Every time that I’ve talked with Alison Powers about cycling, racing, and about her life in general, I always walk away feeling, well, stoked so when I was offered the chance to call her up and have a chat I knew I had to say yes.

First of all, when it comes to bike racing, Alison Powers is better than jam on toast. Powers, who is entering her 5th season as a professional cyclist, has an impressive list of results that indicate that not only is she talented but that she is also versatile. In taking a look at her results I was struck by how she has been able to compete at the highest levels and produce results in dramatically different venues.

Her win in the 2009 National Racing Calendar (NRC) individual standings indicates that she is able to produce consistent results on a variety of courses and over the course of an entire season. The National Racing Calendar is a series top-level races at which individual racers and teams can earn points based on how they perform and these points are then tabulated and used to produce individual rankings and team rankings. At the risk of sounding like a shant-wearing, fixie-skidding, ‘tatted hipster, the rankings that result from tabulating and adding all the results from the 20-odd races of the National Racing Calendar, well, metaracing.

Doing well at one race is all very well and good, but the ability to put one’s name near the top of the NRC rankings at the end of the year proves that one isn’t the Right Said Fred of cycling but someone more along the lines of the Rolling Stones. It requires top results at most of the races and the maturity to hit the reset button and mentally recover from a bad race. It requires an athlete to start healthy and stay healthy through a season that, at times, seems to stretch off into oblivion. Alison Powers was able to do all of this in 2009 during her 3rd year as a pro while riding for Team Type 1, which she told me “was the most fun I’ve ever had racing my bike”. In 2010 she finished 2nd overall in the NRC standings even though she “wasn’t having fun racing my bike”.

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Johnny Cash. Chocolate. My trusty Leatherman. Sue Butler. Which one doesn’t belong?

Made your decision yet? Yes? Well, which ever one you chose, you’re wrong.

Here’s the deal. All of the above are all people or things that are so versatile that it’s hard to think of a situation where they wouldn’t be appreciate. I’ve never put some Cash on the radio and then thought “Actually, I think I may want to listen to something else.” Likewise, I can have chocolate milk at breakfast, a mocha for an afternoon caffeine reload, and a hunk of dark chocolate after dinner. The Leatherman? In the top drawer in my kitchen because I use it so often. And finally, Sue Butler. When it comes to bikes and bicycle racing, I don’t think there’s anything she hasn’t tried. Most people know her as a mountain bike racer or a cyclocross racer, but if you check her resumé, she’s done nearly all of it. Enduro mountain bike races (she won the 2010 High Cascade Classic), some stage racing, some criteriums, some short track, some Super D, and even some mountain bike stage races.

See? So, what does Sue Butler, Ms. Two-Wheeled Versatility, have to tell us about this past cyclocross season, her trip to Worlds, and bike racing in general?

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