Laguna Hills Cyclist Discovers Playing This Game is Serious

Playing the game .

For 12 weeks, Linda Brenneman played the game--a series of attacks and counterattacks, chases and sprints that are part of any bicycle road race--as a member of the Tissot team in the Tour de France. Riding among the leaders throughout the race’s 12 stages, she discovered that the game is serious.

“The No. 1 goal is to break away from the pack,” said Brenneman, 22, who lives in Laguna Hills. “You get 3 to 5 riders out in front of everyone else and then the strategy begins. You position yourself for the sprint. You see someone break away from the rest of the pack, you let them run their course. Then you chew them up and spit them out the back.

“Playing the game is a lot like playing with death.”

The serious players are constantly eyeing each other. Waiting for someone to make the move, wondering if the time is right to counter. Always, they are at the front of the pack.

“The top 20% are playing the game, the other 80% are the tourists,” Brenneman said.

Brenneman played the game well in her second Tour de France, finishing 43rd out of the 84 riders competing in the women’s race. She placed in the top five in two of the race’s stages, missing first place by an inch on the run from Pau to Mont de Marson.

It was an exhilarating performance for Brenneman, who only 2 1/2 years ago began to race competitively. Now, there are more hills and flatlands to conquer.

Sunday, four days after her return from France, Brenneman will compete in the National Road Race in Spokane, Wash. Then she will ride in the Olympic trials, which start Tuesday in Spokane.

“I’m not going there with the idea of placing in the top three and making the Olympic team,” Brenneman said. “It’s for the experience. That takes the pressure off. Sometimes that’s a better condition to ride in; you end up doing better.”

It’s the same attitude Brenneman took to the Tour de France in 1987. Although she finished far back overall, Brenneman did place 13th during one stage.

“I had a lot more fun last year,” she said. “I was in a country other than the United States for the first time. I would walk around the cities at night, soaking up the culture. This year, I hardly went out at all.”

This year, it was all business.

From the moment she stepped off the airplane, the race was all that mattered. Still, she started slowly and was 68th after three stages.

“We got there three or four days before the race,” said Brenneman, who grew up in Des Moines, Iowa. “We had to get over the jet lag and get accustomed to the diet. The food is so rich over there.”

On the fourth stage, Brenneman made her move. On the road from Pau, she and four other riders pulled away from the pack. With 20 kilometers to go and the five riders jockeying for position, Brenneman glanced back and saw nothing.

“The rest of the field was nowhere in sight,” she said. “I realized I had a chance to win.”

For the sprint, it was just Brenneman and Valarie Simmonet of France. They crossed the finish line almost neck and neck.

“I thought I had won, but she just beat me,” Brenneman said. “Valarie told me later that if the race was one meter longer, I would have won. It was that close.”

Playing the game .

Brenneman has been playing the game since her the first competitive road race--although she didn’t realize it at the time. Riding in a practice race in Irvine, she positioned herself with the leaders, all of them men, and chased them to the finish line.

“I really didn’t know what I was doing,” Brenneman. said. “I didn’t even have a competition bike, it was a tour bike. It was heavier and had bigger tires. I was just having fun.”

However, a German rider, Bernd Niberg, took notice. He told Brenneman she should join a team and started recommending bicycles for racing.

“He told me, ‘You’re going to this and you’re going to do this,’ ” Brenneman said. “He told me everything I was going to need to compete.”

Although Brenneman knew little about road racing, she already was competitive.

From age 12, she had been a speed roller skater, competing in national races and even setting two national records (1,000 and 1,500 yards).

“It was my whole life,” she said. “That’s all I would think about--at school, home, everywhere.”

Two years ago, Brenneman placed third in the nationals and was a part of top winning relay teams. But the sport was becoming routine and she needed a change.

After moving from Des Moines to Laguna Hills, she started riding.

“I had always rode a bicycle as part of my speed-skating training,” she said. “The two sports are very similar. The involve the same muscle work.”

Brenneman finished fifth in the Irvine race and was hooked.

“I remember seeing these guys looking back at me. They couldn’t believe I was staying with them,” Brenneman said.

She began training daily and went to as many practice races as she could. Brenneman even met her husband, Rodney, whom she married in February, at a practice race.

After one year at Orange Coast College, Brenneman quit to concentrate on cycling.

“I look at it this way: I’m 22 years old and there’s a lot of time to finish college,” Brenneman said. “I want to see how far I can go with this first.”

Playing the game .

The game hasn’t changed, but the rules have. In the National Road Race and the Olympic trials, Brenneman will compete solo for the first time rather than with a team.

The difference is considerable.

“In France, I was designated as the person the team was going to work for,” she said. “If I needed a water bottle, one of my teammates would give me theirs or ride to the side and get me one. If someone else broke out of the pack, they would be the ones to chase them down and wear them out. It was teamwork.”

Next week, it will be all riders for themselves.

The trials figure to be worse than the nationals, as riders from all over the United States will be trying for the three Olympic team spots.

“I could see that during the Tour de France. Everyone was far more competitive than the year before,” Brenneman said. “It’s an Olympic year, and all the riders were already thinking about the Games.”

With the two of the biggest races of the year approaching, Brenneman spends her days relaxing around the house. She is still feeling the effects of jet lag after a trip from Paris to New York that lasted more than 24 hours--with layovers in Ireland and Canada.

Brenneman knows she will be at a disadvantage because of fatigue, so she is trying to get as much rest as possible.

“I’m not going to train at all,” she said. “I’m trying to recover from one race and store energy for another.”

Then, let the games begin.