Kendra Wenzel:

Specialties: Elite Road Racing, Elite Development, Working riders balancing jobs, family and riding; Riders recovering from and coming back from chronic fatigue-type illnesses, Team Direction and Management, Coach Education

Home: Portland, OR

Client levels accepted: All levels. Head Coach pricing. Consultation - Available for seminars, camps, clinics, and team direction on a contractual basis.

Kendra has been coaching elite and beginning riders since 1994 when she helped found Wenzel Coaching. She coaches a number of riders and also focuses on writing for publications such as Velonews, Bicycling Magazine, Men’s Journal and other fitness publications. She is also a co-author of “Bike Racing 101,” an introduction to road bike racing.

Kendra’s enjoys coaching all levels of riders, but specializes with up-and-coming riders who want to race successfully on the national and international level and have goals of becoming pros.

Kendra was a professional cyclist for 11 years and was a member of the US National Team for much of that time. She won a gold medal in the pursuit at the Pan American Games in Cuba and also earned 14 National Track Championship medals. She earned 30 professional race wins on the road in the years 1997-1999 alone with over 100 total career wins on the road and track. While earning her degree in mass communications at UC Berkeley she won the 1994 Collegiate Road Championship. Kendra's experience goes beyond the road and track, as she raced mountain bikes professionally for team DiamondBack in 1995.

Kendra began riding her bike as a teenager, riding the Seattle-to-Portland double century event before beginning racing while attending UC Davis in Davis, California. She joined the Davis Bike Club and began racing races all over California. She raced her first Women’s Challenge Race (then known as the Ore-Ida) in Idaho in 1988. She then tried her legs on the track and spent 1989 through 1994 racing the road and focusing on the pursuit event on the track, attending the 1990 World Championships in Mabashi, Japan where she placed 6^th in the pursuit. She also placed fourth in the Goodwill Games the same year.

In 1995, wanting to take a break from the track and following many road riders who had crossed over successfully to the mountain bike side of racing, Kendra joined Team Diamond back under the guidance of mountain bike greats Sue Demattei and Dave Weins. After a rough year of illness, Kendra went back to her love of field sprinting on the road in 1996 as she headed a women's development team that placed herself and another rider in the top 10 of the National Racing Calendar (NRC) series. From that time on she formed an enthusiasm for developing up and coming racers and devoted time outside of her own training to advising young riders. In 1997 she returned to top form, riding for the top ranked Saeco/Timex Team as its captain, placing second in the NRC series and competing for the US National Team at the World Championships.

1998 brought Kendra close to a US National Championship with a second place finish in the road race. 1998 also including racing in Europe once again as her team completed the Tour of Italy (Giro), racing its top GC rider to a second place overall. Her 1998 season continued successfully with the overall win at the Tour de ‘Toona, a third place finish in the NRC series and another berth on the World Championship Team. Kendra wound down her final year of professional racing in 1999 with the Timex team, placing third in the National Road Race Championship and fifth overall in the Saturn Pro Series.

Since her retirement from active racing at the end of 1999, Kendra has devoted her full time to coaching, writing, and being a mom to her seven year-old daughter. She pins on a number now and then to stay in the game but mostly enjoys watching her clients race these days.

"There I was at the national championships lined up in the second row of the pro women's race. I never would have even imagined that I would be there ever ... Thanks for your support."
               ~Sue Butler

"Thank you for my first win. I couldn't have done it without you."
                ~Gene Harding

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