by Tom Ewing
Tillie Anderson captured the attention of the sporting world in the 1890s by her remarkable success in bicycle races. Anderson emigrated from Sweden to the United States at the age of fourteen. While working as a seamstress, she began racing bicycles. These races usually took place over several days with several hours of racing on a track each evening. An advertisement in the Grand Forks Herald on August 27, 1896 declared Anderson “Champion of the world.” In Chicago, Anderson “triumphed over men riders with consummate ease” after they had boasted of their ability to defeat her. In 1899, Anderson raced for several consecutive evenings in front of a crowd estimated at 6000 people in Kansas City. Illustrations from the Kansas City Journal depicted the start of the women’s race and Anderson’s victory by a wheel at the finish.
After retiring from racing in 1902, Anderson remained committed to cycling for the next sixty years of her life. She advocated for establishing bicycle paths in Chicago parks and remained involved in cycling associations until her death in 1965. In 2000, she was inducted into the US Bicycling Hall of Fame.
More than a century later, women’s professional cycling has established an important presence along Route 76 in Virginia. Virginia’s Blue Ridge Team TWENTY28 (Facebook / Website) is made up of international cyclists competing in major competitions sponsored by the UCI. Virginia’s Blue Ridge Team TWENTY28 cyclists regularly use sections of Route 76 for their training rides, as indicated by the route maps posted on Ride with GPS These routes include more than four hundred miles (equivalent to cycling across Virginia) and more than 28,000 feet of climbing (nearly the height of Mount Everest, or more than four times the elevation of Mount Rogers, the highest mountain in Virginia). The fact that riders can cover so many miles and so much climbing within fifty or so miles of Roanoke is testament to the great training available in the Blue Ridge mountains. These cycling routes include a long section of the Transamerican Route 76 from just north of Roanoke through the Catawba Valley and down to Blacksburg and Christiansburg.
Tillie Anderson and Virginia’s Blue Ridge Team TWENTY28 are connected by their sporting achievements as well as their commitment to recognizing and supporting women athletes. Anderson had to retire from racing after several years because of the limited opportunities for women cyclists in that era. The successes of both the most experienced and the youngest riders who make up Blue Ridge Team TWENTY28 illustrate the great opportunities available to women cyclists in this era.
Photos: Resul Kurtbedin Photography; Team Twenty28 website
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