Fast women -- and one slug lover

<p>There are a couple riders signed up for the 2009 Tour of California Women's Criterium with more impressive resumes than Brooke Miller's. There may be a few who are more athletic or more effervescent, though that is highly debatable.</p><p>But one fact is certain: No one who will compete in downtown Santa Rosa on Sunday knows more about banana slugs than Miller, the No. 1 sprinter for the Palo Alto-based Team TIBCO and defending champion of the TOC Women's Criterium. She holds a doctorate in evolutionary biology, and her thesis project was on sexual conflict among the colorful, slimy gastropods.</p><p>"I still love the slugs!" Miller e-mailed recently from the Ladies' Tour of Qatar, where she was riding for the U.S. national team in what was billed as the first women's professional cycling event in the Middle East. "I get a little tiny rush whenever I see a particularly beautiful slug on a ride."</p><p>Ironic that she would be drawn to a creature that moves so slowly. This woman is a fast rider, and a fast learner. Miller, 32, didn't get into cycling until the age of 26.</p><p>Since then, she has climbed the ladder of women's cycling as if she were drafting off the peloton up a minor hill. She began riding with the UC Santa Cruz team -- known, of course, as the Banana Slugs -- while in grad school, and by Year 3 had won the Collegiate Cycling Road National Championship.</p><p>Miller's achievements have grown steadily, but 2008 was a true breakthrough. She started the year by outracing a strong field in Santa Rosa, and finished it with a national-title double-dip: victories at the Elite Road National Championships in Orange County -- near where Miller grew up in Huntington Beach -- and, two weeks later, at the U.S. National Criterium Championships in Downers Grove, Ill. She became the first woman to hold both titles simultaneously.</p><p>Not that her ascent should be a complete surprise.Miller has always been a hyper-competitive jock. She was a very good volleyball player in high school, but tore a knee ligament and never was quite the same again on the court, though she was on the volleyball team at Cal as an undergrad.</p><p>Cycling has become her second sports chapter, and her obsession. She "dabbles" in software and database building, and helps Team TIBCO with marketing, but pretty much races full time these days.</p><p>She'll have to push hard to finish out front Sunday in what amounts to an all-star field in the Women's Criterium. Her competitors include:</p><p>Ina Teutenberg (Team Columbia-Highroad), winner of the Liberty Classic, Giro d'Italia and Tour of New Zealand in 2008.</p><p>Tina Pic (Colavita/Sutter Home), five-time U.S. Criterium champion.</p><p>Emilia Fahlin (Team Columbia-Highroad), the current Swedish national champion and third-place finisher in the 2008 Tour of California crit.</p><p>Shelley Olds (ProMan), the 2008 Elite National Scratch Race Champion and Rotterdam Tour winner.</p><p>Miller must also overcome whatever ailed her in Qatar. After a decent start, she lost steam and finished 30th.</p><p>Fortunately for TIBCO, she is not a one-woman show. Her teammates include contenders like Lauren Tamayo, a U.S. national team vet who has earned Top 10 finishes at both the Tour de L'Aude and the Giro d'Italia Femminile, and Meredith Miller (no relation to Brooke), who has ridden in elite races like the women's Tour de France and the Giro. Both are performing well heading into the 2009 TOC criterium, which kicks off the National Racing Calendar.</p><p>The women will circumnavigate a .7-mile rectangular course formed by Third, Fourth, B and E streets, cheered by what is expected to be a huge throng of race fans.</p><p>AMGEN, the company that promotes the Tour of California, had originally proposed a women's Tour of California stage race in 2009, but had to scale back the plan due to slumping economics.</p><p>"I am obviously extremely disappointed that we don't have more races, but very happy and appreciative that we still do have our event," Brooke Miller said. "Crits have the full drama and excitement of a full road race boiled down into an hour of something that the spectators can watch unfold before them. It is a great way to teach people how racing works."</p><p>Maybe someone in the crowd will be enticed to try competitive cycling herself, another late bloomer pulled away from the slugs and into the company of fast women.</p><p>You can reach Staff Writer Phil Barber at 521--5263 or phil.barber@pressdemocrat.com.</p><p>SCHEDULE</p><p>2009 Tour of California</p><p>Women's Criterium</p><p>When: 1 p.m., Sunday</p><p>Where: Downtown, rectangle bounded by Third, Fourth, B and E streets</p><p>Finish line: Third St., between Santa Rosa Ave. and D St.</p><p>Course length: .7 mile</p><p>Purse: $15,000, plus primes</p><p>Riders to watch: Brooke Miller (TIBCO), Ina Teutenberg (Columbia Highroad), Tina Pic (Colavita-Sutter Home), Gina Grain (Webcor), Shelley Olds (ProMan), Emilia Fahlin (Columbia Highroad)</p>