Armstrong vs. Aaron’s

(by Meredith Miller, Aaron's Cycling Team)

The 2008 cycling season has finally started to roll with the women’s peloton fighting it out at the Amgen Tour of California Women’s Criterium and the Sequoia Classic. The season has yet to shift into high gear as there are still quite a few gaps between race weekends, but it was clearly obvious at these last races that the women are ready to rock and roll.

For me personally, I am excited to be racing with a new team this year, the Aaron’s Women’s Pro Cycling Team. With a bigger, stronger team this year we expect to have much success on the road, as was evident when the team placed 4 out of 4 riders in the top 10 at Sequoia’s 40km individual time trial. We were elated to have done so well, especially after having saddled up on our brand-spanking new Specialized Transition TT bikes for the 1st time just the day before the TT. But, yet, there was one woman racing who almost made us want to pack up and go home. Not because this woman is a terrible person, just the opposite really, but because she is former World Time Trial Champion, Kristin Armstrong – a woman who is so remarkably powerful and dominating she stamps her name on any TT she enters like no one’s business. Clearly, when she beat 2nd place by roughly 4 minutes she’s on track for Beijing.

Now, why do I bring up Kristin’s name? It’s because she and I were teammates during the previous 2 years on Team Lipton, and now times have changed, I have to look at her as stiff competition, the “enemy”. In Sequoia, it was the first race in a long time that I had entered in which I was actually discouraged to see her name on the start list – “damn, why is SHE here?”. In years past, it was exciting to see her win race after race, TT after TT, but now it’s different because I have new teammates that I want to see win. Although Kristin will be racing primarily in Europe this year, she and her Euro team will still be around, particularly at the Nature Valley Grand Prix, a race that Kristin has dominated by riding away from the field at both the Mankato RR and the Stillwater Criterium sealing her overall victory in 2006 and 2007.

As a teammate I was thrilled to be part of these victories, but now I will be playing a largely different role, that of making sure it’s Aaron’s on the top of the podium. How will we contain this woman, a woman who has made the NVGP “her” race? Ah, well, those are the kind of secrets that I can’t share, but you can bet that Aaron’s will be playing every card we’ve got to keep Kristin under control.