The MT gals are approaching our one year anniversary in our affiliation Velo Bella and we've been busy racing and promoting cycling.

Here's a brief recap of our inaugural, Montana Women's Tour:

Sept 24, 2006 (Billings, MT) - the Montana Velo Bella chapter, sporting the appropriate flair, sponsored a 15- and a 40-mile just for fun, lots of laughs, supported ride. 163 women registered and rode. That's an amazing turnout for cyclists in Billings, let alone just women. One woman gushed that her entire wine club was there to ride. It was certainly the largest turnout for any of the events I've helped at in Montana. We ran out of goodie bags and t-shirts. We were close to running out of registration forms and waivers.

The flair table was a big hit. It was full of body glitter, tiaras, and feather boas. When flair goes bad, however, it caused some head scratching among the Bella Fellas volunteers who were there with their work stands to do some minor repairs and lead clinics on how to fix a flat and do basic bike maintenance.

Our pink (blue for volunteers) t-shirts featured the official VB logo. We had lots of inquiry about VB and Kona.

We had kids ride. Some of the baby bellas had flair woven into the spokes of their tires, dangling from their handle bars, pink streaks in their hair, etc. This is the future of cycling!

Local businesses donated lots of fantastic door prizes - facials, massages, jewelry, Terry saddles, bottles of wine, etc.

Many participants told us they want us to put on this event again next year.

Jackie Yamanaka,
Montana Bella