TELLURIDE — Dozens of bicyclists met their match Monday in the form of Lizard Head Pass during Ride the Rockies’ second day. The sag wagons kept busy as riders surrendered to the heat and the demands of the 4,000-foot-plus ascent from Cortez.
One woman determined to make it, slowly but surely, to the 10,222-foot summit was Sherry Schulz, 49, a teacher at Shelton Elementary School in Golden. Born with spina bifida, she uses only her arms to power her bike.
“You just grind it out,” she said. “This is Ride the Rockies, not Ride the Plains. I came here to climb. Once I make it, I feel accomplished.”
Schulz is the only woman among four handcyclists on this year’s week-long tour.
She sits just a half-foot above the pavement, her legs extended in front of her, on a bike that has one wheel in the front and two in the back. Her muscular arms work a three-ring crank that is inches in front of her chest.
On most stretches, she moves at half the speed or less of the typical bicyclist. So a day such as Monday’s 77-miler can turn into a dawn-to- dusk marathon.
But Schulz, who reached the summit on Monday’s portion of the ride, is used to not taking it easy. Twenty-five years ago, she was one of the nation’s top wheelchair racers. She won the Boston Marathon’s women’s wheelchair competition in 1983 and 1984 and was a member of the U.S. Paralympic Team for the 1988 Seoul Summer Games.
After retiring from wheelchair racing, she again got the competitive itch and took up handcycling about 10 years ago. She has been a member of the U.S. Handcycling Team and last year won what is billed as the world’s longest handcycling/wheelchair race: the seven-stage, 267-mile Sadler’s Alaska Challenge.
In the handcycling world, she is a good hill climber. But it can be frustrating doing the hills alongside non-disabled cyclists.
“Even in the lowest gear, when you’re climbing, you can’t stand up on the pedals,” she said. “You just have to keep going.”
