Kerry Hellmuth made history in 1988 as a member of the first team, Willkie Sprint, to win the women’s Little 500. Remember “Breaking Away”, the award-winning movie (an Oscar for best screenplay) about a men’s bicycle race on the campus of Indiana University in Bloomington? The local ‘townie’ team, The Cutters, were the underdogs and rose to glory. Hellmuth recounts how her all-freshman group went from “scrappy, ragtag team” to “rock-star status on campus” and became “the perfect underdogs” for women.
Hellmuth penned the coming-of-age story about this one year in college life that was much more than learning to stay upright on rollers and how to make a bike exchange in a relay. Her book explains the uphill challenge for women at that time with the slow progress of Title IX of the Civil Rights Act that was passed in the US just a decade before, when women gained access to the same benefits as men at federally-funded schools, including educational and athletic programmes.
But Hellmuth does not use a harsh tone. She tells her story with light humour and an authentic voice throughout the saga of her freshman year. She provides some historical background on early victories in the 19th century for women to just ride bicycles (Amelia Bloomer and a split skirt to ride on two wheels), the movement for women to race road bikes, not tricycles, in the Little 500, and how 1988 made a big difference for more than just the four teammates.
She pointed out that while it was a winner-take-all scenario on the track for the 100-lap race, with blood, sweat, tears and laughs in the months of buildup, it all came down to proving “that women deserved to be given the same opportunities as men” and “the friendships within and between teams were both an added bonus and the most poignant part of the experience”.
Cyclingnews is providing this content as part of a celebration for International Women’s Day. In this excerpt, Chapter 4, Hellmuth describes the team’s first visit to the track where the race will be held in the spring, what types of bicycles they had to use, and the daunting task that lay before them. The official publication date for the book is April 1, with early delivery for orders placed with Indiana University Press. Reprinted with permission from Indiana University Press.
Stepping onto the Little 500 track for the first time was an exciting moment. The Armstrong Stadium seemed bigger than I remembered from my attendance at an IU…
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