Written and reported by
Logan Jones-Wilkins
It took Laini Ritsch a decade to get to the finish line of the Green Mountain Stage Race in first place overall. That is the best approximation of her starting line of the journey that brought her from short runs on a treadmill to winning the Cat 3 overall title of the famous pro/amateur stage race in Vermont.
In and of itself, winning that stage race for Ritsch is likely a lily pad on her progress through the sport. She dominated the field in Vermont and should be racing at the Cat 1-2 level next year, but in cycling, we are too conditioned to focus on people at the end of their progression. There is often more to learn from someone at the verge of that full potential.
In Laini, the athletic journey is also paired with her role as the CFO of Carbs Fuel as she builds the brand with her fiancé, Gabe Multer, who started Carbs in their home two years ago. All of this has put Laini in a position that is simultaneously relatable and exceptional in the cycling landscape.
“I didn't really get into endurance sport at all until 18 when I went to school, and I started running on the treadmill for 3 miles,” Laini said of the start of her athletic journey. “I thought that was a pretty crazy thing to do.
“Then, I started running outside. I got a little bit more adventurous. I realized that I could do a lot more than 3 miles, and so I built up to running 8 miles every day. And then on the weekends, I would do more.”
Like so many other collegiate runners, that path to more grew and grew like a snowball, gathering momentum through 5ks, 10ks, and half-marathons. All of it felt like “insane” things for Laini before that insanity turned to reality. Ultimately, her running journey hit its natural terminus of the running snowball in her senior year at the Bend marathon.
“I ran a 3:07 with literally no nutrition,” Laini said. “I bonked on every single run. I never really ran much over 8 miles because I never carried any nutrition. I didn't have a coach, and I didn’t know any strength training — it was just something I decided to do on my own.”
The peak of Laini’s running came in her next marathon, where she set her personal best time of 2:56, less than a year before the pandemic turned things on its head.
“During the pandemic, what else was there to do other than just overtrain yourself into the ground? I was running hundred-mile weeks, and I thought more volume is better and less feeling is better, and it was just not sustainable.
“At this point, Gabe and I are dating, and he's going on these fun-looking bike rides. It would be like I'll go run, you go ride, and we'll meet up in the afternoon. I was training for Boston in Denver, and it was just so miserable. I stopped on the run and said, ‘I quit. I'm done.’
“So I called for a pick up and we went and got a coffee, where we canceled our flights to Boston. I was not even upset about it.”
For many runners, this is a familiar story. The momentum builds, the miles stark to stack, the times fall — and then the momentum stops. Niggles turn to injuries. Injuries start to linger. What feels good starts to feel like work.
Many try to push through it. Grit is, after all, an admirable trait. Yet others take a different path and pick up a bike or a pair of skis. Laini had the example of Gabe to make the choice pretty darn simple. She picked up a bike in 2022.
“Gabe was so patient to do literally every ride with me for like one and a half years straight, doing zone negative one,” Laini said with a chuckle, “ I'm actually, I'm a good drafter, so maybe he was doing straight zone two
“I would draft Gabe around the Denver/Golden area, and he would say that I need to be eating and drinking all the time. I started realizing that you can go so much farther without feeling like you're hallucinating after two hours, which was really fun.”
With her biker boyfriend as a guide, Laini built her confidence ride after ride, week after week. She was still running, but now with the formulations that would soon become Carbs Fuel fueling their rides, Laini was slowly accumulating all of the tools so many other embattled runners or cycling-curious women don’t necessarily have to make the jump to cycling.
“In 2023, I bought a Cannondale, I had a Wahoo, and Gabe showed me how to route rides and fix a flat,” Laini said. “I was self-sustaining, and I knew how to fuel, so I was like. ‘All right, I'm all set to go out for the day. We don't need to ride together all the time.’
“I could actually start training once I knew how to do that.”
Laini has taken that momentum and rolled with it. In the two years since she bought the bike, bike computer, and flat fixing skills, she has been climbing up the Strava leaderboards across the Front Range. Top ten’s on Golden Gate, Flagstaff, Lookout, and NCAR tell the story of just how far she’s come, without a plateau in sight despite her self-depricating Instagram stories. By all accounts, Laini has found the sport that clicks with her physiology.
Unfortunately, without Gabe giving her some of that autonomy, she might never have found it. That is why we are here today. Here is our roadmap for women to get into cycling, with or without a bike boyfriend.
Route building is an essential skill for women in cycling
In the modern world, lots of things are changing that don’t necessarily make things better for women’s security on the open road. For cyclists, however, route-building tools and resources create much safer avenues for women tackling cycling with confidence.
Many folks might point to things further down this list as the priority, but Laini pointed to route building as the number one skill women need to get deeper into cycling independently. And if you listen to her rationale, it’s clear she has a point.
“Gabe would route everything to start because there are known roads that are not good if you're trying to actually train,” Laini said about her entry into the route-making world. “Roads might look dark on a heat mat, but that's because it's a bike path that’s mostly for commuters. I think there's a basic necessity of understanding where people similar to you like to ride to understand the normal routes that people are on. Then, you can start to mix and match.”
For Laini, most of that mixing and matching is up in the Golden area, with her routes criss-crossing the Front Range’s many canyons and climbs. Kerr Gulch, Golden Gate, Witter Gulch, and, of course, Lookout Mountain are all staples of her rides that are getting bigger and more ambitious as the training weeks start to stack up. Those routes, Laini has on lock. No mapping needed. Yet, for her more adventurous outings, she has refined her route-building.
“Last week, I went to Boulder, and I had to double-check if these roads were okay or not. I checked with Gabe, and then I checked with some people I follow who ride there. Going into those rides, I'm on more of an adventure experience, but if you're really planning to train, do a specific workout, it's not really the best plan.”
Nevertheless, to get to the point where you can even distinguish a boring workout experience and an adventurous one, expanding known terrain is a key first step. For Laini, this starts and ends with Strava, where she can look at heat maps, find inspiration and confirmation from athletes she follows, and control her riding experience to the point where she doesn’t need to stress over it.
Learn to fix flats first; all other bike maintenance is a plus
Going hand and hand with route building is the technical know-how to get home, even if your well-thought-out route has gotten the better of you.
Flat tires are bound to happen to cyclists regardless of experience and skill. If you ride, you flat. Unfortunately, those riders with more experience are much better suited to ensuring the flat doesn’t ruin their ride, or worse, jeopardize their safety.
What’s more, in a society where there is a persistent divide in how gender interacts with technical tasks like bike maintenance, there can be a baseline level of intimidation that discourages women from gaining the needed skills to learn how to plug a tire or swap a tube.
I run tubeless, and that is always the first line of defense,” Laini said of planning around flat tire fixes. “If you can have it sealed enough and refill the tire with CO2, that covers some of it. That's pretty basic. I feel like anyone can become comfortable doing that.
“The second line of defense is that you need to be educated enough to sit down and problem-solve on your own. You do need to be able to have enough strength for the tire levers to get on the bead, but it comes with practice. Spend 20 minutes if you need to, and figure out how to get the tire back on. Then, be patient and confident that you can do it.
“You're going to get messy, you're gonna get sticky from sealant, and you're gonna get grease and dirt on your hands, but it will be ok.”
Good fueling is not just for the fastest riders
Throughout Laini’s athletic journey over the past few years, her fueling journey has run parallel to the running, riding, and bonking she has endured over the years.
Ultimately, cycling has cracked the code for her at the same time as Carbs Fuel has grown into a business that has cracked the code for so many other aspiring cyclists.
“It's directly correlated to the volume you can do on the bike,” Laini said about her fueling journey. “It's just so much more volume than you can do running, so you can’t get away easily without doing it right. You might feel exhausted at the end of a long run if you didn't fuel well, but you're not actively in danger or going to run into traffic. You might if you haven't fueled up properly.
“We consistently do rides for 3 to 4 hours, and I wasn't doing hard runs for 3-4 hours, so it's pretty impossible to actually train on the bike and see any results without fueling.
Even though gels and mix on the bike is important, for Laini, that volume of training also emphasized the other types of nutrition she has focused on.
“Recovery might even be more impactful than the training,” she said. “It's really important to feel like your muscles are ready to pedal again the next day without feeling like you're just gonna dig yourself into a hole. It's not gonna be very fun to just feel tired every day and have the brain fog that comes along with it.”
Most crucial, however, has been the lessons Laini has learned about the necessary daily routine of fueling right.
“I’m riding mostly in the afternoon, so in the mornings I eat a pretty insane amount of protein. I do an egg white omelet with other whole eggs and potatoes or some rice. I’ll also do Greek yogurt and cottage cheese — like I really am overloading the protein in the morning, but I feel satiated from it.
“If I don't eat at all, it's OK, but I need to have it with me in case I'm feeling weak from the start. If you're feeling weak from the start, I say just slam a gel. Don't even think about it, take a gel, pedal for 15 more minutes, and you'll probably feel a lot better.”
Ride with fast folks, once you get the first two tasks down
Once you get the first two tasks down, the stakes of everything else in cycling go way down. With the ability to: a) know where you are going before you go; and b) know you will get home, the rest of cycling can be a lot more fun.
Instead of safety concerns, the challenges facing new female cyclists are finding the right fueling balance, getting the most out of workouts, and finding your lane in your community, which, in most cases, is majority male. Nevertheless, in her development, Laini has found that this to not always a bad thing.
In fact, having speedy male friends has given her a carrot to keep on chasing that has her motivated to chase all the small gains that have come together to make her winning formula.
“I try to do one hard weekend ride with a group, and I'll get a little nervous before because I'm like, ‘This is probably gonna hurt, and I don't want to be the weakest one there.’” Laini said of her group ride strategy.
“I get dropped all the time. That's why I think I'm not bragging on my Instagram because I get dropped like almost every ride. But if I wasn't getting dropped, I'd probably be in the WorldTour, you know, so it's not that big of a deal. The men I ride with are just way faster at certain inclines or certain types of riding. I think it's okay, and it's impressive enough to be out there, nevertheless. My goal is to get less dropped.”
Laini is still relatively new to cycling and training, so it is understandable that she is hesitant to talk about herself too much. But what you need to understand is she is flying. Her structured training, mixed in with a prudent dose of group rides with fast men, has put he in a position to build the right skills, build some confidence, and crucially give her clear carrots to chase.
With the right mindset and supportive male cycling friends, this is a resource many women can use if they plan it right.
“If you're a woman and you want to get faster, ride with fast people. It's probably gonna be a lot of men, and it's totally fine to get dropped. Sometimes you get dropped, and you route yourself home with a bailout option. Sometimes you don't bail out, and you just keep suffering and count it as a really hard workout. Just keep pushing yourself.”
Logan Jones-Wilkins is a journalist and cyclist based in the southwest of the United States. As a writer, he has covered cycling extensively for the past year and has extensive experience as a racer in gravel and road. He has a Bachelor of Arts in Journalism and PPEL from the University of Richmond. Outside of his work in the cycling world, Logan is also a Carbs Fuel athlete, racing road, gravel, and mountain bikes alongside his reporting.
