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EV female mountain bikers group rolling on

BY MELODY BIRKETT

GSN Contributor

Afew years ago, Tiana Riccardi and Robin Lamb saw a need for a mountain biker group for girls and women only.

The Mesa women already belonged to Hawesaholics, a group with more than 3,000 male and female mountain bikers of all ages and experience levels that Shawn Stenmark started in the name of Hawes Mountain, a popular haunt.

So it was only logical to Riccardi and Lamb to start a spin-off group, Hawesaholics Babes Ride On so that girls and women would feel more comfortable in what has been a male-dominated activity. “I started riding 2 1/2 years ago and that’s when I met Tiana who was looking for other women to ride with more frequently,” said Lamb. “We went on a ride with four girls,” added Lamb. “Afterwards, Tiana said, ‘We should start a Facebook messenger group’ on the Hawesaholics Facebook page, people would post rides such as, ‘I’m going to ride at this trail, at this pace, on this day. Let us know if anyone wants to come.’” “We had 50-100 members right away,” Lamb said, adding that HBRO now has almost 500 members. “It’s not meant to take away from Hawesaholics. They do a

Among the leaders of Hawesaholics Babes Ride On are, from left, co-founder Robin Lamb, beginners’ class instructor Gina Dwyer and co-founder Tiana Ricciardi, all of Mesa. (Special

to GSN)

ton of stuff every year such as group rides, rides for beginners, kids and families.”

Like the larger group, HBRO started posting events with the first one being a ladies’ night.

“It was so much fun,” explained Lamb. “And it was crazy. Crazy in the sense that beginners showed up along with other girls who were total rock stars. People who can throw 50-foot jumps off of things that are fast and aggressive – really talented riders who’ve been doing it for a lot longer. All of them were having a good time and super excited to be there.” “That’s what ended up being so fun about our group is that we’ve seen people come out of the woodwork and be excited to make new girlfriends they can ride with. They still ride with the guys and enjoy doing that but it’s also fun to have girl time and girl camaraderie that comes through the group.”

Because most of the “Babes” live in the East Valley, Hawes Mountain and the Hawes Trail System were immediate biking grounds “Most of us in the East Valley ride a fair amount of Hawes, a fair amount of Usery, depending on what kind of trails we like,” said Lamb.

see BIKERS page 24

Red Cross exec from Gilbert deploys to Kentucky

GSN NEWS STAFF

Patrick Hodgkins, the chief operating officer for Red Cross’ Arizona-New Mexico branch, been assigned to the tornado-damaged area of Kentucky as chief of staff and COVID-19 Compliance Officer.

“There’s pretty much no typical day,” said Hodgkins. “I’m located at the Disaster Relief headquarters. I work with the command staff on incident priorities, planning and execution. My team, the people who report to me, are the COVID safety officers.

“Depending on where we are in a rotation of the Disaster Relief, I will have either two or three safety officers that I coordinate with that itinerate around the entire area of operation doing inspections and reporting back on them.”

He said their key roles are to inspect, educate, resource and report on what they’re seeing and to support the workforce “and they’re also the eyes and ears.” “They report to me,” he said. “I compile their data, look for trends, look for action items, safety protocols, and work with the job director to ensure a safe workforce.”

He also leads the Red Cross workforce care task force.

“Priority item #1 is always COVID, any COVID cases, any possible COVID cases, how we are dispositioning those cases and supporting the workforce through testing. Care and isolation are required,” Hodgkins said.

“We look out for the volunteers and workers who are here, make it fun, comfortable and provide for them when they’re working long hours in a very sacrificial way,” he continued. “We have staff services, disaster health services, disaster spiritual care, disaster mental health. All of these are part of that workforce care task force.”

But over time, they have widened the scope of their jaunts.

“South Mountain or SoMo and Gold Canyon are other frequent places we ride,” Lamb said. “There are a lot of people who like Browns Ranch and McDowell Mountain in Scottsdale. A lot of us like to ride in Sedona, Prescott and the Mongolian Rim in the Payson area…Last spring, we did a big campout overnight trip to Sedona. There are lots of people who’ve gone to parks around the country.”

Good physical shape is not a requirement for mountain biking.

“I know a ton of people who’ve felt overweight or like they wanted to do something fitness-oriented that was more exciting than sitting on a treadmill at a gym and that was also outdoors,” said Lamb. “Mountain biking fit that niche for them and they just progress.”

While being comfortable riding a bike helps, she added, “There are a lot of trails you can start off with that are mild and you can progress from there.”

“What’s unique about the sport is you can do what suits your personality and your interests. For instance, some people like long miles and cross-country riding which is going to be a little more flat and flowy riding. You’re not necessarily doing a ton of massive elevation gain. That’s also typically going to be more smooth flowing trails so there are fewer rocks and obstacles.”

Lamb said some riders don’t like the long rides or those with steep inclines, noting that Browns Ranch Trail in Scottsdale as well as Usery Regional Mountain Park or some of the areas at McDowell Mountain are fairly mild trails.

As for time commitment, short loops take up to one hour while some mountain bikers go on camping trips so they can ride hundreds of miles over several days.

The beginners’ class offers “a super slow pace, between 3-5 miles,” explained Lamb. “We give them an opportunity to get on the trail with other people. And that’s also nice because if something goes wrong with your bike or if you run into a cactus, you have people there to help support you and to work through it.”

Gina Dwyer, a mountain biker for more than five years, leads the beginners’ class and said it has grown over the past year. Basically, I take them out once a week on Fridays, September through April, when the weather permits in the mornings,” she said. “We do about an hour ride.” Dwyer also teaches trail etiquette, bike positioning, when to brake, and when to climb.

“It’s good to ride with another person for safety reasons,” Dwyer explained. “You can go out on your own. I’ve done that before. But it’s so much better when you have somebody - especially when you’re new — in case something happens like a tire pops or you fall over or you get lost. You’ve got somebody with you. Being a new rider, it’s always good to get in a group.”

Hawesaholics Babes Ride On also gives back to the community through various service projects. “There’s a lot of local businesses we try to support,” Lamb said. “We do short, fun track races that are just kind of kickin-the-pants fun. It’s a way for people to interact and have fun and get out and do something healthy at the same time.”

“We do little events like toy drives for Christmas,” added Dwyer. “We do trick or trunk. If somebody is sick or hurt in the group, we do meal trains. It’s so much more than just riding. We have girls’ night out. … It’s just a really fun group.”

There are also professional events

“There are also events professionals do,” said Dwyer. “For example, women can go to a bike shop and learn how to change a tire or learn about their brakes or just their bike in general. We’re just not girls riding, breaking down. We’re fixing our own bikes.” In addition, the group does trail work for the Hawes Alliance. “We work on the mountain bike trails, build them, take care of them including trash pick-up,” Dwyer said.

Beginners should be aware of one thing: top-of-the-line mountain bikes can be very expensive at $10,000-$12,000. Lamb said a decent starter costs between $3,000-$4,000.

To connect with the group, go to HAWESAHOLICS Babes Ride On through Facebook or Instagram.

RED CROSS from page 23

There are other groups that go out and assess the needs of the people impacted by a disaster, but Hodgkins is also in the field.

“I go out and check sites,” Hodgkins explained. “I take a pulse from the field of the workforce through going out there myself, being available to the workforce to bring issues and concerns to me and through the safety officers.”

He said his duties are different when he’s deployed, mainly when it comes to how fast things change.

“Change is constant on a momentby-moment basis on a deployment. The operational pace is greater. And the days are certainly longer, which is a blessing. When you’re deployed, you don’t want to work an eight-hour day. That’s a lot of downtime. Longer days are better.”

Assigned to headquarters, Hodgkins said it’s a separate area from the shelters where feeding takes place. No clients or client work is done at headquarters.

Hodgkins said there’s only so much planning that can be done for a disaster of this magnitude.

“A hurricane, you know it’s coming,” said Hodgkins. “What you don’t know is how bad it’s going to be when it hits, what path it’s going to take, what type of damage it’s going to do, if there’s going to be flooding, if there’s going to be power outages or high winds knocking down buildings. You just don’t know.

“With something like this – a tornado – you don’t even have the warning where you’re tracking it. There’s only so much you can do. So, you show up, with as much preparedness as we do. We know a tornado’s going to hit, we just don’t know where or when, how many people, how bad the damage, what assets or resources we’re going to need. Those questions need to get answered very quickly to get things moving because the need exists immediately. You must be at almost full capacity immediately.”

To learn more about the Red Cross including volunteer opportunities, go to redcross.org.

The Hawesaholics Babes Ride On members take on all kinds of trails on their various jaunts.

(Special to GSN)

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But, many aren’t taking advantage of this unprecedented period. According to new statistics from the mortgage industry, senior homeowners in the U.S. are now sitting on more than 9.23 trillion

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