Even motherhood won’t slow down mountain bike champion Marla Streb—then again, the 41-year-old from Los Osos, California was a mountain bike mama long before her daughter Nicoya was born on May 8, 2006.
ABOUT MARLA
Streb has reigned supreme over both the national and world cup circuit for over 13 years, claiming numerous championship titles in Downhill, Super Downhill and Single Speed since she made her relatively late debut as a pro rider at age 28. She’s one of the most recognized and accomplished female athletes in her sport today, not only a familiar face on the hill but also in the media. A published author who has been featured in dozens of films, television segments and magazine articles (including the unforgettable naked portraits from the July 2000 issue of Outside magazine), she’s a cover girl in every sense of the word.
It’s no surprise that her idea of maternity leave was taking six days off, but only for the week after the baby was born. “I rode through my entire pregnancy standing out of the saddle to prepare myself for not being able to sit on the seat after giving birth. It really worked out great,” Streb says, baby crying in the background as if to vouch for mom’s story. “I always say I’m more clumsy walking that riding. I didn’t crash once while I was pregnant. I’m just way more comfortable on the bike.”
MUSIC TO MICROBES TO MOUNTAIN BIKES
Streb’s road to maturity, and mountain bike superstardom, was anything but direct. She grew up near Baltimore, roughhousing with four brothers when she wasn’t demonstrating perfect pitch on the piano. She sailed through a Master’s Degree in molecular biology from the University of Maryland. In the midst of it all, she joined pal Mark Fitzgerald on a bicycle tour of Europe, then returned home and took a job as a bike messenger. The job didn’t last long, but she would come back to bikes. She’d come back to Fitzgerald, too.
A stint as a cytogeneticist at Duke University followed, but Streb felt the need to head west. She landed in San Diego, studying the AIDS virus at the Scripps Research Institute and entering mountain bike races on the weekends. When she broke her collarbone at a photo shoot for her first sponsor in 1994 – and asked for a new wheel instead of a trip to the emergency room – they signed her for downhill. Streb’s career had begun, and Fitzgerald, who had been giving her some breathing room, came out to give her encouragement. They’ve been together ever since.
A rookie at 28, Streb was late to the pros, but what she lacked in time-honed reflexes, she made up for with relentless training, penetrating course analysis, and sheer guts. By 1997 she took her first major third-place medal, riding with a broken ankle. (Streb shrugs casually, “I’m pretty good at suffering.”) The next year, first place finishes started to pile up, and key victories continued through 2001. Despite injury in 2002, Streb still snagged a berth on the World Championship Team and then went on to log one of her best seasons ever in 2003. She took her first U.S. National Championship in the grueling five-race NORBA series and dominated the field at the World Cup finals in Austria, winning by almost seven seconds.
MUTLI-TASKING SUPER MOM
The downhill queen has added a few new championship titles to her repertoire, including some of mountain biking’s more unconventional disciplines like Single Speed and Super Downhill. “I figured if I tried every aspect of cycling it would keep it fresh,” she says. In Single Speed, racers choose one gear for the race, riding on a single cog that’s small enough to make the climbs but big enough to keep momentum going downhill. “Single Speed is what you do when you’ve tried every kind of cycling. It’s very subtle, but very different as far as racing and riding. You’re basically handicapping yourself on purpose.”
Handicap or not, she snagged the Single Speed world championship title and won the famed Sea Otter Classic in 2005. Streb also hit her stride in Super Downhill, a relatively new discipline that sends racers down an extra long downhill course (most races are 20-30 minutes) including a mass start with all the riders sprinting to mount their bikes at the same time. “It attracts really fit downhill racers and cross country riders who are really have really strong skills in downhill,” Streb explains.
Somehow the Super Mom manages to find time for other two-wheeled sports like motocross and BMX. “I broke three ribs last week in Utah,” she says, noting that it makes nursing even more difficult. She’s also a writer (Her autobiography, “Downhill: Life of a Gravity Goddess” was published in 2003) and is currently working on her next book, “Bicycling Magazine’s Century Training Program.” On top of all that, Streb will oversee the building of the world’s first signature mountain bike park in Costa Rica at the Estancia Del Mar Resort on the Nicoya Peninsula (thus her daughter’s namesake).
In her “spare time” she leads mountain bike clinics.
Right now, it’s quite a balancing act: Streb continued racing post-partum, a feat she says required a sense of humor more than anything. “As a competitor I’m always trying to prove myself and am driven to the point where it’s almost comical—here I am racing to the finish just so I can get my baby fed. I’m just laughing, going, ‘whatever your excuses is, mine blows all yours away.’” Motherhood might take up more of her time and energy but it seems nothing can stop her. “I just love competition. No matter how many times I think it’s going to be my last year, I just chomp at the bit for my next race. I didn’t find my calling until I was almost 30, so I have a lot of catching up to do still.”
Healthy and Focused
Healthy again in 2003, Streb logged one of her best seasons ever. She took her first U.S. National Championship in the grueling five-race NORBA series, and she also set her sights on the World Cup. “The downhill season is a game of attrition,” Streb notes ruefully. “We head toward Worlds in September, and by summer, we’re traveling to a tough new course every weekend. The person who is the least beat up at the end of the year is going to win.” But, she adds, though there’s little chance that any competitor can peak physically at the end of such a merciless season, it is possible to peak mentally. And Streb is probably the most mentally focused downhill rider ever. No wonder she dominated the field at the World Cup finals in Austria, winning by almost seven seconds.
Streb heads into a new season as the top-ranked American woman in the world, and she’s also making headlines with a new book and a must-see movie appearance. Her memoir, Downhill: The Life Story of a Gravity Goddess (Penguin Putnam/Plume) hit the bookstores in November, while her IMAX movie, Top Speed, is thrilling audiences worldwide. And when she’s not on the pro tour, on a book tour, or at a movie premiere, she hits the high seas. Streb and Fitzgerald live on a 52-foot ketch they’ve named “Indifference,” and they hope to sail the globe someday. “Indifference doesn’t signify not caring,” Streb explains. “It’s having an open mind, so that you can change course.” Now in her mid-thirties, Streb figures that she’s probably got only a few years of competition left in her. “But then, I’ve been saying that for a decade,” she laughs. “I’m so enthusiastic about racing bikes right now – I’d be crazy to give up what I love the most.” Indifference can wait
