![]() ![]() Later, Houchin got a job as a bike messenger, the only woman on the courier crew. Soon she was delivering Jimmy John's sandwiches while honing her bike-handling skills amid downtown Madison traffic. One day, a guy at a bike rack told Houchin he'd never seen a girl on a brakeless "fixie" and welcomed her into a group of local riders. Her first attempt at riding it led to a ripped pant leg and a crash.īut Houchin didn't have the money for another bike, so she forced herself to learn to ride it. ![]() Houchin didn't know such bikes existed nor did she notice that this one didn't have a brake. Houchin bought a replacement via Craigslist, not realizing she'd purchased a fixed gear - a bike with one gear and no freewheel, so you can't coast. Then a bike thief changed the trajectory of Houchin's life. Other than synchro, she hated anything athletic.īut once she got her job, and needed transportation to work, she acquired a secondhand Schwinn, which she spray painted purple, chain and all. In school, she'd nearly failed gym class. Until then, Houchin says, her relationship with exercise was like a Venn diagram of two circles with no overlap. She was also bingeing and purging, at one point losing 80 pounds in three months. She moved to Madison and got a job delivering supplies in a hospital. "I remember being, like, 'I am so fat and I hate myself,' " Houchin recalled.īy the time she graduated from high school, Houchin weighed more than 300 pounds. As Houchin dove into the water, kids in the audience mooed. But she didn't see that as a bad thing until middle school, when she watched a video of her synchronized swim team's performance. Houchin had been overweight since she was young. As a teenager, she began abusing prescription pills, which soon led to heroin. Nothing about Houchin's background would predict she'd end up among the country's best ultradistance, off-road cyclists. (Another competitor once joked that she looked like she was hanging out in a coffee shop before being inadvertently swept up in a bike race.) Here she was, an Indigenous woman wearing cutoffs instead of the typical padded bike shorts work boots in place of bike shoes that clip to the pedals and a hip pair of chunky specs. When Houchin, now 31, arrived at the start of her first Tour Divide in 2018, the other racers likely underestimated her abilities. The male-dominated, spandex-clad sport of cycling can exude an air of exclusivity. "The reason I seem to excel at these races is because the longer the race, I get stronger as I go and feel better as I go," Houchin said. “The reason I seem to excel at these races is because the longer the race, I get stronger as I go and feel better as I go.” She is now the only woman to ever win back-to-back Tour Divide races. That led to new jobs, new friendships and eventually cross-country bike trips. And she's particularly suited for the long haul.Īlexandera Houchin stumbled into bike culture when she accidentally purchased a fixed-gear bike. Life, like an ultra-race, isn't a sprint. As a cyclist and advocate, Houchin is just getting started. Now, the only woman to win back-to-back Tour Divides has returned home to the Fond du Lac Reservation near Cloquet, Minn., where she hopes to share the joy she's found in outdoor recreation. This time, she was five days faster, and made the trip on a bike with only one gear. The following year, she repeated her victory. The unlikeliest of athletes - Houchin used to hate exercise, abuse pills and heroin - had coaxed her body into a remarkable display of strength and endurance, both mental and physical. "It was super anti-climactic," she admitted, but somewhat fitting for a competitor who's competing only against herself, whose reward truly is the journey, not the destination. So Houchin treated herself to an orange soda from the vending machine and sat on a folding chair to wait for her ride. As the women's division winner, all she saw was a desolate stretch of two-lane and a border station staffed by an agent who said he couldn't leave his post to come take her picture. When Houchin arrived at the finish line of the Tour Divide - the country's most grueling, off-pavement, self-supported cycling race - she found no ribbon to break, no television cameras or cheering crowds. Through inclement weather and on minimal sleep, she'd made it in 23 days. Carrying her own supplies, she'd traversed the Rocky Mountains on terrain so rough that at times she had to carry her bike. In 2018, Alexandera Houchin biked 2,745 miles from Banff, Alberta, to the Mexican border, crisscrossing the Continental Divide.
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