Easing the journey for a rough rider: Cyclocross athlete set for world championships after fund drives

(By: Will Kilburn, Boston Globe Correspondent) :: As the US Olympic team gears up for Italy next month, paying for things like air fare, hotels, and food is the least of its concerns. But when cyclocross racer Maureen Bruno Roy of Arlington finished third at the national championships last month and was asked to represent her country on the non-Olympic sport's biggest stage, the invitation came with a hefty price tag.'It's a thousand dollars just for five days of the world championships," she said. ''So in that sense, it's a bill: 'You've been invited to pay a thousand dollars to come to our race.' "

Not that she won't get something back: During the days leading up to the Jan. 29 race in the Netherlands, she'll be fed, housed, and will have mechanical support, a relative bargain. But the 30-year-old Bruno Roy, who works full time as a massage therapist, still had to come up with several thousand dollars for air fare and expenses for a two-week foray on the European circuit to get herself ready for the big day.

Enter the New England cyclocross community, a hard-core band of a few hundred racers, former racers, and fans of the sport, a cross-country version of cycling. They opened up their wallets as soon as they heard that one of their own was headed for the sport's equivalent of Yankee Stadium in only her second year of serious racing.

''There was nothing on the radar screen that made us believe she was going to be that good," said Richard Fries, publisher of The Ride, an Arlington-based cycling magazine, and one of the organizers of the Liberty Mutual US National Cyclocross Championships, which were held in Providence last month.

''To be around Mo is like being inside a Nature Company store. Cyclocross is just a spasm of rage and fury and anger and aggression, and she's from a world of aromatherapy and hot stones."

Not that Bruno Roy was entirely new to the scene. A sprinter, hurdler, and long jumper in high school and college, she took her massage-therapy skills on the road for several years as a ''soigneur" (cycling-speak for ''one who takes care of") for several pro cycling teams, where she was joined by her husband Matt Roy, then a team mechanic and currently a doctoral student at Harvard.

Back in the Boston area, Bruno Roy took up cyclocross in 2003 just for fun, and only began racing in earnest in 2004, attracting interest from sponsors and showing a potential for greatness that everyone -- except her, that is -- could see.

''In life, you have these people that are tigers within, but they kind of hide it," says Matt Bracken, a longtime friend and president of Independent Fabrication, a Somerville bicycle manufacturer that sponsored Bruno Roy with bikes, parts, and clothing this season. ''And Mo, even though she is very beautiful and sweet, beneath that calm, mature exterior is this little tiger ready to pounce."

It's a switch that led to her nickname, ''Evil Mo." Bruno Roy insists that the name was invented in irony by her coach, who says that just the opposite is true.

''She's the one who first told me about her other personality," said Adam Hodges Myerson, who races professionally in addition to his coaching duties. ''When she clicks into her pedals at the start of a race, she's like a different person. She puts on this mean, vicious face, she doesn't like to ride behind people, she likes to go as hard as she can from start to finish."

Talking to Bruno Roy off the bike, her side of the story seems to hold true: When it's pointed out that she bested several professional racers at the nationals (a small number of riders draw some kind of salary from their sponsors; Bruno Roy and many others do not), she allows herself only a small amount of pride, referring to her placement as ''finished ahead of" rather than ''beat."

Being nice to people and enjoying herself, apparently, is the real goal. ''That's really why I like to be part of it," she says. ''Winning is nice and being competitive is really fun, but really being part of a community is what it's about."

That community agrees, and chipped in to make sure she had the support she needed at the world championships. In two fund-raisers -- one at the Allston nightclub Great Scott and the other at Redbones, a Somerville barbecue restaurant that's a favorite of local cyclists -- Bruno Roy made the several thousand dollars needed for her trip. The gatherings also provided two extended-family reunions for fans who hope to see her outpace a European or two.

For her part, Bruno Roy doesn't expect a high finish, but her coach thinks the barriers are mental, not physical.

''Mo doesn't see herself as the same level of athlete as those that she worked for, and I've been trying to get her to realize that in fact she is that talented," says Myerson. ''She's finally starting to believe it."

What is cyclocross?

The cyclocross season runs from early fall through midwinter, with bicycle races consisting of several laps on a course that's part pavement, part grass, and usually a lot of mud. Along the course are steep uphills and knee-high hurdles that force riders to jump off and carry their bikes.

Racers ride beefed-up cousins of road racing bikes, fitted with knobby tires for off-road traction, making speeds quite high in places. Crashes and mechanical breakdowns are common.

''It's a really high-skill sport," said Richard Fries, publisher of Arlington-based cycling magazine The Ride. ''You really have to know how to ride, how to handle, how to run, how to dismount. There's a lot of strategy."