Riding with a racing spirit

Several months ago, Susanne Smith, of Covington, was hurtling down a hill on her bicycle when she realized that she was traveling about 30 mph, faster than she'd ever traveled on a bike.

It was her second ride with the 30-member Cycle Therapy-4 Corners Racing team, one of Southeast King County's bicycle-racing groups, and she was clutching her handlebars tightly, worried that she might fly right off. But she loved it anyway, and she keeps going back for more.

Smith, 43, and her husband Mike, 51, are not bicycle racers, and their training comes largely from spinning classes at the gym.

But this group has taken them in and encouraged them to push themselves.

"It was that athletic rush that people get," Susanne Smith said of the ride. "I've heard about it for years and years but never experienced it until then."

Every Saturday morning, members of the 4 Corners Racing team gather at the Four Corners Shopping Center in Maple Valley, ready to ride about 70 miles.

This is not your ordinary group of bicyclists. Riding alongside seasoned racers are people like the Smiths, who only recently started racing, and riders who took up cycling later in life.

The group's main priorities are to promote bicycling by encouraging beginning racers and, of course, to have fun.

"It's different from a lot of the other teams where when a new rider comes out, it's, 'How fast can we drop that new rider?' " said Michael Kopp, one of the founders of the group. "It's a different philosophy, and we try to be more supportive and welcoming."

As a result, the group has grown steadily from a handful of riders when it was formed about six years ago to three dozen members today, most of whom live and work in Southeast King County.

The group trains weekly throughout the year and then races against other Washington state teams from March to September.

Along with Seattle-based Starbucks Cycling, the team has organized the Ravensdale-Cumberland Road Race for the past three years. Last year, the race had 342 participants from across Washington and raised $5,000 for the Maple Valley Food Bank & Emergency Services.

This year's race is scheduled for May 11 and information will be added in the coming weeks to the 4 Corners Racing team Web site, www.4cornerscycling.com, for bicyclists who want to participate.

No cyclist left behind

Talk to members of the team, and you'll hear few, if any, mention racing.

Instead, they focus on the team aspect of the sport, something that's often overlooked when it comes to bicycling, said Jim Wagner, an Auburn cardiologist who, at 64, is the team's oldest member.

"That's a real misconception because of people like Lance Armstrong," Wagner said. "People on the inside understand that he didn't get there just by his effort all by himself. It was his team."

That's why the group refuses to leave a rider behind and waits for slower riders at intersections on their route.

It's this attitude that encourages cyclists to join who may have been intimidated by making the leap to racing in the past.

"They don't give you that impression that they are this little clique of people that don't want any outsiders," Mike Smith said. "They are always helping us."

The Smiths took up cycling three years ago, largely to get in shape after giving up sailing. They started with spinning classes at a gym and then progressed to completing the 200-mile Seattle-to-Portland ride.

Still, that wasn't as challenging as joining the 4 Corners group last August. The group has helped them not only with training, but techniques such as pacing.

"I was able to keep up for some of the parts," said Susanne Smith, an engineer designer for the city of Kent. "They did a lot of waiting. They're still waiting for me."

Susanne Smith is one of only three women on the team; the first to join was Andrea Gates, 32, an ecologist for the city of Kent. Gates joined in 2004 after riding for recreation to increase her fitness level.

As for being the first woman riding with 20 guys?

"It's amazing on their part that they didn't turn me away," Gates said. "They were very supportive and encouraging."

Inspiring riders

Wagner compares his love of the sport to religion. "Those people who got it want to give it to someone else," he said.

Wagner is an intermediate rider who recently took up bicycling on a more intense level to "practice what I preach, which is a healthy lifestyle," he said.

When he started cycling with the team in his 50s, he was riding in the back. "This group is really good at inspiring other riders to come out," he said.

Still, it's not for everyone, and if you've never been on a bike before, this isn't the place for you, Kopp said.

A racing team like the 4 Corners Racing group rides fast with few breaks and has 60- to 80-mile rides compared to a recreational-riding club that tends to have 25- to 40-mile rides, rides slower and takes less breaks.

On several occasions, the team has had to encourage people to train more before they participate in rides again. "They build up their stamina, and we welcome them back out," Kopp said.

Wagner believes that everyone should be able to physically participate in the group's rides each week. But he doesn't believe that the team is unusual.

"This is not a big deal," he said. "It's nothing that should be marveled at."

Kirsten Grind is a Seattle-area freelance writer: kirstengrind@gmail.com.