Last winter Catherine Walberg competed in the 2007 U.S. Cyclocross National Championships and defended her title. Catherine captured the Stars and Stripes jersey for the women’s 40 to 45 age group with an impressive come from behind effort. With this win she has been receiving many accolades, including a cover shot in the upcoming spring 2008 Masters Cycling Magazine.

Kris Keim, k2 as she is called by her close friends is recovering from a crash sustained while racing a stage race in early spring. She has settled to recover in the warmth of her parents’ home and while there she cranked out an interview with TripleCrankset.com

The interview came about when Leonard Basobas contacted her wanting to chat about racing a full NRC schedule; however, after the crash the request took a different turn and was interviewed on the need to market women racers. Although, multiple advancements have been made a huge gap between women’s payouts and support still remains in the race offerings.

When healthy, Kristen (k2) spends her time performing double duty by racing for Team Kenda Tire and the United States Women Cycling Development Program (USWCDP). As a role model for women racers, Kristen also “cranks” out news and marketing material for the USWCDP in an effort to reach a broader audience.

Did you know that k2 was dancer prior to her cycling life?  Well stick around and check out k2’s full interview by clicking here.

Race Report by Catherine Walberg

The event offered three days of racing with three intense criterium courses that formed part of the 2008 USA CRITS Series. Tulsa Tough offered a total overall purse of $150,000 with $39,000 allotted for the women Pro/1/2 categories.

Aptly named, Tulsa Tough proved to be the weekend’s mecca for several of the nations’ top sprinters. If you haven’t attended Tulsa Tough and you race bikes, you are missing out. The promoters for the three day criterium-fest have established themselves as “promoter extraordinaire”. Everything was top notch; from the well laid out courses, the volunteers, the announcers, the ambiance of the race venues, and of course, the prize list. There were plenty of music and fans at these races. The promoters showed the team that Tulsa is definitely a nice place to come back to for a vacation.

Andrea Wilson (Team Kenda Tire) and Catherine Walberg (Team Kenda Tire) began Tulsa Tough on Day 1, Friday night, at the Blue Dome Criterium in down town Tulsa. The Blue Dome District is a happinin’ place with lots of good food, high rent and affordable hotels, shops, and music. There we were 60 hot, fast women ready to make some cash. Both Andrea and I were trying to find our sea legs amidst a pretty formidable line up. Andrea got into some traffic trouble. Catherine moved into some excellent cash with a 13th finish.

Day 2, we headed to the Brady District in Tulsa, famous for the “Sound Pony”, a bicycle/racer friendly bar that hosts the best party of the night every year after the races. It was too hot for Catherine but a better day for Andrea. Catherine filed in for a 15th and Andrea for a 17th place finish. Let me just tell you, the cash for anyone in the top 20 of these 3 crits was well paid and rewarded for the effort. Go Team Kenda Tire!!

Day 3 at River Park in Tulsa is a beautiful setting. The super technical, challenging crit takes place along a river front park. It’s about a 2 1/2 to 3 minutes lap that has a 39/27 climb and an off- camber descent. Can you say “tough”? Anyway, the day began with a furious thunderstorm that pretty much took out the race with its 90 mile per hour winds. After canceling a few races and restoring the race venue, the women’s Pro/1/2 race proceeded. (Unfortunately, Andrea had already headed back to Tennessee since it looked like Tulsa was done for the day). Although about 60 women started the race, only about 28 finished. It was a brutal race with lots of attacks and counter attacks. Catherine sprinted into a 9th place finish and again took home a much deserved loot of cash. Will Team Kenda Tire be back in Tulsa next year? Absolutely!!

Our very own Team Manager Paul Forsythe will speak at the upcoming Rasmussen College Women’s Cycling Summit on June 10. The purpose of the summit is to chart the future of women’s cycling in the United States of America. Additionally, the Summit is an opportunity for women to celebrate women’s cycling, learn about the latest initiatives in their sport and discuss issues of common concern. The event, held at the Holiday Inn in Bloomington, MN.

After his speaking engagement, Paul will dash out to drive the team support car to keep an eye on the NRC Elite Women who will be competing in the Nature Valley Grand Prix.

Women Pro/1/2

On Sunday, May 25 the Washington, DC based Hub Racing Team hosted the RFK City Bikes Criterium featuring the $5,000 Hub Racing Women’s Challenge for Pro/1/2 categories. The field was mixed with several experienced UCI and top ranked USA Cycling license holders.

Aggressive racing was the top ingredient in this “mélange of talent” with top area team HPC powered by Altarum delivering a win to the local crowd. Team Kenda Tire fielded a mix of out-of-state and local Washington, DC area talent and kept a close eye on the moves by securing two riders in the top five. U25 riders Jacquelyn Crowell finished 2nd and Jacquelyn Kurth finished 4th.

Master’s 40+

The mature women of Team Kenda Tire also kept a close watch in the Master’s 40 plus race and chased down anything that would get in the way of multi-talent Marjan Huizing. Huizing did not disappoint and arrived first and claimed the top prize.

Team Kenda Tire sends a big thank you to the promoter for inviting the team to this awesome race.

The 4th Annual Priority Health Tour de Leelanau was moved from the fall to the spring. This change found various teams scrambling to field teams for the Memorial Day weekend UCI race. Forty four women started the race representing the top brass in women’s teams hailing from Canada (Quebec and Ontario), Michigan, Ohio, California, North Carolina, Wisconsin and Northern Michigan.

Team Kenda Tire sent a small contingent of women racers with Anne Guzman finishing 20th. The race served as an excellent preparation as she set her sights on competing on Canadian soil UCI World Cup races.

Saturday, May 24 Snake Alley Criterium peloton was peppered with a number of past champions, reported The Hawk Eye newspaper. Team Kenda Tire had a strong showing with Kristen Wentworth finishing 2nd and Katherine Walberg finishing 9th. Both women enjoyed victories at this race in past years. Most recently, Wentworth won in 2007 under the Team Kenda Tire banner and in 2006 with a top ranked Wisconsin cycling team. 

The top 20 finishers can be found here as reported by The Hawk Eye newspaper.

Quad Cities Criterium by Catherine Walberg

It was a stellar team day for Team Kenda Tire on Memorial Day at the annual Rock Island, Illinois, Quad Cities Criterium. When a dangerous duo Amanda Miller (Mesa Cycles Racing Team) and Bri Kovac (Team Revolution) took off, Kristin Wentworth (Team Kenda Tire) and Catherine Walberg (Team Kenda Tire) got going and bridged. They were joined by Katie Weber (Team Revolution), Devon Haskell (Team Get A Grip Cycles), and Samantha Schneider (Mesa Cycles Racing Team). The break started working really well together and ultimately lapped the field.

There are times it’s nice to lap the field but this wasn’t one of them. Mesa had power house Molly Vetter-Smith (Mesa Cycles Racing Team) ready to work and Team Revolution had Sydney Brown and Carey Cash among others to keep everyone but Bri out of the mix. Kenda’s Monique Karlen had already done her part in helping block while the break away established itself. At any rate, Catherine and Kristin had their work cut out for them.

Despite what seemed like a zillion Team Revolution towers hovering nearby and Mesa’s super lead out, Catherine and Kristin managed to make it to the podium with a 3rd and 5th respectively.

We had a great time at Quad Cities. As usual, the promoters put on terrific events. There were super crowds, great food, and awesome competition. We can’t wait to get back next year and see if we can put Kenda on the top spot on the podium.

Please click here to view the race results.
 

While the women’s race went unreported by the cycling community Team Kenda Tire and other teams battled it out in the deep hills of the State of Arkansas.  We had strong performances by a number of the NRC/NRC Developmental riders. Read more about it below. 

Race Report by Andrea Wilson

Road Race

A nerve-testing decent, some rolling hills, and a tough climb make for an interesting 61 miles of racing. Living in the flatlands of Memphis, I don’t get much practice on terrain like this! Thankfully, the decent was pretty safe and uneventful. We kept speeds in the mid 40mph range, and the combo of Zipp brake pads/wheels worked fabulously without a hint of fade. Following that, several of us begun doing our best to soften up the climbers a bit with a flurry of attacks/counter-attacks (I found out afterwards that a lot of the master’s 35+ men that we raced with were very surprised at the aggression shown by the women in the race). The attacks and the large rollers that followed the decent were tough and shed several riders off of the pack. Several breaks went clean, only to be chased down within a few miles. One in particular that included a Kenda rider (sorry, I can’t remember who!) and a Metro Volkswagen rider, probably would have been a perfect mix (most of the field was from those two teams), however, at that point, the men were getting antsy. They got tired of watching the two non-Kenda/Metro riders up front wearing themselves out trying to chase. To our disappointment, they took over the front and pulled the field up to the break. I don’t blame them at all, though. They were there to race- not go 18 mph behind a couple of dying chasers. So, for the last 10-15 miles before the climb, everything that went out was successfully pulled back in.

Once we got to the climb, my job was essentially over, and I sat back and watched as the attacks began at the base of the mountain. Although my legs were trashed from the earlier action, I managed to grind up the grade and maintain what I thought would be a 5th place finish. However, I later learned that a couple of riders had taken a wrong turn on course and finished after me, landing me in 3rd! (As a side note, I’ve never been to a race that provided so many course maps/instruction about the finish of the race. Ironic, eh?)

Time Trial

Whose idea was it to have a 20+ mile TT, anyway? I wasn’t sure how I’d feel or perform since most of my TT experience is over shorter distances and doesn’t involve mountain climbing as a warm-up activity. However, I managed to turn a 52:44 and pull off another 3rd place behind Debbie Dust and Shannon Koch (Metro Volkswagen). This would land me tied for first place in the omnium with teammate Kristin Wentworth.

Criterium

Plan A was to get Kristin and myself into a break in order to clinch the top spots in the overall placings. However, we ended up going to plan B when Kristin managed to get away with Shannon Koch. After that, I pretty much just sat in the back of our group and waited for the sprint. When it came time for that, the best I could muster was a 5th place finish. It was good enough, however to land me in 3rd for the omnium behind Shannon and Kristin.

I had a great weekend working and hanging out with my teammates! Though I’m still exhausted from the past couple of days, I can’t wait for the next race! You may check out a few candid shots by clicking here.

Full results about the above can be found by visiting here.

With 85 women starters, Jacquelyn Crowell racing in the “hood” pays off with a Top 10 finish at the Mt Hood Cycling Classic/Tabor Criterium - Women’s Pro 1-2. Click here for race course details and race results.

Last month Anne Guzman competed in the Campeonato Nacional de Ciclismo in the Dominican Republic. The trip across the ocean netted her 3rd place among the top Dominican Elite women cyclists. She rolled through the 75 kilometers (46.60 miles) in 2:13:36.

Anne Guzman reserves the right to compete for the Dominican Republic due to her ancestry.

Race Report by Anne Guzman

On race day, at around 9:00 a.m. a few cyclists arrive, 9:30 a.m. no registration set up yet. No kidding! 10:00 a.m.- the bulk of the racers begin to show up on buses. This is by comparison a sharp contrast to the North American athlete who typically arrives to the race venue in a vehicle.

On a hot Caribbean 39 Celsius (102 Fahrenheit) I am standing around waiting while on my eating my second granola bar, followed by swallowing bananas like a “gorilla”. I then continue to look around finally eying my gels. Who eyes gels? 11:30 a.m. Yes! 11:30 a.m. and two hours later, the race starts.

“I guess I did no know what I was getting into?” I knew the women, the fast ones from my experience of racing here in 2007. They are SPRINTERS, of that about four are really strong.

While on the race course, the race progressed like this: they follow…I attack…they follow…I attack…they follow. I knew they would not counter.

The race had 9 loops of an 8 kilometers oval with a 1.5km uphill false flat on one side and 1km on the other. I had 2 choices, sit and wait for a sprint or bust my “rear” and try to tire as many as I could to have my chance. I attacked about 12 times. You can imagine that this maneuver dropped some women and by then they were only 3 of us left - me and two sprinters…all I could do was sprint. At the end of the race, I was pretty dehydrated.

I was disappointed with the racing style and it reminded me of some local races. Not all but some. For the 2009 installment I am assured that we will race with the MEN to ensure that at nationals the women stop racing in this manner! Wow! Imagine that! Sounds good to me!

I was soooo smoked after this race and even more so than after Redlands and Beaumont; however, I must remind myself that I was in the wind all day, and it was HOT.

So, overall…the racing was not great, but I left NOTHING in the tank and raced hard. That is all I could do. I would not have been happy rolling around for 2.5hrs and bunch sprinting fresh sprinters and I was happy that I left it all out there. The president of the Dominican Republic Cycling Federation (FEDOCI) followed the race and said I was for sure the strongest. He felt bad that his women did not race and just followed. But…that is racing for them, and it is what it is, right?

Racing in the Caribbean is always and experience and I hope I motivated them to become more aggressive. They told me they were not used to that and I told them to counter and start racing differently, in addition, to consider traveling to race in North America.

Maybe next year I will get the jersey. We’ll see.