When Amy Dixon and Laurel Rathbun line up for the tandem sprint at this week's UCI Para-Cycling Track World Championships in Rio de Janeiro, it’ll be just their fifth race together.

But there’s really so much more in this journey that they hope leads to the Paralympic Games in Paris later this year.

They have spent the last six months getting up at 4 in the morning for workouts at the VELO Sports Center velodrome in Carson, California. The uniqueness of their biking relationship is fueled by geography, among other things. They both live in San Diego, just miles from each other and within driving distance of two velodromes.

They love dogs.

And coffee.

“At heart, we’re both just like 16-year-old girls that love Starbucks and love dogs,” the 27-year-old Rathbun said with a laugh.

They found each other at a critical time in terms of qualifying for the Paris Games. Dixon, a visually impaired athlete who made her Paralympic debut in 2020 in paratriathlon, and Rathbun, a former pro cyclist who competed internationally and is a pilot for the first time, are attempting to make the U.S. Paralympic Team in both track and road cycling.

“Pilots are like unicorns,” said Dixon, who is 21 years older than Rathbun. “It’s a marriage, it’s chemistry, it’s work ethic. It’s so many things. It’s great to have somebody super strong in the front of the bike, but that’s just part of it. If you don’t have good chemistry, a good working relationship with your guide, it just doesn’t work. We’ve seen so many really talented blind athletes just flame out because they can’t find the right pilot.”

Dixon is convinced she did find the right pilot. As they talked about their dreams for 2024 via a phone call this week, the pair relaxed on a pool deck at the Team USA hotel in Rio, a place where Dixon once competed in the triathlon test event for the Rio 2016 Paralympic Games. Just hours earlier, they had posted their best time ever together.

“It all kind of seems like it’s just worked out,” said Rathbun, who wasn’t considering a return to competitive cycling until the opportunity with Dixon emerged. “This is where I’m meant to be, this is what I’m meant to be doing.”

As the months have passed, their power game has grown. Actually, it produces a moment of laughter from both riders.

“The blessing and a curse of being really, really strong cyclists is that we keep breaking things on the bike,” Dixon said. “We broke the cranks last week. We broke the bottom bracket two weeks ago.”

“The stronger we get,” Dixon added, “the more we break stuff.”

Dixon and Rathbun are already a part of U.S. Paralympics Cycling history. They are one of a record four tandem teams, and 16 athletes overall, competing for the U.S. at the track cycling world championships. Joining them in the women’s tandems are Hannah Chadwick and Skyler Espinoza, who won a bronze medal in their world championships debut last year in Glasgow, Scotland. Racing in men’s tandem are the teams of Michael Stephens and Joe Christiansen, and Branden Walton and Spencer Seggebruch.

Working together is a given, especially when mechanical help is needed.

“It’s interesting because tandems are unique vehicles in that there’s a unique set of challenges mechanically and all kinds of things with these bikes,” Dixon said. “They’re very temperamental. The parts are very hard to come by and so I think because of that everybody’s pretty collaborative, borrowing stuff from each other or helping each other with equipment.”

The world championships team was determined by result performances at the U.S. Paralympics Track Cycling Open in Carson in February. Dixon and Rathbun are already planning to compete in the U.S. Paralympics Road Cycling Open in April in Bryan, Texas, a competition that will determine the roster spots for two upcoming world cups and perhaps the Paralympic Games beyond that. A time trial for road cyclists in July will be the final Paralympic qualifier in which tandem teams will race in a time trial and road race.

“I’m really excited because of my triathlon background obviously,” Dixon said.

“And Laurel is crazy strong on the front of the bike. I mean, she’s definitely a strength athlete and she also can climb like nobody’s business. So I’m pretty excited to see how we do in the road race, as well.”

Dixon, who first competed in cycling 11 years ago, returned to the sport after the Paralympic Games in Tokyo three years ago. She had lost most of her sight at 22 due to a rare autoimmune disease, juvenile rheumatic arthritis, and was treated by chemotherapy. Her condition worsened eight months before the Tokyo Paralympics, Dixon said, and she wound up in an ICU with bilateral pulmonary embolisms in her lungs.

“I was really sick and very injured going into Tokyo as a triathlete,” Dixon said.

She turned to cycling after the Paralympics and was first paired with Denise Mueller-Korenek, who had hit a world-record pacing speed of 183.932 mph in 2018 by riding a bike hitched to a dragster. A mutual friend introduced Dixon to Rathbun in 2023.

“I feel like I’ve finally found my spot of where I’m really happy and I can enjoy my bike again,” Dixon said. “Especially living in San Diego, it’s a dream. This is the first time in my career that I’ve had a pilot that lives literally four miles from my house.”

Paul D. Bowker has been writing about Olympic and Paralympic sports since 1996, when he was an assistant bureau chief in Atlanta. He is a freelance contributor to USParaCycling.org on behalf of Red Line Editorial, Inc.

New Southern California Tandem Amy Dixon, Laurel Rathbun Aim Toward Paris, Via Rio

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