MEET THE ATHLETE: JILL MARTINDALE

With a little over 100 miles to go to reach Nome, Jill Martindale is showing everyone why women athletes have their place at the top.

If you’ve followed Jill’s fast-moving dot over the past few weeks, you will have noticed she’s been on a mission: winning the ITI1000 Bike Race.

Although not surprising for those who know her, Jill’s performance in this year’s particularly tough edition merits special attention. Jill has been consistently at the top of the race, keeping up but also challenging ITI1000 veterans when needed.

What may surprise Jill’s new fans - and believe us, there are many - is that although an accomplished athlete now, Jill was never a teen who’s busy riding mountain bikes. She actually thought people only did it to show off the gear. The young woman only started riding trails when she began working at Grand Rapids Bicycle Company, a bike shop in her hometown of Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Move forward a few years and Jill has an impressive list of bicycle racing accomplishments to her name. From finishes of the Dirty Kanza 200, to Coast To Coast gravel races and Marji Gesick 100 mountain bike race, she’s proven that she can easily master gravel, MTB, and fat bike racing.

Jill is also a multiple-time finisher and former champion of both the Arrowhead Ultra 135 and Tuscobia 160 winter races. 2018 was a successful year for Jill. Aside from being honoured with induction into the Michigan Mountain Biking Hall of Fame, she was also a finisher of JayP’s Fat Pursuit 200 and scooped a second place in the ITI350 Bike Race- her first foray into ITI racing. Not bad for someone who thought people riding mountain bikes were silly a few years earlier.

Since that big year, she’s not rested on her laurels and this past winter, she and her husband Dan - aka Teddy - have set up and run a training camp called Winter Shakedown. The objective of the camp is to educate people on winter riding and teach them the necessary skills to develop for racing safely. Looking at Jill’s stellar ride across Alaska in the past few weeks, it is clear that she’s applied her own teaching principles to her racing on the Trail.

There are many reasons why her fellow top racers Casey Fagerquist and last year’s ITI1000 Champion Petr Ineman, both equally deserving of an admiring accolade, have been racing with Jill. Apart from challenging them, it may be her uplifting, sparkling, ever enthusiastic personality that keeps the lead pack together. Out of all our racers, only one broke into a cheeky, winning grin at our Pre-Race photo call - guess who that was?

Her friendliness and optimistic persona make Jill a great role model and inspiration to both experienced and aspiring athletes. Which is why she is a perfect ambassador for her sponsor, the manufacturer of top adventure bikes Salsa Cycles, but also for her lucky employer, Velocity USA.

Jill often credits group riding for her accrued confidence and bravery in life, as well as a better health. This may explain how, very naturally, Jill ended up leading women’s group rides and cycling clinics. Which eventually snowballed into promoting cycling through the Skirts in the Dirt race. A women’s race that Jill helped setting up and that has turned many non-riders into keen athletes over the last few years.

Jill Martindale is what the world needs right now: a selfless, community-driven, highly performant athlete who inspires others to quit the “I’m-not-an-athlete-mentality” and just have fun with cycling.

So as she is busy pushing towards Nome, trading Snickers bars for moose sausages with mushers on her way, let’s cheer on this exceptional athlete who reminds us that being positive, focused and human is an incredible power on the Trail, but also off the Trail.

Always smiling, always pushing. Jill Martindale earlier in the race.