PSIMET Racing Team



While my Soul Star Racing teammates and Tasman Wheelers clubmates make preparations for Round 3 of the Benchmark Elite Cycling Series in Christchurch on 19 May, I’ve just arrived in the US where I’ll be racing with the Chicago-based PSIMET Racing Team for the next several months. After four days of settling in and shaking off jetlag, my US race schedule begins this weekend with the PSIMET-sponsored Fox River Grove Omnium, a two-day event comprising a fast, flat crit in Elgin on Saturday followed by Fox River Grove on Sunday, featuring the notorious ski jump hill climb. The climb will be perfect prep for the even more gruelling climb planned for next weekend at Snake Alley. More about that next week! This week is all about getting back into racing.


Gluten-free PSIMET Racing cupcakes, compliments of
Kimberly. Looking forward to sampling these this weekend!

 The lead-up to my US season has been fraught with unwelcome challenges: eight weeks of illness to start off the year, promptly followed by an additional eight weeks of injury after a collision with a courier van. All up, the year so far has been lots of rehab, plenty of pain and limited riding for the past 4 months. On the bright side, I’m hoping the early-season downtime will leave me feeling fresh later in the season. Fortunately my body has made good progress toward healing over the past few weeks and, although a bit underdone, I’m starting to feel some confidence that I may be able to just about pull off a reasonable level of form. These first couple weeks will be the real test—and painful, no doubt!

More about the team. PSIMET is a custom wheel company based in Elgin IL, near Chicago. PSIMET owner / operator Rob Curtis builds high-quality, custom-made bicycle wheels to meet the specific requirements of individual riders. Together with ENZO’s Buttonhole mastermind Wayne Simon, Rob has put together a team of amazing women to form the PSIMET Racing Women’s Team.

The women of PSIMET Racing are Katie Isermann, Kelli Richter, Kimberly Gialdini, Leah Herman Sanda, Marne Smiley and myself. The team has made a great start to the season with several podiums already. With our custom PSIMET race wheels, we are assured some awesome finishes over the season. We tackle our first race together this weekend at Elgin. My race schedule for the first half of my trip is below. Lots of (hopefully exciting) race reports to come over the next few months so stay tuned. To ensure you don’t miss any, type your email address into ‘Follow by email’ to get updated whenever I post.

Me in my new PSIMET Racing kit, team GIANT bicycle
and custom PSIMET training wheels.

Racing schedule through June:

19-20 May           Fox River Grove Omnium             Elgin / Fox River Grove IL

26 May                 Snake Alley Criterium                     Burlington IA

27 May                 Melon City Criterium                      Muscatine IA

28 May                 Quad Cities Criterium                     Rock Island IL

1 Jun                      Lake Bluff Twilight Crit                   Lake Bluff IL

2 Jun                      Glencoe Grand Prix                         Glencoe IL

8-10 Jun               Tour of Galena                                  Galena IL

15-17 Jun             O’Fallon Grand Prix                         O’Fallon IL

21 Jun – 1 Jul      Tour of America’s Dairyland        WI (various)