VK'S Jenny Trew Makes Canadian History At Track Nationals!

Vanderkitten's Jenny Trew, teamed with Giant's Steph Roorda, and Laura Brown made history on August 27th by winning Canada's FIRST EVER Women's Team Pursuit.  They are, by all accounts, the Canadian National Record holders!  They beat out four teams for the Canadian National Record!

Below is Jenny's account of the event:

"Day one of Nationals started out with the men's individual pursuits and all the team pursuits.  For the women, 2008 marked the very first time this event has been held in Canada, so it awarded the winners the National Record.  For my teammates and I, this was a very enviable title.  That having been said, our National governing body isn't exactly what you would call progressive, so it was not given the National Championship title but rather a "National Challenge Event."  In all honesty, it's best that I don't get into that particular rant, especially since there were five women's teams in the competition and only four senior men's teams!

I rode the event with my two former teammates Steph Roorda and Laura Brown.  We were hungry off the start.  As the first team up, we were going to set the time to beat.  We laid down a rather respectable 3:49.3 over 3km!  After the next four heats our new Canadian Record held up as we beat the closest team by 15 seconds!

Next up was the gold medal final where we would be 2-up on the 200m track.  We knew that we had room to improve as two team errors were made in qualifying by going too fast on my first lap (the second team lap) and by pulling up too late through my last pull which gapped me a little and slowed down the team.

Regardless, we headed into the final confident, but a little nervous and eager to best our ride from the morning.  Right off the bat we were on form.  The exchanges were smoother, the pulls stronger, and we were riding much faster that we had in the morning.  Jeremy, our Coach, was calling out the splits and we knew that we were killing it!  Halfway through we saw that we were catching our opponents (in a pursuit final, if you catch the other team/rider on the track you win the round).  By this point we were really pushing it to catch them!  Our pulls were strong and we were riding away from our schedule.  With 1.5 laps to go we overtook the other team to take the gold!

All and all it was an exciting evening and a great way to kick off the National Championships!  Today I get to lie low, but tomorrow evening will be my showcase event, the Points Race!  I'm excited, but Nationals are always an exciting and weird event, so we'll see."

The 2008 Tim Horton's National Track Championships are being held August 27-31, in Burnaby, BC.  To find out more about Canadian Track Nationals, check racing schedules, or view results please click here!

Maroon Throws Down In Suisun! (Suh-Soon)

photo: Paul Doran

Mary Maroon is a Regional VK racer and represent the team and brand here in Northern California. She won the Suisun (Suh-Soon) crit on July, 17th 2008, putting Vanderkitten once again on the podium!

"Suisun crit was awesome. There were select riders from local teams, a kinda large-ish Touchstone showing, a small handful of a few other teams and a Code3 showed. There were a lot of team tactics by Touchstone, Metromint, and DolceVita. I made sure to keep the Vanderkitten logo very visible. I chased down most attacks, I got in all but 1 or 2 breaks (even though they didn't last long), I TT'd (time trialed) off the front for a little while, got us a prime and a first place.

I know Suisun isn't that big a deal except for it's a Calcup race. I know that If there wasn't a big fat NRC race right now it'd have been a little more challenging. But I also know that a win is a win, that this was pretty cool considering the heavy handed team tactics, and totally fun attacking the field with more than half a lap to go, into the wind, with some of our former teammates desperately trying to hang on. :) Someone asked me for an interview and I probably should have said no. I just hope I did an ok job!

I'm getting excited about the rest of the season."

-Mary Maroon

VK ATHLETE KYM PERFETTO WINS S.B.C. RACE IN NYC!!

The second annual Susan B. Cruisin' race brought out women from all over the city. Beginning in Chinatown the race included two long fast sprints up to 118th and ended at Lakeside Lounge in the Lower East Side. Racers had to complete 6 checkpoints throughout the city, each planning out their own route based on speed/distance. Kym finished 1st after taking a spill on the pavement early in the race, with Britlee a close second and Grace in third.

It was the second all women's alleycat in NY this summer, following the HellCat.

"I decided not to psych myself out. I prepped well, rocked my Vanderkitten Jersey, stayed concentrated and raced well. And it worked!"

Kym was also featured in the September issue of Bicycling Magazine. You can check the article out here! Kym is not only a talented cyclist but also a personal trainer and spinning instructor. Keep kicking ass Kym!

Photos: Fred Askew

Road Racing Diva Caves to Temptation

Believe it or not we get a few requests for sponsorship. We read every one, consider the resume and what the needs are , get stupid busy and forget to follow-up. Christie Cooley knows us all too well... Christie is a local Road Racer here in the Bay Area, is HOT, has a great sense of humor and FAST. She approached VK for sponsorship (or maybe we offered), and we never followed up.

Christie, on the other hand, was insistent upon making good on her end of the deal, and out of temptation put the super-hot VK stickers on her race bike and said, "See, I'm doing my job!". Of course, had she received the VK gear we had promised, she would have a super-hot VK shirt on in the photo!


So, Christie, thanks for representing Vanderkitten to the fastest 2-wheeled crowd in the world! You can check out Christie's racing at the next AFM event in Northern California in the 650 Twins class racing her Suzuki SV650!