This story was initially published on Tuesday, May 14. Find an update below.
When Providence’s Betty Hasse swings her leg over her bike frame on Wednesday, she’ll be ready to defend her national title.
Hasse, 21, won the individual time trial in the under-23 division at last year’s USA Cycling Road National Championships. Often called “the race of truth,” the time trial is a solo event. The winner— the fastest woman to complete two laps of a 7.2 mile course — is the only rider that can wear the coveted U.S. national champion’s jersey.
“I got lucky,” Hasse said in typically understated fashion. “I did one good effort one time and now I get to have these pretty stars and stripes. I don’t know, I guess it’s pretty cool and vindicating for it to come to fruition in that kind of way.”
Hasse — a junior at URI majoring in mechanical engineering — finished 17th overall in a field that included at least four riders who ride for professional teams in the UCI Women’s WorldTour, the teams that compete in the women’s Tour de France.
Now, Hasse is heading back to the national championships, which this year double as qualifiers for the U.S. Olympic team, in Charleston, West Virginia.
Hasse rides for CCB Cycling, a Massachusetts-based amateur team that seeks to develop men’s and women’s riders who might one day ascend to the highest levels of the sport. Led by sports director Lauren LeClaire and technical director Tim Mitchell, the team works with riders all over the country and races in the U.S. and occasionally in Europe.
“We always say that Betty is the first one to bring the hype,” LeClaire said. “She is just always super positive, eager, ready to go.”
Hasse’s biggest skill on the bike, LeClaire says, is her “big diesel engine” that keeps her legs churning despite all manner of on-bike suffering.
“I think there’s like an on-and-off switch that a lot of athletes have where they are able to take on that immense amount of suffering and go, ‘Okay, I can do this a little bit longer,’” LeClaire said, “She’s able to just to just keep that pace for a long time, which makes her an excellent time trialist.”
Before winning the under-23 time trial last year, Hasse finished third in 2022. Last year she also finished 24th overall and second in the under-23 road race, a 68-mile race that featured 83 riders, many of them with professional teams.
LeClaire says she has high hopes for Hasse in this year’s time trial and road race. The understated Hasse commits only to giving it “a really good effort.”
“I’m still trying to compete [in the Under-23 age division] and that’s always going to be a massive effort,” Hasse said. “You want to acknowledge where you are but also, like ‘What can I do next?’”
Racing to finish school
The next big thing, Hasse is careful to say, is staying on top of coursework so she can remain on track to graduate in May 2025.
“What do I want to accomplish?” Hasse asks. “Well, I’m a junior at URI, so I want to graduate. That’s a good thing — that’s a good life thing to do for your life. But cycling wise, it does make you go at a little bit of a slower pace because, yeah, I have this other job.”
When Hasse arrived on her bike at a coffee shop in West Kingston earlier this month, she was juggling her 30-mile recovery ride with preparing for exams in System Dynamics and Heat And Mass Transfer. This year’s national championships are earlier than usual due to the summer Olympics, which means they’re just a week after her finals at URI.
“I was actually thinking on my walk home from the library last night,” Hasse said. “I was like, ‘I have two academic exams, but there’s a secret third exam a week after.’”
After graduating from URI next year, Hasse says she hopes to eventually join a professional team and get paid to race bikes. She’s not there yet, but her performances last year scored her an invitation to compete for a USA Cycling-sponsored team at races in France and the Netherlands, an early step in the direction of a professional career.
“Betty has shown that she’s learned a great deal in a very short span of time,” LeClaire said. “She already shows so much potential and is so willing to learn and loves to work hard. And she’s very dedicated. So yeah, I absolutely think that is something that’s feasible.”
‘Cold and wet’ Rhode Island rides helped build stamina
Like many kids in Providence, Hasse grew up riding her bike to her middle school. But when the cold chill of winter had her classmates trading a bike helmet for a bus pass, she kept riding. She has photos of her bike in a school bike rack with icicles running off the wheels.
In high school, she found 1 PVD Cycling, a Providence-based nonprofit that tries to get local students interested in cycling and supports them in entry level races with equipment, transportation and funding.
In the fall, 1 PVD coaches kids in cyclocross, a kind of cross between road and mountain biking. Donny Green, Hasse’s coach at 1 PVD, says her diesel engine was obvious from the start — both physically and mentally.
“I think even from that first fall when we worked with her for the first time and I got to watch her race, it was really just that grit that she was going to buckle down and get through it,” Green said. “And she wasn’t going to let go unless something threw her off, and that didn’t happen.”
From her early days exploring cycling, Hasse’s commitment and determination stood out, Green says. Even if he couldn’t possibly have known she would turn out to be “a time trial beast.”
“Betty is just one of those examples,” Green said, “of being able to give her a bike and then watching where that bike can take her.”
While Providence may not be a U.S. cycling hotbed like Boulder, Austin or Sonoma, Hasse credits her Rhode Island rides — including the cold winters and rainy springs — for helping toughen her up.
It was pouring rain in Oak Ridge, Tenn., on the day of last year’s national championship time trial.
“I know cold and wet,” Hasse said. “I know cold and wet all winter long. So it’s not a big deal.”
The strong winds whipping off the water in Charlestown or up the East Bay Bike Path play a role, too. She says the Providence cycling community has been welcoming and she loves “all my old guy friends I ride bikes with on weekends.”
And she hopes she’ll have another stars and stripes jersey to show off on a coffee shop ride in the fall.
“Yeah, I did a good thing and I’m so stoked and I’m proud of myself for being able to pull that off,” Hasse said. “But there’s room to grow.”
Update: Hasse won the Under-23 time trial by more than 2 minutes on Wednesday, winning back-to-back national titles. She finished 8th overall, in a field with professional riders.
