The INTERNATIONAL KMS Cycling Team

Wow, what a way to end the 2012 spring road season!   On top of the team's phenomenal results at Nationals in Augusta in June, the highlight of which was our newly crowned Jr. 17-18 National Criterium Champion, Brendan Rhim (check out his new national champion's jersey on the team website at www.kmscyclingteam.com), we now have some amazing international results adding to our palmares.  

First and foremost, Erin Donohue, taking part in KMS' exchange program with Team CHCH, a powerhouse Canadian team based out of one of five Canadian National Cycling Centres in Hamilton, Ontario, managed to pull off an incredible solo win in the only UCI Category 1.1 Junior Womens' road race in the world, the Gran Prix de Rimouski:  http://www.uci.ch/templates/UCI/UCI2/layout.asp?MenuId=MTUyMjQ&LangId=1.   You can read about Erin's win in her blog at:  http://erindonohue.blogspot.ca/.

Erin, along with Key Vollers (Peter, Jr.) also competed for Team CHCH as part of our exchange program in the six-stage Tour de la Releve de Rimouski Stage Race where Key won the Team Time Trial and placed top five in the Individual Time Trial and then worked tirelessly for his teammate, Adam Jameison, who won the overall General Classification.  Erin also had two top-six stages, but then was caught up in a bad crash giving her teammate a leadout in the criterium.  She nevertheless persevered to finish the stage race despite some serious road rash.   

While Erin and Key were tearing it up up in the Great White North, Chris Rhim and I took Brendan and Ansel across the pond to compete in the six-stage International Junior Tour of Ireland  http://www.juniortourofireland.com/.   Although most teams had four riders and some even had two full teams working together, our two top KMS riders pulled out some amazing results despite having only themselves to turn to for help during the blazing fast racing.    We managed to place a man in the top 10 each and every stage:   B 3rd in the Stage 1 TT and 4th on Stage 6, Ansel 5th on Stage 2, 4th on Stage 3, 10th on Stage 4 and 6th on Stage 5.   To top it off, B came 9th overall on GC.  

Pretty incredible results for this team's first foray into true international junior bike racing.  

As for the remainder of the summer, here's what's happening with the club and the junior racing program.  All of the elite team riders will be taking a good two week break away from the bike.  That is, everyone except Brendan who will be taking a Junior National Team trip to Belgium where he'll race 13 races in 24 days in Jr. National Team stars and stripes kit.  He'll even have a chance to race the Junior Tour of Flanders.  Congrats B!

Our development team riders should follow the usual weekly training shown on the team website calendar including the Tuesday night Claremont training races.   The next race we'll do as a team will be the Concord Criterium on August 4.  We'll then focus on some one-day races in mid-August before preparing for the Green Mountain Stage Race stage race in early September.    And then it's on to, yes, that's right, CYCLOCROSS SEASON!!

As for group club rides, Matt Seiple and I will be resurrecting the Wednesday night dirt road rides on cross bikes, weather permitting.   We'll meet at the Start House at 5 pm and leave shortly thereafter.   Also, our Thursday night mountain bike rides are enjoying record numbers in participation and have been varying the location of the rides each week to hit all of the best riding venues in the area.   Look for emails from Dan McKenna for ride details each week.   

That's all for now.    Happy biking!