A New Year, A New Team, A New Opportunity – A Brief History of How I Got Here….

OK, so it has been 8 months since my last blog entry – I admittedly have some serious catching up to do as a lot has happened!! This entry is dedicated to a brief history of how I got to where I presently am – riding for Vanderkitten and living and training in Limoux France.

The off season started for me in mid September following my season cap off - the Tour de l’Ardeche, a 6 stage, 5 day stage race in France where I was fortunate enough to again represent Canada. This was my first trip to Europe and a discovery of the differences between European racing and North American style competition. In a nutshell – it is much, much harder in Europe.Upon returning to Canada and starting the process of reflection, recovery & rejuvenation - and goal setting for the upcoming season, one thing kept surfacing - although somewhat daunting, I was Europe bound. And this time for a longer period of time – at first I wasn’t sure how I would make this happen. Being completely un-networked in the European scene, it appeared at first to be a bit of a task. Relatively late in the fall things started to drop into place – I got hooked up with a place to live and train in southern France and I signed with the brand new Vanderkitten Professional Women’s Team; a fresh outta the gates California based squad with refreshing enthusiasm, remarkable organization and support for a first year NRC team. Between the opportunity afforded by Vanderkitten for racing in North America and my early season European ‘training camp’, 08 was shapin’ up.

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In typical off season fashion, its over before ya know it. Our winter in Van was particularly harsh this year, further enhancing the appeal of February's team training camp in California.

dylan & i on a snowy vancouver day....

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MEET THE TEAM - VANDERKITTEN RACING 2008 WOMEN's ELITE CYCLING TEAM

top row (l-r): Moriah MacGregor, Heather Sborz, Jane Despas
middle row (l-r): Melissa Sanborn, Leigh Valletti, Liz Hatch, Leah Guloien
bottom row (l-r): Flavia Oliviera, Jenny Trew
Photo courtesy of Kurt Harvey

Our team training camp started February 10th and was concluded with the NRC season opener, the Santa Rosa Criterium on the 18th, where we placed 3 riders in the top 20.

Following the race I squeezed in a couple day visit with my Aunt Sarah and family in the Bay area before heading home to Vancouver to unpack and re-pack for Europe.

Until the next chapter, salut!