Hey everyone. Back in September, I had the pleasure of sitting down with Paulina Dao to ask her some questions about her cycling journey. Last year, Paulina participated in her first cyclocross race at Nutty Cross, which seems to have sparked a fire of passion for the sport! I had been watching the evolution on social media and really wanted to chat and ask her questions. I wanted to share our discussion in hopes that it may help some people who may be on the fence about trying something new. Be careful! You might end up diving into a fantastic community and making some friends along the way. Anyway, enjoy this long transcript of our chat.
Jeff Namba
CHRIS
When was your first cyclocross race? In 2022 or 2023?
PAULINA
It was in 2023.
CHRIS
Have you done any other cyclocross races since then?
PAULINA
I have, and the next race I did was one of Uncle Frank's: Laguna del Sol, the naked race. It was really fun, and it was a very different course compared to Nutty Cross. Then, I also tried a Sac CX race at Granite Bay, which was the most fun!
I never thought riding in circles and dry heaving and laughing simultaneously would be so awesome! And all that sand…
I also did one Rockville race near Vacaville in February.
CHRIS
Cool!
Have you participated in other cycling events outside of Cyclocross?
PAULINA
Yeah. I did the short version of The Rock Cobbler, the Pebble Cobbler, which I think if you race cyclocross, the course suits you if you're into longer rides. I also did Stetina’s Paydirt, Flannel Grinder, which is more of an event than a race, and Tahoe Truckee. And I'm heading to Japan in a couple of weeks to do Grinduro Japan!
CHRIS
Oh my gosh, you've gone deep, huh?
PAULINA
Ha!
So, I met a guy at Rock Cobbler, and we started talking. He mentioned that he did Grinduro, but then Grinduro California got canceled. So, I was just like, "Oh, we could go do Grinduro in Japan." A couple of months after we started dating, he was like, "Let's go to Japan." I was like, "Oh, okay, this is happening."
CHRIS
That's fantastic! How did your experience at Nutty Cross help you in your future events?
PAULINA
Oh, man. I have two friends I ride with regularly, and they both raced at Nutty Cross. One of them had also done some rodeo cross stuff, and the other one, Nutty Cross was her first cyclocross race as well. We look back on Nutty Cross all the time. Anytime we are riding anything that's super muddy or technical, we look at the weather forecast and just like, “Oh well, it'll never be as bad as Nutty Cross 2023. It'll be chill.” For example, the three of us did Rock Cobbler back in February, and I think there was a mile-long, maybe two-mile section of mud, and leading up to it, everyone around us was like, “Oh my gosh, what do we do? It's gonna be really muddy. We're really scared.” The three of us look at each other. We're like, it can't be as bad as Nutty Cross, and we go through this super muddy Valley, and I think it just gave me the confidence, skills, and bike handling abilities, knowing that I’ve ridden even worse muddy conditions. So, I think the three of us were just having the best time, didn't stop ever, and were just cruising through this mile-long section passing all these people who were probably thinking, “What are these ladies doing? How are they making it through this section?!”
CHRIS
Ha ha, that's awesome.
So, what has your progression in the sport been like? You went from being anxious and nervous about participating in any cycling races but decided to go for it because it was free, and some of your friends peer pressured you into it, and you went for it. Now, you've done tons of different events. You're heading to Japan to do another cycling event. So, how has all of this gone? It hasn't just been a straight upward progression, right? I can imagine you've had some setbacks. So, talk through the Paulina of the past, pre-cyclocross.
PAULINA
About a year and a half ago, I bought a gravel bike. I didn't know anything about gravel cycling, but I just wanted to be able to ride dirt roads. This looks cool: a cross between road biking, which I don't really enjoy because I don't want to get hit by a car, and mountain biking, which seems slightly terrifying. I didn't really have any friends or know how to figure out where to find rides. So, I would just use Google to search for the best gravel rides in Sacramento, or at the time, I would also use AllTrails, which had some mountain biking stuff on there. I found some things like the Lake Natoma Loop, and I would just go out there and have no idea what I was doing. But I would ride the single track out there by myself, thinking that this is fine, that I'm not crashing, and that I'm still alive! At the same time, I started looking at different Strava cycling groups, like the Bike Dog ones and random gravel ones, to try to find routes in the Sacramento area. Because I honestly had no friends here! I moved here at the end of 2019, and I thought, “Oh, I don't need to make friends because all my friends from the Bay Area were still coming through Sacramento on their way to Tahoe.” I was hanging out with them until the pandemic happened, and I was like, “well, I really have no friends.”
I knew some people on Strava, and they uploaded this ride titled “Bat Ride.” If you're unsure what that ride is, it’s an annual ride, usually either the first weekend of August or the last weekend of July. People meet in Sacramento and ride out to the Yolo wildlife viewing area to look at the bats fly. They take a bunch of gravel, maybe illegal roads, or perhaps it's a pretty gray area on whether or not it's legal or illegal roads, back there, all the way back to Sacramento.
CHRIS
And it's at night, right?
PAULINA
Yeah, and it's at night, and it's really cool! Because you sit and hang out with snacks and beers, just watching all these bats fly out from under the causeway. You don't know when they will show up. It's kind of a gamble!
So, the Bat Ride 2023 happened, and I saw it on Strava. I reached out to someone and asked, “What is this bat ride?” And they were kind of rude about it. They were tongue-in-cheek like, “Oh, you know, it's only for people who know.” I’m like, “It can't be that secretive because it's on Strava!” But then that person said, “Oh, you should check out this Monday night Squid ride.” I'm like, “what is a squid ride?” They didn't respond after that. So I went deep down into the Google Rabbit hole and saw there's a group ride called a Shred to Ed’s? I don't know what that is, but this bike shop is only a few blocks from where I live. I had no excuse not to show up, so I did, but I was scared out of my mind.
I didn't know anyone, and everyone just looked very crusty. You know, covered in tattoos and riding really cool-looking bikes, but I'm just like, what on earth am I doing here? And so, I follow all these people to the bridge where the ride officially starts. And then even crustier people in kits and stuff roll up. They look way too fast. I'm just wondering, “What did I get myself into?!” As I’m just standing there awkwardly by myself, one of the participants looks at me and says, “Hey, you’re new around here, aren't you?” Well, is it obvious that I don't know anyone?
I rode the whole thing, and … oh yeah. Before that, I commented on Squid's Instagram, “Hey, I'd like to come on this. Someone told me about it who’s kind of separate from the community but used to participate in the rides. He said, ‘Oh, it's pretty easy for me because I'm an ex-pro cyclist, but it's off-camber, some single track, some sand. Who knows? You might survive, you might not’, and I'm like, great. So, is this an event or a ride I can keep up on? Because all these reels look so fast, and everyone looks so fast and scary, it was really intimidating.” The person who ran the Instagram account said, “Hey, you should come by. We'll make sure you don't get left behind.” So I ended up doing a hybrid ride of some of the single track, some of the easier route, and I got home, and I was just like, “Well, I did that! And I survived! I don't know if I liked it, but I'm not a quitter.” So I came back the next week, and I said “All I have to do is give this a proper try and make sure I either like it or don't like it.”
Jeff Namba
CHRIS
You did great by reaching out ahead of time instead of just showing up. A person doesn't know somebody else's skill set just because they're a new face on the ride. They could be experienced riders visiting from out of town. It can be awkward to say, “hey, are you new on this ride? What's your skill set?” The fact that you reached out ahead of time and were like, Hey, I’m coming; I'm nervous. Can I do this? Can you guys help me out when I'm out there? And they did! That was a great way to engage with folks because they probably took a different approach, and they're like, “Oh, here's Paulina. We know she's new; we should align our expectations with that and increase our awareness of where she is.” Not that you'll get special treatment, but having additional awareness is huge, right? Ultimately, you are out amongst cars and trails, and it can be easy to lose track of folks because someone may turn off for a coffee shop or get a flat tire and just say, I’m over it. Knowing who's out there and what they're doing is good.
PAULINA
Yeah, and that's one thing I've noticed as well. Last year, there was never a question like, "Hey, is anyone new here? You follow this person for an easier route.” They've been doing a better job this year saying, "This person will be leading the SO EZ route." So, if you don't want to do the hard stuff, follow this person or switch back and forth.
Giving it a proper shot was my approach to cyclocross as well. I was like, okay, I did nutty cross. That was maybe one of the most miserable type-2 fun things I could have ever done. It was so muddy! But then, a week went by, and I would look back, and I'm like, Well, okay, I did that, and I'm still alive, and I can be really proud of myself. So, the opportunity came up to do other races, and I wanted to give this a good shot to see if it was something I really enjoyed or did not enjoy. Also, I am just trying out different courses and different series because they vary wildly across different types of terrain.
CHRIS
Totally! Even within a very similar course, like at the Ruhstaller farm. From one year to the next is a completely different experience. Suppose you're in the dry versus in the mud. That's what's fun about Cyclocross, at least to me. You can do the same course, but it's completely different year to year, depending on the weather or how they route it.
PAULINA
Yeah, and then from Cyclocross, I started to get into bigger gravel races. I'd heard about the rock cobbler race before I had heard of Cyclocross. Someone said, "Oh, this looks really dumb because it's a dumb course. They put random obstacles, like a ball pit, or you ride through someone's living room”, and this person was just like, “I would never do this.” And I'm like, “Riding through someone's living room?! This sounds great! Sign me up.”
The two women who I met at Nutty Cross were like, “We might be signing up for this.” And so I went down the rabbit hole and saw that the Rock Pebbler is billed as a very long cyclocross course. At that point, I thought I had secretly enjoyed this cyclocross thing; I would never tell anyone I did. I liked all the terrain we rode around Sacramento. I ended up getting a scholarship to race at Rock Cobbler through an organization called Radical Adventure Riders. They have a chapter in Reno and want more women, trans, and non-binary people into bikes and racing. I applied, and they gave me a hundred dollars, which knocked my race entry fee down to something I felt comfortable trying. Once I did that event, my other friends peer pressured me into Paydirt, and they were like, “Well if you like Rock Cobbler, you might like this! If I could only do one gravel event, it would be Paydirt.” I got another scholarship from a separate organization called Loose Program racing out in Auburn, which covered entry for that event.
CHRIS
So, what does the next level of progression in cycling look like for you?
PAULINA
I don't know what progression is. Is it getting better, or is it just trying different things?
CHRIS
I think it's a bit of both. The more time you spend on the bike, the better you get, right? For example, you had this experience racing in the mud at Nutty Cross, and then when you reached a muddy section at a gravel race, it was not a problem for you. If you had not had that cyclocross experience in that horrendous torrential downpour of a mud mess that you had, then that would have been more challenging and scarier; maybe you would have gotten off your bike at some point. Who knows, right? So, you are progressing in skill as you put in your hours.
How much time do you spend riding your bike in a typical week?
PAULINA
I spend too much time riding my bike at this point, haha!
CHRIS
Ha! Well, what does that mean?
PAULINA
Right now I work for myself so it's really easy to get out Monday night for Shred to Ed’s. As we get into cross season, every Wednesday night, there's something called Wednesday night pickups. Instead of driving my car across town, I usually ride my bike and then ride about in a bunch of dusty, sandy circles, and then ride home. And honestly, whenever someone says, “Hey, do you want to go out on a ride?” I'm like, “Sounds good. Let me know what time.” So, probably at least five to ten hours per week, depending on the weather and whatnot.
I enjoy dumb challenges with bike riding, hiking, or climbing. Some of my friends organized a fake race called the Bümhündo. It’s just a century on our local river trails. They devised a 17-ish mile route that we rode six times to hit a hundred and two miles. It was terrible, but when I heard about it, many people said, "No, this sounds awful. I will not do this." And I was like, "Oh, this sounds dumb, but I want to try to push myself this way.”
CHRIS
Do you ride indoors, or do you just ride outside?
PAULINA
I do some riding indoors, but because we've been fortunate with the weather this year in terms of smoke and air quality, I have done most of my riding outside.
CHRIS
You mentioned that you were self-employed. What line of work are you in?
PAULINA
I am currently a freelance photographer and content creator or influencer.
CHRIS
Do you have any regular clients or people you work with who are cyclists?
PAULINA
Well, right now. Not really, because most of my clients still tend to be less cycling-focused and more outdoor hiking, backpacking, and climbing-focused.
CHRIS
So, how did you find bikes? You said you bought a gravel bike on what sounds like a whim. Was there anything that motivated you initially?
PAULINA
Yeah, I kind of just bought a gravel bike on a whim. I was in Arizona on a work trip, and it was actually with a bike-focused company. They tapped me to say, “Hey, we need someone to be talent for this thing. You know how to ride a bike, right? This will be chill, like don't worry about it.” While in Arizona, we walked into this really cool small bike shop, and I saw this little blue Surly. I said, “Oh, that's a really cool color bike.” The next day, I came back in, and the owners were like, “You know, this bike is in your size if you wanted to try it out,” and I was like, “Yeah, I'll try it out!” I had been thinking about a gravel bike for a while and didn't know where to start. I feel like it fell into my lap, and she's like, “Oh, it's the holidays. So, we're trying to clear out some inventory for next year, so it's 10% off.” And then my boyfriend's dad said, “I'll give you a couple of hundred bucks for Christmas. If you want to buy this bike,” and then my boyfriend at the time said, “I will drive this from Tucson back to California for you.” I was like, “I guess I can use whatever money I make on this project to pay for this bike.” But before that, I got a little garbage hybrid, a commuter bike that I still own. I bought it to commute around San Francisco and the Bay Area.
CHRIS
Okay, so bikes weren't totally foreign before you got a gravel bike. You'd been riding a bit. And it sounds like you had a lot of enablers trying to get you going as well.
PAULINA
Yeah! And then, I also got laid off from my tech job in June of 2022 and had severance plus unemployment that I was milking. I started volunteering at the Sacramento Valley, California, Native Plant Society near Rancho Cordova. I had no job and didn’t want to drive out there, but I wanted to volunteer. So, I rode this little dumb bike all the way out there. It was 11 miles out and 11 miles back, so about two hours round trip. That was when I started acquiring more bike gear, like, “Oh, I should get chamois because my butt kind of hurts, and gloves and all the other stuff.” So, getting into gravel bikes was a very incremental thing.
CHRIS
Awesome, that’s all part of the progression I was talking about! You started with commuting, and then you got curious about gravel bikes because you wanted to get off the road, and mountain bikes were too scary, so you dipped your toe into riding dirt. Then you start finding rides and different trails and get hooked up with the Squid group rides. Eventually, that led to you getting peer-pressured into racing Nutty Cross, and then Rock Cobbler and other longer events, and now… I'll call you a full-blown cyclist. You could put that on your LinkedIn at this point. It seems like a large part of your identity now.
Do you have cycling goals for this season? Are there any for cyclocross specifically?
PAULINA
Unfortunately, I'm missing a good chunk of this cyclocross season because of the Japan trip. My goal is not to finish last. I'm still trying to figure out what category I want to race in because I do have a single-speed, and I know that there are single-speed categories at Rodeocross and Sac CX. But at the same time, everyone racing in those categories has been riding for so long that it's kind of scary. I know that I would never hold my own against them. So I'm like, maybe I'll race Women C again, on the single speed because I'm a C girl. I also have a tracklocross bike coming. So, maybe I will race Nutty Cross on the tracklocross bike in the tracklocross division or women's C. Just to give myself a little bit of a disadvantage.
I may have lofty aspirations of getting on the podium for something, but I don't know if that’s what’s possible. I don't want to get my hopes up too high and disappoint myself. I don't know. The problem is that I can ride technical things all day but struggle with being fast and having power. Some friends have told me that I could start doing interval training and whatnot, which could improve that. Still, I don't think I am at the point where I want to start training like that because it might make riding bikes less fun. Also, it takes away from riding outside, and I don't want to do interval training outside.
CHRIS
Yeah, I mean, from my experience, it can totally make things way less fun, but on the flip side, it's also really fun to be super fast.
PAULINA
Yeah. So, we’ll see how this season goes and then start putting in the work for next season. I won't plan a trip in the middle of it.
CHRIS
So, let’s return to the moment right after your first cyclocross race last season. Is there anything that you wish you had known before your first race that you were totally oblivious about?
PAULINA
I wish I knew about the community aspect and how you can make it as serious or unserious as you want it to be. There will be people in full race mode going as hard as they can, but there will also be people there who are just there to have fun or a combination of the two.
In my mind, a race is a race. It's very serious. You're out there to do well, and if you don't podium, you suck, but just being out there and experiencing everything, especially in the women's races, it's so cool how supportive everyone is! Of course, you're racing against these people, but they are still cheering you on and want you to do well even though they're beating your butt or you're beating their butt. Having all the spectators was really cool, too! It’s not just my friends cheering for me; it's random people just being like, “Oh, go like number blah blah, you’ve got this! You're doing great.” My mom and brother came out to see the race, and at the end, they said, “Wow, you know so many people. There are so many people cheering for you!” But it’s just the supportive community doing that for everyone.
CHRIS
Do you find that the community aspect of Cyclocross is different from some of the other events you've done?
PAULINA
Yeah, I think so. I feel like people are just so serious about the bigger gravel races. It doesn't feel like people are supportive unless you have a flat or a mechanical; in that case, they might be supportive, but I got heckled at my first gravel race because I had a steel bike by this guy who had a carbon bike. We're both pushing our bikes up the same 30% grade. Like, we're in the same spot, you know? You don't have to gear shame me for having a heavy bike that was all I could afford at the time.
In the cyclocross community, people were like “Oh man, you're racing on a Surly? That's insane! How cool.” Like they'll compliment your quirky bike.
Kyle Thornhill
CHRIS
I feel like the Cyclocross community is masochistic in that way.
How much of an impact did the free entry have on your willingness to try cyclocross?
PAULINA
The free entry put me over the edge because I was very apprehensive about doing it. I have a lot of Childhood trauma around races being competitive. So I was just like, "I don't want to do this if I'm just paying to fail." So, trying it for free and seeing what it was all about was immensely helpful.
CHRIS
Were there any real or perceived hurdles that kept you from racing in the past? For example, not having the right bike or a bike at all, fears of crashing, or just a lack of general specific knowledge. Anything like that.
PAULINA
I think this has to do with growing up as an Asian person, but I was consistently being compared to my peers, my family, and other people, and I felt like I had to be the best in anything I did. That mindset is so ingrained in me that the concept of race means there are winners and losers. I don't want to be a loser. What would my family think?
CHRIS
Looking back on yourself before your first race, what would you tell yourself, and how would you squash some of those fears and apprehensions before diving into racing?
PAULINA
I would tell myself to go out and do my best. There's really nothing to lose except maybe your pride and the race entry fee, but going out and trying your best is better than not trying at all.
CHRIS
I like it.
What unexpected resources made your race experience more positive? So that would be like, what's been keeping you engaged longer term? You've mentioned the Sacramento group of racers and general group rides to practice skills and drills.
PAULINA
All of the Shred to Eds every Monday have been immensely helpful going into cyclocross season. Everyone always says what you ride on Monday is harder than anything you will ride in a cyclocross course, especially Nutty Cross, because it is relatively flat and pretty non-technical. But obviously, I didn't believe them. I was like, “No, this will be the worst thing ever. This will be so hard”, but everything we ride on Mondays is much more difficult.
There are also a lot of people in the Sacramento cycling community who have been putting on random clinics here and there just via word of mouth, so it's kind of just like keeping an eye out. I found that people are just so nice and generous with their time. I reached out to a friend, and I said to him, “Hey, you wrote me, like, three paragraphs on why I should race Nutty Cross. Can you help me with some skills practice?” And he's like, “Yeah, let's meet on this day, at this spot, and we'll go over stuff.” We went over dismounts, remounts, cornering, and barriers. We just practiced for like an hour or two until it got dark.
CHRIS
That's amazing.
PAULINA
Yeah, and so I think it's one of those things where it's hard, but you have to put yourself out there and set the intention of, "Hey, I need help with this thing. Can someone help me?” People are more than happy to take you up on that because I think many people will never really offer to help on their own, but if you ask for help, they are more than happy to.
CHRIS
Are you open to people reaching out to you for help?
PAULINA
Absolutely! They don't call me Peer Pressure Paulina for nothing.
CHRIS
My last question is, if you were to peer pressure another friend into trying cyclocross for the first time, what would you say to them in two sentences or less?
PAULINA
I would say that you are riding around in circles on a silly course with your friends. Sometimes, you have to walk your bike, and sometimes, you get drinks or snacks.
CHRIS
So, why not right?
PAULINA
Exactly.
CHRIS
I love it! That makes me want to go for a race right now.
Thanks, Paulina – I’m excited to see you out there again this year. Keep spreading those good vibes and helping people step outside their comfort zone.
Be sure to come out and cheer Paulina on again this year as she tackles Nutty Cross for the second year in a row on the anniversary of her first cyclocross race. Do you think she’ll make her way onto the podium this year? We’ll see!
