Let’s catch everyone up to speed with a little more background information on yours truly. First and foremost, as many I would hope have already realized, is I race mountain bikes. I didn’t truly begin racing until the fall of 2015 during the Florida State Championship Series. I raced as a Cat 3 in 2015 and competed in the whole series on for fun representing Kyle’s Bike Shop out of Orlando, FL and traveling to all of the races with the Junkin’s family. It’s hard to put into words how grateful I am to having been part of the KBS family those first few years. They have such an amazing community and helped me with everything – getting to races, taking care of my bike, Thursday night shenanigans and so so much more. They were truly my bike family and always will be.
When I first started racing in 2015 I was part of the KBS family and even competed in a few road races!! I will forever be grateful to these times and how I fell in love with the sport and lifestyle around bikes – not just racing.
After an extremely successful first year of racing I competed in one cat 2 race, winning the Florida Cup, then upgraded my license to a Cat 1 license for the 2016 FSC Series. At this point in time I was still quite mellow about my racing, often drinking a beer after every race, my recovery drink of choice at the time. I did okay, but I wanted more, I wanted to be faster and I wanted to win.
In the Spring of 2017 I finally contacted Coach Filippo Barbieri (my now amazing husband) and began training with him, the goals being to win the local Cat 1 FSC series and take on some higher level US based races, Sea Otter, Nationals, Epic Rides etc. That fall I narrowly missed wining the FSC championship by 1 point, I finished 2nd at Cat 1 19-29 US Nationals and began to put out some great power numbers after having a power meter for just a few months. I remember vividly the call from Filippo I got over Christmas break. We were planning my 2018 season with the idea of possibly competing in a coed stage race along with some of the same US races that we’d been to in years past – but it all changed. Filippo asked “do you want to race in the World Cup?” and quite frankly I just laughed. Six months later I was on the start line of my first World Cup race in Nove Mesto. From that moment on, the fire was lit even more, I want to go even faster, I want to win big races, and most importantly I want to put in the work to succeed.
Alaina Casioppo 