Still, it was hard to feel like competition mattered. In May, she was back in Austin, staying with Cash, and preparing for Gravel Locos on May 20th in nearby Hico, Texas, another race in which she was, yet again, a favorite.Ĭaitlin Cash outside her home in Austin, Texas, November 2022. First in the Belgian Waffle Ride by more than a half hour, first again at Sea Otter. All the while, Mo was winning almost everything she lined up for: Big Sugar. A few weeks later, Cash was up in Vermont again, at the Wilsons’ for Christmas, pulling lip balm and Toblerone from a stocking that had belonged to Mo’s grandfather. Mo worked from the kitchen, Cash from the loft, and during the day, they kept up a steady banter workshopping the wording of texts and emails from either end of the stairs. They didn’t ride together-Mo was tough to keep up with-but they both loved to cook Cash an empty-the-fridge kind of chef, Mo, a methodical gourmand who shopped for the ingredients in each new recipe. Within a few weeks, Mo was crashing in Cash’s apartment in Austin, stringing her laptop cord across the kitchen, swapping career advice and wine recommendations. It was the first event in the Life Time Grand Prix series, and her victory made her the series leader going into Unbound in early June. Mo chases down the lead group on her way to winning the 2022 Sea Otter Classic Fuego 80k. “I’ve been looking forward to meeting you!” Mo met her eye through a scrum of admirers and gave a tiny, friendly wave. That night, Cash approached her in a crowded bar. The 103.8-mile “Big Sugar” was the first big race Moriah, known as “Mo,” had won. In late October, Cash traveled to Bentonville, Arkansas, to do the 53.2-mile “Lil Sugar” at Big Sugar Gravel and screwed up the courage to introduce herself. Over the next couple of months, as she vacuumed, repainted, and made trips to the store, she found herself stopping to chat with Moriah’s mother, Karen, in town, or going on bike rides and stacking firewood with Moriah’s brother, Matt. Later that day, Cash found Moriah’s family cheering along the course and talked with them long enough to realize they were neighbors back in East Burke. So much poise, so much grace, so much grit. Subtly, a bit mysteriously, but undeniably, Moriah was smiling through the grueling effort. That weekend at Rooted, she was pitching in to help the organizers with social media.Īs she watched Moriah race, she was moved to tears. ![]() For Cash, who raced on weekends and had a close circle of cycling friends, the inn was one more way to integrate her passion for biking into the routines of her life. The Kingdom Trails, a network of a hundred miles of singletrack, was just across the street. But a year into the pandemic, she and a group of friends had bought an old inn together in East Burke, a tiny town in Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom, about 45 minutes from the Canadian border. Caitlin Cash worked as a project manager for a tech company in Austin, Texas. The video was taken by a woman she’d never met. Join Bicycling for unlimited access to best-in-class storytelling, exhaustive gear reviews, and expert training advice that will make you a better cyclist. Each time race vehicles pulled ahead of the pack and waited for it to pass, here came Moriah, overtaking another rider. ![]() Now, she was battling back toward the front. ![]() As races go, it had been a rocky day: she’d lost her chain, gotten a flat, and nearly missed a turn, falling well behind the leading women. Moriah’s limbs are splayed over the bike frame, legs pumping. A thick blond braid falls from her helmet like a rope. In the background, an unbroken canopy of maple, birch, and evergreen. Her jersey flashes green and white, a blur of gravel beneath her. Moriah charges across a forested hillside from right to left, fast enough that it’s hard to make out she’s climbing. It’s six seconds long, taken through a car window. ![]() There’s a video of Moriah Wilson from August 1, 2021, at Rooted Vermont, the only race where her family got to watch her compete professionally.
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