Rabobank Introduction

On the 27^th or November I headed back to Europe bound for Holland for my next adventure, this time to meet with my new team mates and staff of the 2012 Rabobank Women’s team. I was nervous and excited on the trip over as I wasn’t sure what to expect of my first Pro team encounter. The girls were all so welcoming and we had such a great time getting to know each other. We had a few rides through the week including some recon for the Worlds next year in Valkenburg. Most of the time we had team building activities and basically fun days; including a day spa trip, hitting the town in Maastricht as well as some karaoke, damn we are good…

We had a few busy days also preparing for the 2012 season. We had bike setups with the Giant team, bikes look very impressive indeed and I can’t wait to test them out next season! We had clothing measurements with Craft for our kit for next season to be specially made up for each rider and we had a few doctor’s appointments and tests to make sure everything is all set health wise for next year.

It might sounds like I didn’t ride my bike too much but the schedule also included a day of testing in Den Haag with the Rabobank Sports Science team. It was a little different to what I have done with the AIS but reasonably similar sort of setup. We did some seated sprint tests as well as a step up test. It was nice to be able to get some testing in to see where I’m at training wise running into Nationals in January and into the season starting in Qatar in February.

I’m very excited for next season with the Rabobank girls, we get on so well and as a team this is so important. My season will start with the National Championships in Ballarat with the Criterium on the 5^th, the Road Race on the 7^th and the ITT title on the 10^th of January. I have decided to skip the Bay Crits this year to focus more on the nationals and to spend an extra week at home. I will head to Qatar at the end of January for the Ladies Tour of Qatar before flying on to Europe early February for team camp in Spain and then into the Classics.

I’m very lucky to have family in Holland where I will be based next season. My cousin’s Henry and Karin looked after me for the last part of the 2011 season and I’m very much looking forward to spending time with my Dutch family next year!

I hope everyone had a great Christmas and Thanks for reading

Bring on 2012!