In four years, the Davison sisters have gone from biking novices to world beaters.
By Sarah Tuff '95
The ominous storm clouds hulking over Lake Champlain suddenly erupt, pounding the Catamount Family Center with rain and ruining the prospect of an afternoon mountain-bike ride for Lea and Sabra Davison ('05 and '07). Instead, the animated duo is forced
to lounge around on the old farmhouse's saggy couches, anxiously waiting out the storm.
The Davisons first competed at Catamount—a recreational candyland of rollicking, wooded trails in Williston, Vermont—in 2000. Alpine ski racers and runners from nearby Jericho, they'd picked up mountain biking that spring
at the suggestion of Lea's boyfriend. "He questioned why we wanted to run around in circles, saying trails are so much fun," says Sabra, who was in high school at the time. Plus, the girls reasoned, they already had strong lungs from running and a daredevil streak from bombing down Vermont's ice-slick ski slopes.
So Lea, then a high school junior, took a few spins; soon Sabra joined in, and before they knew it, they were at
the starting line of a few Wednesday night races, sitting in the saddles of their purple Mongoose Hilltoppers. "I was like, OK, I'll just ride my bike," laughs Lea. "I had no idea what I was doing."
The rest of the mountain biking world, meanwhile, had no idea what kind of storm was about to hit. In just months, the Davisons catapulted to the top of the standings in the Eastern Cup series, and then started smoking the field in various National Off-Road Bicycle Association (NORBA) championships (roughly 14,000 offroaders compete under the NORBA banner). Before the races began, they'd look in awe at the competitors whose jerseys matched their bikes; after a couple of hours on the course, though, these riders would be staring right back at the Davisons, who were climbing the podium.
"Everyone was like, 'Where did these girls come from?'" says Lea, who qualified for the 2001 World Junior Mountain Biking Champion-ships at Vail—without knowing such a competition existed. What she and Sabra did know, however, was that their new hobby was a whole lot of fun. They joined a local bike racing team, started road cycling to add to their endurance, and took the tumbles that served as rites of passage. "Mountain biking takes a degree of toughness and grit compared to other sports that don't have as much carnage," says Audrey Augustin, a rider from Waitsfield, Vermont, who coached the Davisons for three years. "Lea and Sabra just embrace it. Give them a good hard race and they thrive—roots, rocks, mud, and all." At one point, Sabra (nickname: Debris) was so scraped and bruised, her high school guidance counselor asked if she had been abused; Lea rode for an entire season without an anterior cruciate ligament, which she had torn skiing.
It was not bloody knees, however, but a contagious exuberance that caught the attention of their parents and convinced them to replace the purple Mongooses. Their father Jeff, an engineer at IBM, became a part-time bike mechanic for the girls, while mom Lucia has recently been inspired to cycle dozens of miles a day. "When Lea qualified for Worlds, we sat for two hours wondering what happened," said Lucia. "Everything was moving so quickly."
This is a feeling shared by Lea and Sabra, whose performances landed them on Team Balance Bar/Devo (the developmental group funded by the biking industry for the nation's best junior bikers), which would eventually lead them to positions on the professional circuit. (In addition to Balance, both are now sponsored by Giant Bikes, Giro, Oakley, Rock Shox and Time Pedal; Lea went pro in 2002, and this is Sabra's first summer as a pro.) Earning the prestigious spots on the team, says Lea, "happened so quickly, we didn't know how important it was. At the start of Worlds, it wasn't like I'd been working five years to get there—I just thought, I'm going to have fun and do the best I can."
And that best just happens to be better than most. Since romping through fields as kids, Lea and Sabra have moved through the outdoors with a remarkable, unique finesse and fearlessness. "They're excellent athletes, both mentally and physically," says Augustin. "They really have the drive and determination to work hard at whatever sport they pursue—we're fortunate that they discovered the bicycle."
Lea and Sabra also discovered the slipperiness of sibling rivalry. A pattern of 1–2 finishes was emerging at races, with Lea consistently nabbing first. "It was subconscious, but I thought, 'OK, Lea's supposed to win, and I'm supposed to come in second, and she'll get really, really mad at me if it doesn't happen that way,'" says Sabra, who, with Lea, sought the advice of Olympian and ski-racing coach Barbara Ann Cochran, who taught them how to turn their competitive spirit into a positive force. Before joining her sister at Middlebury, Sabra had some breathing room to focus on preparing for the 2002 and 2003 World Junior Champion-ships in Austria and Switzerland. Now, the urge to compete comes in handy during tough practices, when they yell at each other to finish.
Occasionally, though, those sessions are more subdued, like when nasty winter weather keeps them indoors, pedaling on their trainers and watching old episodes of Sex and the City. ("It's got a fast beat," says Sabra.) Prescribed up to 24 hours of biking a week, the Davisons' daily workouts are arduous. Though they hope to make the 2008 Olympics in Beijing (only three American mountain bikers will compete in Athens this year), and turn mountain biking into a career, the sisters also aspire to maximize their intellectual talents.
It can be trying; when campus is flush with spring fever, Lea and Sabra must stay focused on both school and the intense summer season ahead of them. But instead
of training on their own, the Davisons recruit a mini-peloton of students to accompany them on rides to Middlebury Gap, Morgan Horse Farm, and swimming holes. For single-track riding, they head over to Waitsfield, where a "fellowship of the wheel" among local mountain bikers has allowed them to discover secret trails.
This summer, they're competing at NORBA Nationals and a World Cup throughout the Northeast, before heading west for more NORBA Nationals (aiming to qualify for September's World Championships in France). The Davisons plan to swing by their uncle's place in Utah to pick up their race-to-race transportation—a Volkswagen bus—and tool around on the carbon-fiber tandem road bikes he manufactures.
"It's tricky, the balance!" says Lea of riding a bicycle built for two.
"If the other person shifts at all, it's horrible," says Sabra.
"It was a scary experience," says Lea. "We kind of got the hang of it, though."
Writer and outdoor enthusiast Sarah Tuff '95 is a frequent contributor to Middlebury Magazine.