MTB PROFILE: Woodruff found biking at early age

NWA Democrat-Gazette/BEN GOFF @NWABENGOFF Chloe Woodruff rides Wednesday, Oct. 3, 2018, on the All American Trail near Compton Gardens in Bentonville. Woodruff, a professional cross-country cyclists with the Stan's NoTubes-Pivot team and 2016 Olympian, will be riding in The OZ Trails Off-Road this weekend on the trails in Bentonville and Bella Vista.
NWA Democrat-Gazette/BEN GOFF @NWABENGOFF Chloe Woodruff rides Wednesday, Oct. 3, 2018, on the All American Trail near Compton Gardens in Bentonville. Woodruff, a professional cross-country cyclists with the Stan's NoTubes-Pivot team and 2016 Olympian, will be riding in The OZ Trails Off-Road this weekend on the trails in Bentonville and Bella Vista.

BENTONVILLE -- Chloe Woodruff jumped on a mountain bike when she was 11 years old out of necessity. She's been shredding ever since.

Woodruff, 31, is one of the country's top female mountain bikers and will be a racer to watch at the weekend's Epic Rides Oz Trails Off-Road series race. The weekend of racing will bring the top professional mountain bikers to Northwest Arkansas to compete for a $60,000 purse.

PROFILE

Chloe Woodruff

AGE 31

HOMETOWN Prescott, Ariz.

RACING TEAM Stan’s NoTubes Pivot

CAREER HIGHLIGHTS 2016 Rio Olympics; 2015 national cross-country national champion; two-time junior cross-country national champion.

AT A GLANCE

Epic Rides Oz Trails Off-Road

Today-Sunday

WHERE Bentonville

SCHEDULE

Today

• Ozark 50 7:30 a.m.

• Ozark 35 8:30 a.m.

Sunday

• Pro Men Backcountry Race 8:30 a.m.

• Pro Women Backcountry Race 8:40 a.m.

• Kids Fun Ride 9 a.m.

For more information: epicrides.com/oz-tr…

• Awards Party 1:30 p.m.

"I've been into mountain biking since I was in middle school," Woodruff said. "My parents would not drive my sister and I to school anymore, so it was up to us to ride our bikes there. It was three and a half miles one-way, so that started many, many years of riding bikes.

"I think we found a mountain bike at a garage sale or something."

Woodruff spent several days in Bentonville and came away impressed with the bike-friendly community.

"There are amazing biking trails everywhere," she said. "This is a community that is poised to raise many, many bike riders."

Woodruff took to mountain biking early and never let it go, earning several junior national championships as a young rider, and earning a spot on the U.S. mountain biking team in the 2016 Rio Olympics, where she placed 14th in cross-country. She is hopeful of earning a spot in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

In middle school, she joined a cycling team at her school in Boulder, Colo., and quickly discovered she had a talent on the dirt, although she admits she was never a daredevil.

"I was always a timid kid, never diving into things," she said. "But mountain biking teaches you how to manage your fears and how to progress when you are thrown obstacles. It was a perfect fit for me."

She turned her love of the sport into a cycling career by founding the Stan's NoTubes-Pivot Pro Team, which includes elite level teammates Rose Grant, Keegan Swenson and Sofia Gomez-Villafane.

Woodruff is a supporter of the National Interscholastic Cycling Association (NICA), which has a growing program in Northwest Arkansas, and praised the trail system that the Oz Trails Off-Road will use this weekend in Bentonville and Bella Vista.

"They are incredibly well-built," she said. "Just incredible flow and the way they are woven into the fabric of the town. We pedaled right off the trail and right into downtown, which is unique to Bentonville.

"A lot of our future in building healthy communities is building safe places to recreate outdoors and give kids a place to play, and that is what they have here. My mind is blown."

Sports on 10/06/2018

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