No, it wasn't Allison Powers, it was Evie Stevens. The Globe said she had just started racing last year!
Yeah, it will be a cold day in hell when we get rail trails like those in Ill. It's because every city or town they go through has to go through years of studies, etc, where in other states, the state just does the whole thing. There is a new trail that will come within 1.5 miles of my house; it's finished between Lowell and the border of Westford/Acton. Acton is working on their part now.
Concord is still fighting about whether all of those "weird" cyclists will pee in their yards and ruin the "natural" trail by White's Pond, i.e. the trail that only people from Concord know about and use.