Vanderkitten Grabs Podium Spot at Athens!

After a strong reorganization of the road team, a change in focus and the addition of Jennifer Wilson from Southern California, Vanderkitten Racing set it's sights on the Southeast Crit Series, dropping out of the long, lonely, Tour de Gila.

Of course, whenever a big change is made, the talk is always that the team is for one reason or another not going to make it, etc... well, guess again.

After a long, VERY FAST Athens Twilight, Vanderkitten Jennifer Wilson sprinted to a 3rd place finish in front of 30,000+ spectators! The first podium came after very hard work from Leigh Valletti, Melissa Sanborn, Kele Murdin and Jenny Trew! Liz was wo-manning the radio on the sidelines and Mandy Lozano was cheering on her girls!

Congrats to the team for throwin' down!!!

America's Next Top Vanderkittens

This post is LONG overdue. A couple years ago, we would put every picture sent to us on our Tribe.net photo page. Well, we are brining it back in April with the ViP Page, Very Important Pussycat.

My good friends Lauren and Page, West Chester, PA.

Team Camp, Day -2

What a ride! On Feb. 9th Mark picked up Heather Sborz and Melissa Sanborn from the Oakland airport and stopped by with them on their way to Martinez to join Liz and get settled in. Heather, figuring her flight and drive from the airport was not long enough, elected to keep me company and drive up to Petaluma to our sponsor shop Bici Sport. (Bee-chee Sport)


Jerry was busy putting together our bikes, which Andrew had asked to give them 4 days to do... but in typical fashion, parts were being delivered on Thursday afternoon for bikes needed Saturday. We hovered over Jerry and his side-kick Colby for a while and he finished up our new BH Connect bikes. I had purchased a new team car a few nights before, a 1999 Volvo XC Wagon, and we were piling on the miles quickly... I bought it with 91k, and by the end of camp it would show 94k just 2 weeks and several tanks of gas later!


The first thing we noticed was how light the complete bikes were. We are still waiting for some chi-chi wheels from Spinergy, but the stand in DT Swiss wheels had Melissa's bike close to the UCI minimum!! HOT DAMN! Heather loved the look of the bikes and was stoked to be the first to ride.. but no pedals meant she was waiting til we got back to Mark's house in Martinez to meet up with Liz.

Liz rode her custom Ahrens and the girls went out to get used to the new shifting of the Driven components . The goal was to build only the bikes we'd need for the girls coming into town and get the show going for the Cherry Pie crit in Napa the following day. I threw some new Kenda Kriterium tires on Liz's bike as well for the race.

This whole team thing was unfolding as a reality so fast I don't think Mark and I had a chance to digest all that we were about to experience trying to herd our "VKats".

With All of this Talk About Equality...

Maybe the UCI, the international governing body of cycling, made a New Year's resolution to equally compensate women professional athletes in prize money... but most likely they didn't.
Mountain biking phenom and current MTB National Champion Georgia Gould created a petition to the UCI that has been wildly broadcast to increase female prize money to match that of men. There are few professional women's sports that have achieved this, and we need to look no further than Tennis to see this gap closed.

A more likely achievement would be to garner compensation and endorsement packages like the surfing and snowboarding/skiing industry have. But where will the money come from?



Let's look at the numbers for a minute. There are 1.7 Million men, women and children in the USA who SURF, yet SURFWEAR is a multi-billion dollar industry. In fact, 95% of all of the people who own clothing or accessories from a "surfwear" company will never, in fact, surf. The cycling industry boasts amazing numbers in comparison. There are 44 million women in the USA who ride bikes, yet professional women make a FRACTION of what a professional female surfer earns. So, when we want equal pay... where does the money come from?

Cycling is ready for a MAKEOVER in a BIG WAY!



I love the sport, but it's been dorky at best over the last decade (save for the gravity girls). The cost of entry is extreme compared to a lot of other sports, the fashion is very far behind (see above), and the image is not one that marketeers find, well, marketable (see above). The age of people making decisions in the cycling industry is increasing, and the touch with todays trends is far removed. But cycling has something no other sport has- the ability to do it anywhere, in practically any weather. There is no Powder Day there is no Big Swell. There is not that one thing you wait for everyday of your life, that makes the attainment of said condition prestigious and godlike. Does this limit Cycling's allure? Can we shoot videos of the perfect road descent?

If any of you have ever surfed, you know you can get to the beach to find it flat, blown-out, overly crowded, choppy, glassy or perfect. The reality is that perfection is always being chased because the sport is 100% dependent on a perfect combination of being in the right place at the right time. On any given day, there is no surf. On any given day, there is always cycling. The lifestyle of being laid back, waiting for surf, is very appealing to us all. Surfing is natural, powerful, amazing. I feel the same way about skiing: I can hit speeds over 50 miles an hour on a piece of wood wrapped with some fiberglass- No wheels, no shifting and the only thing with mechanical workings are my bindings, and that's just so I don't break my legs! Everytime I go, it costs A LOT of money to ski.

So, why then is cycling not of interest to the public at large? Its the largest recreational fitness activity in the US next to WALKING! I think cycling needs a make-over. The button-up, corporate racer drone doesn't vibe with the public at large who buy the products and services bigger sports promote. What if cycling was presented in such a way that it is accessbile, causal, exciting and beautiful?

Cycling is HOT


Leah is a professional bike racer from Canada. She is one of the young women that is changing the face of the sport. She is fast, wins big races and looks like a supermodel.


Liz is hot, she is real, down to Earth, a crowd favorite. She does not look like your female cyclist of the 90's, and she is arguably much tougher, too.


Mandy stops grown men in their tracks. She is sassy, classy, intelligent, FAST and beautiful. She is fast, fun and promotes women's cycling all day long!


Flavia is a dynamo on and off the bike. She speaks her mind, is confident and focused. She knows what she wants from life.


Leigh is hard working, fashionable, fast and wide-smiling. She and her pro-boy know VK is the new hot thing in cycling. Her hard work has made Vanderkitten Racing a reality for 2008!

These are just some of the fast women who are changing the face of Women's Cycling with Vanderkitten Racing in 2008. You will get to know them all over the coming weeks. We are excited that we can bring the level of fashion, excitement, talent and personality to the sport of cycling that does not exist. In fact, many call Vanderkitten "the Roxy of cycling"... I can't think of a more flattering compliment.

Happy New Year!

2008 presents another year of endless opportunities for Vanderkitten! To the right is a poll for you to fill out! The idea is to help us identify the products YOU want most! We have all of these items in development, so it's just a matter of prioritizing them for delivery!

Thank you for taking a minute to select your favorite items!!

We Skipped Black Friday!

Look, why try to compete with every other retailer out there in the world to offer special savings for one measly day? That's not the VK way! We are jamming new product onto the webstore with SUPER EXCLUSIVE, LIMITED EDITION T-Shirts, JACKETS and Sweatshirts!!

Here's the deal: We will be offering our exclusive WORLD TOUR T-shirts for sale, TO YOU! These are hand printed by Dave himself, with riveted tags and printed labels. Strictly BAD ASS, Vintage cotton, ready to ROCK! Will these be on sale? No. Can you use you discount code for them? Nada. Will you see your self coming and going everywhere you look in these T's? NOPE!


Exclusiveness has a small price of only $38.99... Pretty bad ass? Yes indeed.

Other stuff coming out:
More hand printed, limited edition T's! We'll save you a trip to the boutique!

Get on the email list for the announcement!

Christine RAWKS the NEW VANDERKITTEN CROSS KIT in BELGIUM!!




The HOTTEST kits in Cross made their debut at the UCI Word Cup in Belgium this weekend! Vanderkitten partnered up with Belgian team wear manufacturer extrordinairre, BioRacer.

Christine Vardaros reports the kits are the best looking and best feeling kits she's ever worn (and she's been at this on 2 continents for a dozen years!!) How do YOU get one? A VERY LIMITED number will be available for public purchase with proceeds going to Vanderkitten Racing to help fund our cycling team!



Check out Vanderkitten webstore the first week of November for more!!!

AND WE'RE OFF!

Sea Otter Classic 2007 has ended, we're back in Berkeley resurrecting our blog after a quick website update and photoshoot last night! With 2 dozen new items for Spring and Summer, we've been VERY busy!! Our Vanderkitten riders kicked ass in Expert and Semi-Pro ranks, and helped make our weekend managable and a HUGE success!

A special thanks to Tsering, Emma and Temba for holding down the fort between races and deluges of water! Our gal-pal Liz Hatch is in town showing off the new team Road bike and kit. It looks AWESOME and will be available for sale to the general public late spring!! Maureen Kunz, the first member of the Vanderkitten MTB team kicked some big-time ass!!

Pictures and more coming tonight!!