Shaun Baesman

As the baby of the team, Shaun has the joy of racing with and being inspired by all of her other teammates. She just recently finished her master's degree in microbiology from San Francisco State University and hopes to continue with her research at the USGS as a Biogeochemist.  Shaun loves the speed of crit racing, but manages to stay somewhat grounded with her evolving yoga practice.

Aimee Baker

Aimee is a former national class rower, and women’s crew coach. She also grew up in the Napa Valley. So it was not a big surprise when she gave up coaching to become a vintner. But she missed the heat of athletic competition and turned her athletic drive to bike racing a year ago (having dabbled a bit in the past). Aimee quickly acquired several bruises, and several podiums, and is busy building up a menagerie of bikes. She loves making wine, riding her bike and attending to her very large dog, Bouchon. She can be found spending most evenings in her hot tub.

Kathleen Boyle

Kathleen has been dabbling in bicycle racing for the past two years.  She has a long history of dabbling other sports, including triathlon, running, hiking, soccer, and the full panoply of snow sports.  She is a very accomplished traveler, having journeyed not only to Timbuktu and back on an excruciatingly slow boat, on which she slept on the deck being devoured by mosquitoes - and ended up with malaria, but also to places like Ouagadougou, Cochabamba, and Siguatepeque.  What does that have to do with bike racing?  Innumerable 24-hour bus rides on dirt roads better classified as singletrack have honed her ability to suffer.  She looks forward to applying this ability to racing with success in 2007.

Miriam Garfinkel

Miriam has been racing her bicycle for three years, but that followed many years of strong recreational riding. She caught the racing bug first at the Gay Games in 2004 and that continued her pursuits of the podium. Miriam’s expertise as a psychotherapist has lead to her role as the “process” person for the team, helping Protech through the formation of the team. But her real skill lies in her after hours mastery of eBay and other online sites, where she acts as team procurer of cycling equipment, bikes that “mostly” fit, and unusual equipment upgrades. She doesn’t sleep much and is known for her climbing ability

Norma Hilton

After many years of running, Norma’s knees slowly gave out.  She tried doing triathlons for a while and finally settled into cycling fulltime.  After completing six centuries she realized she wanted more of a challenge and took the plunge into road racing.  She completed my first road race – Livermore Hills – in July, 2002.  She continues to ride and race, mostly for fun and fitness.

Sarah Holmes

After riding for a few years, Sarah felt the need for competition.  She has raced for 2 years, with a focus mostly on crits.  She was a competitive swimmer growing up and played water polo in college.  She spent a few years in China, riding her bike through the streets with all the other billion commuters and avoiding getting hit by buses in the roundabouts (all of which are a good base for crit racing by the way).  she works to support her bike habit, and  is trained as an emt but prefers her teammates stay upright so she doesn't have to treat them.  She lives on burritos and her favorite color is red.

Dawn Neisser

Dawn maintains that the only consistent things she’s done since graduating from college are: staying married to her husband, and riding her bike. (Probably because her husband rides, too, and they like to ride together).  Dawn has worked for many different high tech companies, a start up women’s professional basketball team (the San Jose Lasers), consulting…etc.  About 3 years ago a current teammate, who shall remain un-named, was riding with her and listening to her ramblings about bike racing and said “Dawn, you aren’t getting any younger….” According to Dawn, that was the catalyst…”Getting in to women’s racing has been fantastic – many great friends, good competitors, a few podiums, a few crashes, lots of fun training miles and mostly fun racing miles.  Actually, I have been getting younger….”

Kim Perez

Kim’s career has been in the fitness and health industry, as a fitness director at well known health clubs. But she won’t reveal her role while out riding, as she prefers to use her bicycle as an escape from work. Kim has been racing for several years. Her nickname on the team is “Swiss Miss” – because she is incredibly diplomatic at managing interpersonal dynamics (always present on a team). Not so obvious, however, is her love of a good party, a margarita or two, and her ability to motivate teammates to do “just one more” core exercise.

Yvonne Walbroehl

As Protech’s cyclocross specialist, Yvonne is most happy mixing it up on a muddy cross course.  She has also competed in road races since 2005 and especially likes hill climbs.  After injuries cut short her 2005 cross and 2006 road seasons, she had a strong showing in cyclocross in 2006, notching 2 victories in the CCCX cross series and a hard-earned 2nd place on a very muddy course at Surf City #3 in Watsonville.  Yvonne has a Ph.D. in chemistry and works in pharmaceutical research.  She also sings and plays guitar with the bluegrass band, Cabin Fever.

Kim Weins

Kim made the leap from a “once-a-weekend-when-the-weather-is-nice” cyclist to racing her bike in 2003 at the age of 40.  After racing her first season in the Bay Area, she relocated to Boulder, CO where the air is thin and the riding is spectacular.  She has managed to ride year round in Boulder despite a self-imposed minimum riding temperature of 40 degrees and has continued to race, both in Colorado and California.  She recently took up mountain biking and has become extraordinarily adept at finding innovative ways to fall in the dirt.  She is currently expanding her repertoire of fun ways to induce pain by taking up cyclocross.