellow Mushroom team soon brought Scotti on board to help Van Gilder in crits.
When not racing with Van Gilder, Scotti competes on her own, riding solo in a sport that, while often misunderstood as an individual pursuit, actually rewards teamwork.
“Bike racing is like a chess match on the road,” she says. And being comfortable in the pack, often while barreling along shoulder-to-shoulder at 30 mph, is a coveted skill.
“She has a great ability to move around in the peloton,” says U.S. National Team director Seehafer from Italy, where he was coaching the national team at the women’s version of the Tour of Italy (American Mara Abbott took her second overall title at the race). “The U.S. has traditionally produced great time trial specialists and great climbers, but our weakness has been pack dynamics.”
Her 12th place result at the national championships in Chattanooga in May - she was just over four seconds behind winner Jade Wilcoxson and had the same time as heavy-hitters Abbott and Specialized-Lululemon’s Evelyn Stevens - piqued the interest of USA Cycling.
“Her ride at nationals was a big step up for her,” Seehafer says. “She has shown great improvement this year. USA Cycling wants to help her advance with European race experience.” MAKING IT WORK
When she’s not racing, she’s training, sometimes upto 25 hours a week, depending on the season. When the race schedule gets heavy, recovery becomes vital and she’ll be on the bike 12 to 15 hours a week. Recovery training fits nicely with her coaching career, since she has time to train clients as well as herself.
At races, the boys are often along for the ride, cruising behind the pack in the follow car with Ernie.
Juggling motherhood and a job is not unusual for a pro female racer. While there are men who make their living racing in the United States, on the women’s side of the road, it’s often more a labor of love.
Though Mellow Mushroom helps with entry fees, most other expenses are the racer’s responsibility. To raise cash, Scotti sells her paintings. She’s a self-taught artist who has exhibited at Stefano’s Fine Art Gallery in Little Rock. And trips like the one to Tour of The Gila in New Mexico are done on a shoestring, staying in cheap hotels and cooking for the whole family with a griddle, rice steamer and a slow cooker.
She won’t be cooking for her boys in France. They are staying home.
“This trip to France is going to be the first time I’ve been away from them,” she adds. “It’s gonna be bittersweet.”
ActiveStyle, Pages 23 on 07/15/2013