Like many girls, Ashley Grubb admits that, at the age of 13, she liked boys. So much so, that she went to great lengths to follow them into traditionally male-dominated fields. But unlike some of her female peers, turns out Grubb actually had found a calling that went beyond a typical teen-age crush.

“I got into racing BMX because I liked this boy,” Grubb, 20 and now a student at Fort Lewis College, recalled. “He was one of the boys I never beat.”

But chances are, if Grubb met up with that same boy today, she might be able to change that. Last month, she took home top honors in the women’s 17-24 Cruiser Class at the Union Cycliste International BMX Championships in Canada. And she did it all on a sorely sprained ankle.

For Grubb, it signaled the highlight thus far of her promising career, which began in Durango 10 years ago.

“I started riding at the age of 10 because Dan and Sandy Myers were my neighbors,” said Grubb. The

Myers later helped found Durango BMX and get the Durango track going. Grubb said she has been racing at the competitive national level for about seven years, although she is still one level below professional ranking. Nevertheless, she said she is entertaining thoughts of an Olympic bid in 2008, the first year BMX racing will be a featured event. She said each country will be allowed to send their top two racers, with the rest having to qualify via a series of time trials and races.

“Some of the qualifiers are in China and Japan, and with school and everything else, I just can’t get up and fly to Japan,” she said.

In the meantime, however, Grubb has her sights set on upcoming national races in Denver in October as well as another world event next spring in Beijing, of all places. “They say it’s the same course they’re going to use in the Olympics, but I don’t know if I believe them,” she said.

She also will be embarking on a new career – that of mountain bike racing. A former student at Colorado State University in Fort Collins, Grubb said she was wooed by Fort Lewis College’s cycling team. “They’ve been recruiting me for a little while,” she said.

Although not well versed in the genre, Grubb said she is confident her career on the BMX track will translate smoothly into one on the singletrack. “The two sports are very similar,” she said.

She also said she is looking forward to working under the direction of the FLC cycling team coaching staff, headed up by Rick Crawford. “They’re really supportive, and I like that,” she said.

As for the future, she’s not giving up hope that in addition to wearing the Skyhawk blue and gold, she might someday also wear the red, white and blue. “I sure would like to go to the Olympics, we’ll have to wait and see.”

– Missy Votel