Women on the Move!

KALYRA WOMEN'S CYCLING TEAM

Friends, competitors . . . wine tasters.
On one recent day, anyway, members of the Kalyra Women's Cycling Team literally enjoyed the fruits of their new sponsors after a ride from Los Alamos to the Santa Ynez home of Kalyra Winery on

Refugio Road.
The wine-tasting event served as an announcement that Kalyra has joined a small group of sponsors that helps keep the eight-woman team on the road.

Team members, five of whom live in Santa Barbara County, compete annually in various far-flung cycling competitions, where all of the team members have won national and state road-racing championships. The team is unique in that the eight women are all over 40 -- competing at the 'masters' level -- and all have demanding professional careers and race as amateurs, so sponsorships are crucial.

For Kathy Brown, who with her husband Mike Brown owns and operates Kalyra Winery, sponsoring the team was a natural -- she's a former competitive cyclist herself.

"I have a love of cycling, and I feel they're really neat women," Kathy Brown said. "They're really involved in the community and they're really good role models for young women. I used to race bikes, so I kind of have a passion for cycling, and I still do a lot of riding."

The Kalyra team originated about four years ago as the Bella Nova Women's Racing Team, founded by Jill Gass of Santa Barbara, Lisa Tonello of Los Alamos and Laura Perdew of Irvine. The three "had known each other for years, and had competed against each other for years, and decided to form a team so we could compete together," Gass said.

At cycling competitions, "sometimes you end up forming alliances with other riders, and it made sense to race together," Gass said. An example of how team tactics come into play in competition is when team members form a line to provide a draft for a designated sprinter who'll be fresh for making a run later in the race. In such cases some members sacrifice their own results for the benefit of a teammate.

The comaraderie of team members was apparent as the eight women relaxed together at the winery in their matching pink uniforms.

"I love cycling and I love being with my friends and I love the competition part," said Gass, 50, a registered nurse and cycling coach certified by the U.S. Cycling Federation.

Each year team members meet to determine the cycling events they can all get to. One upcoming event will be the Mothballs Criterium on Feb. 4 at Research Park in Goleta, sponsored by Echelon Cycling. The team participates mostly in road races, time trials and criteriums, but members also enter track, mountain biking and triathlon events, as well as charity events of various kinds. Some of the team members will participate in this summer's Race Across America, a 3,000-mile trek from Oceanside to Atlantic City, N.J.

The season points to the USA Cycling Masters Road National Championships, which will be held in July in Seven Springs, Penn. The last time the team went to the event, in 2005 in Park City, Utah, members notched a total of 10 "podium finishes," meaning they finished in the top five in different events, Gass said.

Sometimes they compete against much younger women, team members said.

"We're really unique because we're a masters team, so everyone on the team is at least 40, which is unusual because most women's teams are much younger girls," said Lisa Tonello, 50, of Los Alamos, and owner of the Bike Barn in Santa Maria. "It's great that we're older but everybody's competitive with the younger teams."

And against younger competitors "we do really well. We kick 'em and tell them to give us a little respect," Tonello said, laughing. For these women, it appears to be the sport of a lifetime.

"As long as I can swing my leg over a bike I plan on doing this," she said. "It's a great benefit to being healthy and living longer. I think the competing part is just part of the personality of all the riders. . . . We pride ourselves on being good ambassadors, too, for the sport. For older women, if they don't want to race, they don't have to, but just to ride and get out there and exercise and stay healthy."

Perdew said it "costs about $30,000 to run a team our size," including uniforms, assessories, travel expenses, bicycles and registration fees. The team usually receives about $20,000 in cash and $10,000 in equipment, she said. Aside from Kalyra, the title sponsor, sponsors are Fuel Up/Simply Fit, Griffen Bicycles, the Bike Barn and Mattei's Tavern.