BRC Women

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The Boston Road Club Announces a New Women’s Racing Team

The Boston Road Club (“BRC”; www.bostonroadclub.com), a USA Cycling developmental racing club based in the Boston, Massachusetts area and established in 1981, announces the addition of a new women’s racing team with Kelly Chang Samantha Van Gerbig, Frances Morrison, and Julie Monagle.  For 27 years the BRC is most well known as the sponsor and organizer of the Wells Avenue Training Series, a weekly training criterium held weekly on Sunday mornings from March through September. The Wells Ave. races have been held continuously for the 27 years and has introduced thousands of new riders in the Boston area to the sport of bicycle racing.

The BRC, which fielded one of the more dominant women’s racing teams in New England in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s, has after some years of dormancy  reestablished a women’s team led by Kelly Chang and Samantha Van Gerbig as team co-captains.

As a developmental racing club, the Boston Road Club’s mission is to provide a means for interested men and women the opportunity to explore amateur bicycle racing. The BRC provides the opportunity for group training, advice and support for both novice and experienced racers.

In conjunction with BRC’s long time sponsor, Wheelworks of Belmont and Somerville MA (http://www.wheelworks.com/) -- the BRC women’s team will be holding women’s introduction to racing clinics as well as rides during the course of the 2008 season. These events will provide opportunities for women in the Boston and surrounding areas to explore the sport of bicycle racing in an informative and low-key fashion. In addition, members of the BRC women’s team will be holding race clinics at the Wells Ave Training series.

The BRC would like to encourage and invite women who would like to explore riding and racing to contact the Boston Road Club via the BRC hotline 781-644-6800, email at contactus@bostonroadclub.com, or email to either of our women’s team captains:

Kelly Chang -  kellydotchang@yahoo.com
Samantha Van Gerbig - samantha.vangerbig@gmail.com

Please read the following bios about four of the racers:

Captain Kelly Chang is a Senior Economist at a small economic consulting firm which specializes in econometric analysis for antitrust litigation.  Kelly began her cycling career at UCLA and at Stanford, where she was a member of the 1st place women’s collegiate team trial championship team and the national championship team.  She has also been the Wisconsin State Cyclo-Cross Champion and placed third in the Jeantex Transalp Challenge, managing to survive 20,500 meters of climbing over 850 km in seven days.

Captain Samantha van Gerbig is currently the head photographer at the Collection of Historical Scientific Instruments at Harvard University . While a graduate student at Oxford in 2002, she joined the university cycling team and fell in love with racing. Since then she has raced on the both the road and track, winning numerous British University titles, the prologue of the Tour of Malta (2005), and two US National Master's titles (Pursuit and Points Race, 2007). She especially enjoys any kind of racing that involves pointy aero helmets.

Frances Morrison is a student at Mount Holyoke College . Along with racing for BRC she also races on the Mount Holyoke collegiate team. She began racing in the collegiate and USCF circuit officially in 2006. She has numerous top ten and top five finishes in the Cat 3/4 field. She also has several top five finishes in the collegiate mountain biking 'A' category. Her favorite discipline is the criterium. Frances likes to be in the woods as much as she likes to be on the road.

Julie Monagle is a successful and long-time presence on the East Coast bike racing scene.  With her husband, Eric Fleming, Julie managed the Verizon Wheelworks Women’s team.