Housatonic’s Kira Payer, a cyclist out of Colorado, wins U23 USA Cycling Pro National Championship | Local Sports

It’s early in Berkshire County, which means the sun is still rising outside Kira Payer’s home in Durango, Colorado, where she sits on a living room couch before heading to work.

Payer, a Housatonic native who moved to the Midwest after graduating from Monument Mountain in 2017, has to get going to her job as a jack-of-all-trades landscaping property manager for a company started by a buddy of hers.

“It’s a pretty fast and loose schedule,” says the 22-year-old student at Fort Lewis College, who just won a national championship in cycling. “Usually I get off around 3 p.m., go home, eat some food and jump out the door again.”

Payer is jumping out the door to hop on her bicycle, sometimes to train, sometimes to escape.

On June 17, it was a little bit of both.

In Knoxville, Tennessee for the USA Cycling Pro National Championships, Payer won her first stars-and-stripes jersey, placing first in the Under-23 division. She tackled the 14.4-mile course at Melton Hill Reservoir in 34 minutes, 22.86 seconds.

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Payer’s journey to a national title came with its fair share of drama, though she exudes a level of calm coolness that permeates through a Google Meet window over 2,100 miles away.

“I trained like normal over the winter. Had some early-season racing with the collegiate team. Did some local, Colorado races and mixed in some mountain bike racing,” Payer said of the run up to Knoxville. “Everything was pretty smooth.”

Until it wasn’t.

A rider will typically spend a month or more getting comfortable on a time trial bike before competing on it. Payer’s ride, though, came in only two weeks ahead of nationals.

“The time trial bike itself, I got it pretty late, and there were some mechanical issues with it,” she said.

Those issues further held up her training, and it took a heroic mechanical effort from her brother, Aidan, to get on two wheels even a day before the flight.

“We did a very rough fit on it on the road, stopping every few minutes to make adjustments,” said Payer. “Flew in [to Tennessee] late on a Tuesday. Wednesday had a pre-ride of the course and then Thursday was the event.”

Two rides later, and Payer was pedaling with the best cyclists in the country, in a level event she’d never competed in.

“When you’re faced with a situation like that, you just can’t stress it. You can’t put too much pressure on yourself to perform in that event. I just went out there, wanted to ride hard, follow my pacing strategy, have a good ride.

“Turns out it was enough for a U23 jersey.”

Like I said, she’s cool.

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Payer started cycling when she was about 10 years old and living in Berkshire County. She said her mom got really into it and it became a family thing. When mountain biking didn’t catch her vibe, she switched to road biking and found it a good fit.

So much so, it became a big part of her life. She jokingly says she tried track and field at Monument, but didn’t last too long.

“I think Mr. Collins understood it wasn’t quite my thing,” said Payer of Spartans coach Ted Collins.

Instead, she discovered the local biking community and started doing weekly group rides and weekend rides out of Berkshire Bike and Board in Great Barrington. Payer was embraced by the community and to this day calls the older cyclists of Western Massachusetts some of her best mentors.

“I wanted to try racing, because I had been doing the group rides long enough and I was really competitive with the older men,” said Payer. “So, what’s the next step? I needed something challenging. So around 16 I started really training and when I was 17, I did my first full race season.”

A veteran of a few Josh Billings RunAgrounds — which she dubbed “… a big deal. It’s like the world championship of the Berkshires.” — Payer started experiencing some success.

She made the circuit around New England, and then really started traveling.

“My first big international trip was 2017, my second year of racing,” Payer said. “I was selected to ride for the U.S. National Team, so I got to go to Europe. We raced in the Netherlands and the Czech Republic, and that was like, ‘wow.’ It was pretty amazing to see the top of the sport like that.”

That led to the search for a college with a competitive cycling program.

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Payer made the decision to move out to Durango pretty much sight-unseen four years ago.

In some ways the city, which is about six hours southwest of Denver, reminds her of home.

“The community here is very similar to the Berkshires, very open and welcoming, there’s a great deal of cyclists and outdoorsy people,” she said. “Most days when I’m not working, I just ride down to the local bakery, that’s the hangout, and a bunch of my old guy friends are there. We talk the talk, shoot the breeze.”

In other ways, though, the locales are polar opposites.

“I miss a lot of those older guy friends back home,” she added. “The riding, the lakes and trees. That more dense, lush feeling. It’s just so open out here. I used to think a 2 1/2 hour drive to Boston was bad. You can’t get anywhere in Colorado in 2 ½ hours.”

As graduation in Great Barrington approached, Payer made the life-changing decision to move across the country and attend Fort Lewis College.

“Colorado just sounded cool, she said. “I didn’t really visit any schools or anything. It was just a blind guess, and luckily I chose right, because this town and team have been a great fit.”

At Fort Lewis, where she still has one semester remaining before earning her degree in psychology, Payer has been able to spread her wings and try a variety of cycling disciplines from cycle cross to track racing.

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When COVID-19 hit, Payer was coming off an early-season race for Fort Lewis. She had signed a contract with CCB Racing out of Boston in November of 2019, and suddenly her first slate of races as a pro was wiped out.

“It was basically all canceled,” she said. “It’s a very small, isolated mountain town. So I was here for a very long time.

“It was actually kind of a nice thing, though. I was able to do a bunch of different kinds of riding, things you can’t do when you’re training for specific events. Just a lot of really long, big rides that were pretty fun.”

There was also the benefit of having some friends and family nearby.

Aidan, a 2020 Monument Mountain graduate, followed his sister to Fort Lewis and is on the cycling team there while — occasionally to Kira’s benefit — studying mechanical engineering.

There is also her personal coach, Carmen Small, a two-time National Road Champion in 2013 and 2016, and one of the top cyclists of her generation. The two have been working on a long-range plan and set of goals for Payer, which include getting on the Olympic Long Team, from which Team USA plucks its riders.

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Since the pandemic eased this year, Payer has experienced more of life as a professional cyclist. After competing in junior and collegiate nationals, June was her first pro race of that magnitude.

The CCB relationship has flourished as well.

“It’s essentially the same deal as a pro team, but more development-based,” she said. “You get everything but the salary. You get free bikes, travel, housing, race entries, kits and clothing. Any kind of support you could think of.”

A chance encounter from her days on the New England beat was how her deal came about with the East Coast team.

“They were forming a women’s team in 2020, right before everything shut down. There was this guy I stayed with in Rhode Island while I was racing in New Englands, who happened to know the [CCB] director, so when he was looking for female riders, I was recommended,” she said. “It was a lucky chance.”

There’s been little luck surrounding Payer’s success, which continued last weekend at Rooted Vermont, a major gravel race starting in Richmond, Vermont and traveling 85 miles through the Green Mountains. Payer was ninth overall and first in U23.

Next up is a Fastest Known Time attempt on the aptly named Durango Death Ride — 220 miles through four major mountain passes and the Continental Divide, with an elevation gain of 17,000 feet.

Then there’ll be the rest of her Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) schedule, the Joe Martin Stage Race in Fayetteville, Arkansas on Aug. 26, and back to Vermont for the Green Mountain Stage Race on Aug. 30. She plans to wrap her season at the Tour of the Gila in New Mexico beginning Sept. 29.

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As for the Berkshires, Payer hasn’t been able to get back much, but does keep her eye on things. Especially the sport’s growth among the local youth.

“I’ve been following a lot of that stuff, and I’m friends with everyone who organizes that stuff,” she said of a recent story in The Eagle on the Little Bellas and approval for a mountain bike skills course and pump track in Springside Park in Pittsfield.

“The community has grown for sure, and they’re making more official club rides, and the introduction of [National Interscholastic Cycling League] to Massachusetts. The whole high school mountain biking thing is huge for developing kids and even maintaining a healthy, active lifestyle.”

It’s the lifestyle that radiates off Payer, who has taken everything over the past couple years in stride and with a level of confidence that knows no limits.

“Kind of just like to go for things, without much deep thought or consideration,” she says with a set of green handlebars peaking into the background of her video chat. “Just jumping into things can be a lot of fun.”