Today is a very special day. Following a very successful Spring Classic campaign, we are about to embark on a 10-day journey at one of the toughest races in the world for women, Tour de l’Aude. Not as a composite team, not as a national team, but as Team TIBCO.

It has been a long road to get here.  Four years ago this fall, Brooke and I were at Interbike for three solid days, with meetings every thirty minutes, telling our story and trying to get sponsorship for the team. We were a small team based out of Palo Alto Bicycles, but we wanted to be so much more. We had no results or media exposure to show these companies.  All we had was our passion and the fire in our eyes.

But that was enough.  SRAM, LOOK, HED, Clif Bar and others believed in us and wanted to help.  Shortly after, TIBCO and SVB came on board.  We are still with these companies today.

What was our story?    We wanted to:

• Provide a stable, on-going program for women to achieve their dreams and reach their potential
• Become the top team in the country, and then leverage that to become a UCI team
• Expand our calendar to European racing, while maintaining a strong North American presence, so that our riders could get the racing experience/UCI points they needed to meet Olympic qualification standards

We were determined to develop a well-run team that not only won races, but worked with our product partners to help them achieve their results.  Giving back to the community was also important to us.

Over these past four years our mission has evolved to the following: “provide a program that enables talented athletes to reach for the top, and encourage children and women around the world to do the same”

Achieving our goals has not been easy.  The economic environment has certainly made the last couple of years challenging; especially given the increased roster size we needed to maintain a domestic and a European racing calendar.  But this year we did indeed become a UCI team, and we have been able to send eight of our riders to Europe to gain valuable international racing experience and get one step closer to their Olympic aspirations.  We have also engaged with multiple girl/youth organizations; to encourage them to exercise, to reach for their goals, and to believe in themselves.

I think that is a pretty good start.  For the next ten days I will follow the ups and the downs of Tour de l’Aude with both fond memories, and also with a sense of fulfillment that we did it.   Our team is racing in Europe, in Team TIBCO kit, representing all of our partners, sponsors and supporters that believed in our dreams and our mission.

A big thanks to all all of you for enabling us to reach for the Top.

Linda Jackson

Founder, To the Top

President, Team TIBCO