Hi!

Hey,


So I decided this year, whilst in America that I am going to use a blog to update you all instead of sending out an email. Hopefully this will be a more regular update occurrence than the emails that I tried to send while I was away last year!


I had a great summer in NZ, it was so good it went so fast and I cant believe I am already back in america land! I left NZ with a nice 21st birthday party as my send of the night before I flew to America, I would not reccomend having a party the night before you travel overseas... made for one stressful week, but an awesome night that I am sure to always remeber!
This year I am based in Northern California (NorCal) for the summer (nz winter). I arrived just in time for team camp in Santa Cruz for my new team Vanderkitten-Focus


http://vanderkittenracing.com/#


Camp was heaps of fun, this season is going to be alot of fun with some good hard racing!


I got picked up from the airport at mid day and was taken straight to our team mates house in Los Altos where I met the team, this year we have two kiwis, two Aussies, 1 swiss, 1 UK and 6 Americans, all in total 12 awesome riders! 
Here we met with one of our sponsers, Rock Tape. This stuff is awesome, it can even make you have good posture, which we were all very pleased about, as spending hours cycling is certainly not the best thing out for your posture.
From here we had 10mins to get ready to go to our team launch. Before the launch I got fitted to our Vittoria shoes by Micheal from Vittoria. These shoes are possibly the prettiest cycling shoes I have seen...they dont even look like cycling shoes - disco shoes whould be more appropriate!

After the shoe fittings we had ladies from Jelly Belly, Focus bikes and Chamois But'r come and talk to us about there products - Our new rides are awesome, so reactive, smooth stiff and light!
Next up the launch started. Here we mingled with sponsors and supporters, had a wee photo shoot, and gave a few interviews.
Here are a few photos from the launch

Fresh off the plane!

After the lanch we drove an hour back to santa cruz and had the rest of camp. I was zonked after the first day here, it was almost like 3 days had merged into one with the lack of sleep I had.
During camp We spent a lot of time drinking coffee, riding, working on team tactics, eating, visiting an orchard to eat pie, team meetings and we also made a visit to los Altos high school.
Thanks so much to the Dimple family for having us to stay on their farm - it was awesome! And how cool is this...they live in a park!


here are some pics from camp:

Team tactics talk time

The Kiwis (myself and Emily Collins)

Climbing a 9 mile climb in Santa Cruz

Ready to roll out

Los Altos high school lunch break.

The school blasts out dance music through the loud speaker through there whole lunch!

During our visit to Los Altos high, we got to race some students. I won my first race of the american season (stoked!!!) even if the guy I was racing crashed, and nearly took me out...but hey a win is a win!

First race over

I had my first ride here yesterday on the peets coffee shop 9am ride. Now seeing as its 9am you think not many people would come riiight? Well this is not the case, round here so many people love to ride, they take work off, or work from home so they can ride when they like, and I can see why! The riding is wicked, and I am so excited to explore some more! Today we did one of the many climbs up to the skyline ridge...just a casual 9 mile climb!! Then we did 2 more 5mile climbs! Instead of the distance of the climbs, people tell you how long it will take you to ride... and apparently the climbs around here average between 30-40mins in climbing... makes for some pretty sweet descending! 

It is still pretty chilly here, although I have been fortunate enough to not see a single cloud in the sky since I have been here. It gets rather cold out riding, even when dressed in full winter kit, especially at the top of the mountains as we found out today!!

for up to date info on the team check out our facebook page: 

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Vanderkitten-Racing/181361851888768

Check out Jason Perry's Photos at

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jasonperryphoto/sets/72157629150411366/with/6812093834/

Here's and article by Chris See from podium cafe who spent a few days with us on camp:

http://www.podiumcafe.com/2012/3/6/2850282/vanderkitten-focus-spring-camp

And a sweet article by Bruce at Cycling News who came to our team launch:

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/gallery-vanderkitten-focus-rolls-out-2012-team

We head to SoCal next thurs for san dimas and redlands.

Sorry about the painfully long update....but at least there is pictures so you can just look at them instead of reading :)

Kate