Kaitie Keough blasts down a dusty decent on the first lap of the Waterloo World Cup

Hey everyone! Were just getting back to our regular schedule after a couple of hectic weeks prepping for the first two World Cups of the season. There is really too much to say for a single post, but I will try to summarize the best that I can.

Kaitie Keough

If you followed us last fall, you know that we have been working with one of the world's best CX racers, Kaitie Antonneau. She got married last month and is now Kaitie Keough. Try to keep up.

Early Season CX

Speaking of keeping up, Kaitie has had a pretty awesome start to her season. Taking a 3rd place at Rochester day 1 and winning day 2. Then, last week she won Friday night at Jinglecross and placed second in the World Cup on Sunday. I highly recommend watching the World Cup replay on Youtube if you get a chance.

The Week between

In addition to Kaitie, this year we are sponsoring a New England based womens elite cyclocross team called Team Averica. Julie Wright made the trek out to corn country for the last two weeks of World Cup racing and we got to host her for the week in between. From talking to her, I think she was feeling just ok about the results of her trip, but I think we will see a lot more of her on the pointy end as the season goes on.

Julie Wright during Friday's UCI Elite Womens Race

Trek World Cup

At the last minute we got a chance to set up a vendor booth at the Trek World Cup. Unfortunately, our van needed a computer transplant that took longer than expected. We crammed what we could into our cars and booked it down to Madison on Thursday night. 

Cyclocross friends

This part honestly broke my head a little bit. We met just a ton of people over the weekend, including some real stars of the sport, mechanics, team staff, photographers, and podcasters. Without fail, people were super welcoming and friendly to us, despite our little brand being basically unknown in the industry. If any of this was fake, it was incredibly convincing. Several pros I talked to literally thanked me for sponsoring Kaitie. I'm actually not sure what to make of this, everyone we me was incredibly nice. 

Race

Of course, things got serious on Sunday for the World Cup. It was wicked hot and dusty. Trek did an amazing job making sure the course was dialed and the fans were taken care of. We shut down our tent for the Women Elite race and had a blast trying to photograph the action. Katie ended up in second (putting her 5 pointed out of the WC lead) and Julie finished 35th. 

More

I have a ton of photos from the weekend that I will get up on the site shortly, but there is a ton of stuff to do at the shop still this week! We are also doing a giveaway with the Bike Shop CX Podcast that I will have details on shortly.