OCTOBER FACTORY RACING
October Bikes is extremely proud to support four incredibly talented cyclists on the 2009 October Factory Racing team. Racing from early spring right through cross season, we’re extremely excited to see you at the races. Check out our team bios and team sponsors below. A huge thank you to everyone involved!
OCTOBER FACTORY RACING
Lyne BessetteLYNE BESSETTE
Lyne grew up in a small town in Quebec where she spent her winters (i.e. 9 months of the year) playing in the snow, and her summers running away from blackflies, bears, and her beloved brother, Eric. After running quite seriously for more than 11 years, an injury forced Lyne onto skis, then a snowboard, and then eventually a bike, and no one has been able to catch her since. Lyne competed in the 2000 and 2004 Olympic road races; won gold and bronze in the 1998 and 2002 Commonwealth Games road races, respectively; won the Tour de l'Aude in France in 1999, 2001 and placed 2nd in 2003; and was the USGP Cyclocross overall winner in 2005 and 2006, just to name a few of her accomplishments. She is married to Tim Johnson, making them the superstar couple of cyclocross. Lyne loves riding her bike more than anything, and she spends her off-bike time hanging out with Tim, playing with their brown lab 'Vitesse' (French for 'speed'), baking her famous cupcakes, and attempting to reproduce the recipe for the BBQ lizard she ate in China this summer. Lyne will be competing at endurance mountain bike races for October this year, and she might even make a few appearances on the cyclocross scene as well: racers be warned!
Linnea Koons
LINNEA KOONS
Linnea grew up in New Zealand, where her first introduction to cycling came in the form of herding sheep on mountain bikes on her family's farm. Moving to the United States at age 16, she discovered that bikes could be ridden outside the farm, but thought little of it. It wasn't until reaching college that she did a proper mountain bike ride, whereupon she fell in love with the sport and started teaching others on a borrowed bike. Post-college she finally gave racing a try, and it turned out that all those years of riding laps around livestock had secretly trained her to be an expert mountain biker. She moved to the top of expert ranks in two short years, winning the Root 66 Under 35 Expert title in 2008. Perhaps missing her halcyon days of circling animals for 40 minutes at a time, she started racing cyclocross in 2007 and rode a full UCI calendar in 2008, scoring five top-tens at UCI C2 events and ranking 160th internationally at the end of the season. Linnea is looking forward to her first pro mountain bike season with October, and she has her sights set on being one of the 100 fastest female cyclocrossers on the planet next fall.
Kate HarrisKATE HARRIS
In a moment of inspired lunacy three years ago, Kate bought a bike, packed her tent, and set off from San Francisco toward the east coast wearing underpants beneath her brand-new chamois. Despite not knowing how to fix a flat tire, she made it to the Atlantic two months later having developed some serious saddlesores and a passion for cycling along the way. The next summer she and two friends spent four months biking China's very bumpy Silk Road. Suspension was clearly the solution, but it was years later before a friend introduced Kate to mountain biking by throwing her into a race. Though she fell often and hard, she also fell in love with the sport. So in 2008 Kate bought a mountain bike with a student loan (“education” being open to creative interpretation) and started racing XC. After winning the sport category at the 2008 Canadian National Mountain Biking Championship, Kate moved to Boston for grad school, upgraded to expert, and won her first race. She then represented MIT in DII collegiate cycling, winning the 2008 USA Collegiate National Mountain Biking Championship title in short track, and earning bronze and silver medals in the cross-country and cyclocross championships. Kate is super stoked to train, ride and race October in 2009.
