My scheduled interview with Liz (Trinkie) Heller, above, got off to an inauspicious start last Sunday morning, when the fact that it was daylight savings time just blew right past this household. The photo-op scheme was to catch her leaving her CWE home and heading off to Forest Park for the start of the Great Forest Park Bicycle Race, where she was participating in a one-mile criterium (a bicycle race of a specified number of laps on a closed course over public roads closed to normal traffic). Instead, I was the one racing from her CWE condo with instructions from Liz's husband, Bill Joffe, to try to catch up with her near the Muny on one of her practice laps around the park.
I've known Liz, a lawyer and competitive cyclist, since she was a teenager living on Lenox Place. The Heller family moved from New York in 1960 and left the street–but not the neighborhood–in 1976. For reasons she can't remember, Lenox Place neighbor Harry Langenberg –one of the neighborhood's storied characters–taught Liz to ride a bike. Harry was an amateur athlete to the core, including founding the Missouri Rugby Football Union (which sport he played into his 60's). He was also a founder of the Claytonshire Coaching Club, and was the proud owner of a vintage Plymouth he salvaged from the Mississippi River and drove forever. Harry died at age 96 in 2005.
Liz said that The Great Forest Park Bicycle Race attracted more out-of-town participants this year because there were two races in town that weekend, the other being a criterium on Saturday in South City's Carondelet Park.
Liz participated in the USAC Women's Open, a 50 minute 4+ lap race around the park. She pointed to her competitors, above, and said they were mostly in their 20's and 30's, while she is 54. She took a 15-year break from competitive racing and jumped back in full throttle when she discovered "cyclo-cross" several years ago. If you missed Jamie Mowers excellent account of Liz's career in the last issue of the West End Word read it here.
Liz proudly wears the neighborhood's Dressel's Racing Team jersey. I chuckled when she said she babysat for Dressel's Public House owner Ben Dressel when he was a toddler living on Walton Row.
The photograph above shows the Junior Boys as they headed for the finish line at Government Drive near the handball courts. Unfortunately, I had to leave before the start of Liz's race but she emailed later:
"Alas no joy in Mudville. I went for the win on last lap but got caught in the home stretch and finished well out of the money. Maybe 8th but not bad for an old lady. Trinkie"
Not bad indeed.