Linsey (Bradshaw) Sandoval



Hometown: Escondido, CA

Residence: Albuquerque, NM

Education: B.S. in Neurobiology, Physiology, and Behaviors at U.C. Davis which was the most wonderful place to live if you love riding a bike!

Occupation: Coordinator for Albuquerque's Café Scientifique NM (a teen science education program)

Discipline: Road

Strengths: My results would probably say crits but now that I live in Albuquerque I hope after this season I can confidently put climbing which I really like too.

Former Teams: DeWalt and Sho-Air (only for NVGP and Cascades) in '08, and NM Bike and Sport in '07

Years Racing: 2

Category: 2

Objectives: Play a part in a highly competitive team that I can contribute my strengths to and build my abilities as a cyclist.  I feel I am competitive in all areas of cycling: climbing, sprinting and TT but I would love to develop all to a higher level.  I am very motivated to continue to improve and race at the highest level I can in the 2009 season.   

Favorite Race: Minneapolis Downtown Criterium at Nature's Valley. It was so amazing to be whizzing around thousands of spectators in a race with a field of 100!

Admirable Athlete: My college roommate Amy, a triathlete.  It didn't matter how horrible the weather, how late she stayed up the night before, or how busy she was; she always made her workouts.  I really admire her dedication and strive to be as motivated and excited to make every workout and make it a good one.

Unique information or story about you: When I was 15, my dad, who for 20 years had been completely unathletic, decided he was going to do an Ironman.  As training, he would sign up for every triathlon, running event, swimming event, and cycling event there was in the Southern California area, and since he didn't want to do them alone he thought he would sign me up with him.  I never trained for anything other than running high school cross country and track, but I thought I knew everything compared to my dad when it came to anything athletic.  My dad signed me up to do a 53 mile charity ride with him and this would be my second ride on my road bike he bought me and was 40 miles longer than any ride I had done before.  I, being brilliant, refused all offers of food saying I didn't need to eat.  I was fine for about the first 2 hours which also happened to be a mainly downhill.  Then the hills started around mile 40, and I pushed it up what seemed like giant mountain passes (really maybe 0.5miles hills).  Completely fatigued at the top of one hill, I tried to stop but forgot to unclip and fell over.  Unable to then free my feet, my dad had to drag me out of the highway and then undo my feet.  We kept on going, at a snail's pace, on to the finish.  Then at mile 48, I looked up the road to see the final climb.  I was so done at this point I just stopped and sat down on the sidewalk and cried.  My dad somehow coaxed me back onto my bike and up the hill, where at a stop light I again fell over.  It took me a while to ever want to get on a bike again and even longer to understand that it wasn't that miserable of a ride because it was so long but because I didn't eat anything!

Most embarrassing (race) moment: My husband is a complete climber and so while we were living in Los Alamos 2 years ago he signed us up for Ironhorse.  Since we were going to be driving all the way up there we figured why not get the most of the trip and sign up for both the RR and Crit.  I ended up getting sick the week before.  The whole trip was planned and the races were signed up for so I still went and still raced.   I had only done a couple crits before this and they were small races in New Mexico.  This crit was all women combined, like the ones in New Mexico were, but I had no idea who these women like Mara Abbot were and figured the all women combined races in New Mexico were comparable to ones in Colorado…  I was dropped almost right away but continued for what seemed like hours alone lap after lap.  I figured I would get dropped having not been feeling well, and it wouldn't have been that bad except for the announcer EVERY LAP would say my name and something like, "Linsey Bradshaw pulling up the rear."  I think he was saying it because it was probably confusing to the people watching where the back of the race was and where the front was since it had shattered apart.  I didn't think about that at the time but just felt so embarrassed that I was last and that the announcer felt the need to announce this every lap to the crowd!  For some reason they didn't want to pull any racers so I ended up getting lapped TWICE! and the announcer on going saying things like, "Linsey Bradshaw trying hard to not get lapped AGAIN."  Looking back now, I realize that's just bike racing, but at the time I was so humiliated.