This Friday July 28th, 2023 women's track racing takes center stage in Trexlertown, PA at the Nicole Reinhart Women's Open P/B I Am I Can I Will I Do event as part of the Friday Night Under the Lights program at the Valley Preferred Cycling Center. We value having America's best velodrome here in eastern Pennsylvania and are proud to support women's racers: Jessica Chong, Julianna Rutecki, and Kimberly Zubris on the track this season as teammates. We thought this would be a great opportunity not only to encourage you to go out to T-Town Friday night to bang on the boards and support our racers, but also to introduce you to Kimberly who is new to our team this season (but not track racing!).

1. Tell us all about Kimberly Ann Zubris? General about me: I'm originally from Hazleton, PA. I studied Chemical Engineering at Lehigh University as an undergrad and then earned a PhD at Boston University (BU) in Biomedical Engineering. Since then I've worked in R&D and clinical manufacturing making formulations that provide hard to deliver active ingredients to patients - chemotherapeutics, pain management, and general health & wellness products.

2. How did you come to bike racing, and specifically to track cycling? I started cycling through the collegiate program at BU on their road racing team. After I moved back to the Lehigh Valley, I attended one of the community programs at "T-Town" and was pretty hooked on track cycling from that point on.

3. What are some of your biggest accomplishments before joining us, and what are some of your outstanding cycling goals? I represented the USA in multiple Elite Track World Cup and World Championships, Silver Medalist at Pan Am Championships in the Madison discipline, US National Champion in the Madison and Team Pursuit, Multi-time National Champ Medalist, Valley Preferred Cycling Center (VPCC) Rider of the Year 2021, VPCC Women's Cup winner 2021, VPCC Madison Cup winner 2022, Master's World Champ in Individual Pursuit, Points Race, Scratch Race, and Team Sprint; and Master's national record holder.

4. Any training tips you'd like to share with some of our up-and-coming club racers? The best training tip I have is to figure out how to really enjoy it - whether that's the routes you take or the people you ride with or the specific workouts you do. Happy racers go faster.

I asked teammate Jessica Chong what she might say about Kim:

"I think the picture above says it all! Pretty sure I was more proud of her 2021 VPCC Rider of the Year (ROY) win than she was lol. We were teammates before we even started wearing the same kit. We’ve done many Madisons and team events together. She’s made me a better racer because of her continuous support through thick and thin. I remember one UCI omnium where I was doing pretty well considering the depth of the field. During the final event (points race), I died a thousand deaths; to this day it’s probably the hardest race I’ve ever done on the track. Kim talked me through and encouraged me to keep pushing until the end, and I literally wouldn’t have been able to do it without her."

What a perfect time to highlight our gratitude to our team sponsors at the Doylestown Health Foundation. 100 years ago a group of dedicated community women at the Village Improvement Association opened an eight bed emergency hospital that continues to grow. Doylestown Health's mission is to continuously improve the quality of life and proactively advocate for the health and well-being of the individuals they serve. We believe that cycling can be a tool to foster a life-long love of activity that positively impacts the physical and mental health of individuals and families in our community, and we see our team as a vehicle to highlight cycling. We are so grateful to Doylestown Health for supporting local women's athletes competing in all levels and disciplines of our sport and for supporting the Women's Pro Race at the Bucks County Classic to showcase those athletes.