What do a glittery banana seat, a pink Schwinn, an aversion to helmets, early morning swim practices and advanced arthroscopic shoulder surgery have in common? Jen Rassmusson.
If you lived in Salt Lake City during Jen’s childhood and happened to be on the road at 5:30 am, narrowly avoiding a group of young girls screaming downhill on bikes with a touch of disregard for the rules of the road, you have already made her acquaintance. When she was 10, her bike was the mode of transportation to swim practice, with an uphill to get back home. The training discipline from swim practice 2-a-days led to aspirations of a lava field in Kona, and finally to road racing.
In May 2009, a crash left Jen’s should needing significant surgery and physical therapy and she added to her list of injuries with a broken arm during the winter. In an early 2010 training ride, she discovered her shoulder could assist in her impression of a flopping fish on the ground, as she tested her injury with her first crash – resting after a hard effort and unable to unclip as her body weight shifted.
Rider Profile:
First Time on a Bike: Various bikes with her parents….and she hated riding them.
First Bike: Lemonde Tourmalet
Current Bike: Team Kenda, custom painted, BLUE AC1 with SRAM componentry. A green BLUE bike.
Proudest Racing Moment: Racing Liberty Classic and staying with the main group 4 times up the wall.
Advice on watching the races this weekend: “Positioning. Clarendon Cup is a very technical course so every opportunity to gain position is essential. As with most NRC crits the first 18-22 minutes is absolute torture and girls usually get popped every lap... also emphasizing the importance for maintaining your position at the front. Lastly, because the course is so technical it is a great breakaway course. Depending on how the larger teams want to play the race, the race win could certainly go to a breakaway rider. It will be fast and furious.”
Meet Heidi Goldberg of Team Kenda tomorrow.
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