As some of you will already be aware, I am planning a trip to the USA in July. The foremost reason for this is to visit my awesome fiance Toni Bradshaw who is racing in the US this season. Toni is racing for Professional Womens road cycling team Lipsmackers who call Boulder Colorado home base. Toni is staying with good friends of ours in Fort Collins, Colorado. They too cycle, Meredith racing for Tibco alongside NZ’s Jo Kiesanowski.
While I’m over there Toni is due to race the Cascade Cycling Classic. A 5 day tour with high ranking amongst the American events. A few months ago I started putting the feelers out about trying to get a start myself. Not as easy as sending off an entry form in the US. A tour of this stature only lets you enter as a member of a team. Recently I got confirmation that I have a spot on a small US based team called Liquid Cycling for the tour. In fact they wanted me for the rest of the season, but life as a coach is far too rewarding, so I turned that down.
I’m pretty excited about the prospect of racing alongside some of the stars of world racing. Last year Levi Leipheimer won stage one. The 130km was covered at an average of 47kph, yeeehaaa!!!
I’ll be using this blog to keep you updated on my travels. It will be tough leaving NZ in July but I should cope.

Strongman

We managed to avoid the rain this morning which was nice! 275m of climbing in the hour ride, so next week we shall endeavour to break the 300m, and avoid the smelly buses.

Ride loop:

Great to see so many Kinetic Edge athletes boosting the numbers at the Auckland 1/2 Distance Champs over the weekend and excelling in many categories.
Stewart Imrie 1st - Masters 3
Garry Groves 2nd - Masters 3
Mel Burke 1st - Senior Women
Mike Henton 2nd - Senior Men
Sam Horn 3rd - Senior Men
Glen Frost 4th - Senior Men
Hamish Elley Brown 5th - U19 Men

Nice work team!!!

The time is upon us to enter in quick for the K2, K1 or QK!! 1000 riders per event so you better get online ASAP!

Early bird entries are open until 30th June - save $10 (not much but it all helps!!). ENTER ONLINE HERE

Individual Riders

RoadCraft K2 - $110 - Early Bird $100
Orca K1 - $85 - Early Bird - $75
Nicholas Browne QK - $60 - Early Bird - $50

Junior Riders (Under 19)

RoadCraft K2 - $55 - Early Bird $50
Orca K1 - $45 - Early Bird - $40
Nicholas Browne QK - $30 - Early Bird - $25

Relay Teams ( 4 or 2) - Per Person

RoadCraft K2 - $80 - Early Bird $70
Orca K1 - $60 - Early Bird - $50

Kinetic Edge athlete Toni Bradshaw avoided the worst of the carnage on stage 3 of the Nature Valley Grand Prix today finishing in the severely depleted front group alongside fellow kiwis Jo Kiesanowski and Cath Cheatley.
Toni lies in 31st overall in the General Classification (GC)and has tyre burn marks on her left calf muscle as a result of todays rough and tumble road race.

Check out this great promotion being run by our good friends at Avanti Plus Mt Eden this month:

Get in the hurt box. Sign up sometime in June for a 15km time trial in our front window display on a windtrainer. Bring your bike and sweat towel and we’ll supply the pain. All entrants get a free pair of Avantiplus Mt Eden socks. This is a competition so bring your “A game”. Everyone is handicapped meaning anyone can win. Other prizes to be won.

Contact: This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

It’s been many months but finally this morning I joined Aaron, Kate and co, on the weekly breakfast ride. Basically this ride is a waterfront cruise which finishes with breakfast at a different location each week. Today I barely got my lap of the waterfront done when I heard that all to familiar sound “pssssss.” Yep, puncture time. After a not so quick change I finally caught up with the crew as they were heading back through Orakei, but I nearly missed them it was so dark I couldn’t see who they were!

The intended cafe for this mornings indulgence was Gloria at the bottom of Symonds street, but they weren’t open so we went to Cafe Viva toward the top of Symonds. The guys at Viva are a great cycling friendly crew, even offering for us to all bring our bikes inside the cafe!

I don’t think they really expected such a crowd so service was a little slow but it didn’t matter as none of us were in a hurry and the coffee was good. Such a nice way to start the “nearly” weekend.

KE athlete Bevan McKinnon is currently in Korea waiting for his race on the 14th. The accomplished Ironman, recently ranked Elite with TRINZ from a solid 9th Place at IMNZ 09, is attempting his first ITU race. Bevan is in his build phase leading up to Elite Long Course World Champs in October and the Korea race comes at a great time to test the training so far! With a water temp of 16 degrees, a bike course that is one big climb (sea level to 1300m) and a 20k run at altitude, Bevan is in for a tough day at the office!

Watch this space for a full race report! Click on the link below to take a look at the tough course!

KOREA LC Website

On Saturday 2 KE athletes are heading over to the Quebrantahuesos 2009 cycle race! Anna & Martin have been training their legs off for this challenging course (http://www.bikemap.net/route/128258). Martin is doing the 190K ride and Anna the shorter distance which both have a “few” hills Martin will be doing exceedingly well after being knocked off his bike last weekend and although he had no broken bones the bike was a little worse for wear and he was a bit battered! Watch this space for race updates and a few pics after they finish!

Good luck the “Tea-team”

http://www.quebrantahuesos.com/esp/cabecera.htm

I knew we were in trouble this morning when Rae didn’t turn up! It pelted down! Alas, we still had seven people which was great to see. Click on the link to see the ride loop.