We talk to two of the leading lights in New Zealand pro cycling.

We recently we had the opportunity to chat with two of New Zealand’s most prominent professional female cyclists who are tearing up the tarmac and pushing the boundaries for young women in the sport. Holly Edmondston, an Olympic track cyclist, and Kimberly Cadzow, an elite road cyclist both have their sights set on the top echelons of international competition. 

These athletes show extreme dedication to their sport. For many, a bike ride to work in a headwind can be an athletic feat, but Holly and Kimberly are smashing out hundreds of kilometres every week, in rain, wind or with an injury, all in pursuit of their goals. To train multiple days in a row and still ride on their days off, takes discipline, athleticism and a desire to be the best that they can be.

Cycling is an extremely popular sport internationally and for good reason. Mix the high skill ceiling of NASCAR with the cardiovascular strain of a rowing race and you’ve got a must-see sport. Racing around a velodrome at high speeds, or bumping and tussling your way through a hundred-kilometre road race, this isn’t your average ride to work.

This is serious business, and these two are out to win. Holly Edmondston achieved her dream. Competing at the Olympics, earning multiple accolades and international success, it’s a wonder she has anything left to prove. With such a storied past in track and road cycling and many years dedicated to the sport, she recently took some time out to reclaim that spark, especially with Covid preventing overseas travel.

“It’s been hard for me to think why I cycle since Covid stopped international tournaments. Overseas, no race is the same. I just feel great racing against other countries.”

For Holly, cycling internationally is her sporting raison d'être, her reason for continuing in her career. But the last few years have been tough. After the 2021 Olympics, where she didn’t get the results she'd wanted despite a good performance, she was left pondering her future.

Carrying a new back injury, could she face the next four years of full-time training to tackle another Olympics cycle?

Mentally and physically, road racing is tough, but Holly radiates determination and a willingness to adapt.

“I’ve always tried to do things differently because of where I’m from. That’s what matters to me.”

The Olympian Holly Edmondston is a track cyclist, who competes in the Team Pursuit and the Omnium. Team Pursuit is a four-woman event where two teams complete over a sixteen kilometre distance in a velodrome. The Omnium is an individual pursuit, involving multiple races, tempo sprints and elimination rounds.

Holly is from mid-Canterbury and still represents the region in New Zealand competitions. Raised to ride a bike since the age of three, she originally lived further South where she trained as a road cyclist. She ended up performing extremely well, competing in her first international tournament at the age of fifteen. Being able to travel overseas and perform in her chosen sport, Holly felt she had made it. But she was also confronted with the stark reality of how difficult the life of a professional athlete is.

“I think being an athlete is fun, but man, people only see such a small part of it.”

These days she has most aspects of her life micro-managed. All her meals are prepared with the macronutrients dialled in, stacked with protein to help her body manage the demands of full-time training. She takes Omega-3, probiotics, and a multivitamin three times a day. Currently, she’s supplementing with beta-alanine, an amino acid used by athletes to improve performance, but one that causes itching and irritating sensations.

It’s necessary to take all those supplements. Training is tough, six days on, one day off. It involves a mixture of cycling, physio sessions and lifting in the gym with a focus on the lower back and hips (commonly injured areas for cyclists). Days off also include cycling, or what Holly calls ‘active rest’.

“We’ll normally go for a ride on our days off, just to keep the blood running. Active rest. Just a nice, easy ride.”

Training mixes things up a bit. Lifting, flexibility, sprints and racing, cyclists will do a variety of these to improve their athletic capability. Holly says the competitive nature and the fact that everything is micro-managed has given her a tongue-in-cheek nickname.

“I get called second best at everything by my coach. I’m not better at one thing than anyone else, not weights or sprints or anything, but I’m the second-best at everything.”

Holly says it doesn’t matter if she’s second-best in the practice room, race day is where it counts.

“I can always perform come race day. I’m inconsistent in training, just getting sick because I’ve been training too hard or not eating enough but I can always pull something out of the bag that nobody sees coming.

“You can be the greatest athlete in the world, but if you can’t race on the day it doesn’t matter.”

She seems driven by international competition more than anything. She takes a lot of pride in the fact that she can be relied on to perform and relishes the chance to race against the greats of other nations.

“At a young age, I became part of a team and was whisked off my feet. I had my life planned for me, I was infatuated with it. I just felt so lucky.”

She achieved her lifelong dream in 2021, competing in the Tokyo Olympics. Despite a lack of medals and an overall result she calls disappointing, she still takes pride in her performance.

“I got to represent New Zealand, you know? I went pretty well. Did everything I could and wasn't disappointed in my performance. I gave my maximal effort, rode well and made smart decisions.

“You obviously want a medal, but more than that you don’t want to finish a race and think you could have done better.”

She took time off after the Olympics, fearing burning out and dealing with a back injury. Having a break from full-time training and putting her Olympic dream in context has been part of a recovery process that has allowed Holly to imagine a better life and a better training schedule for herself.

Myovolt has also been part of that recovery process too.

“I’ve used it a fair amount for recovery. It’s been great. I use it when I’m sore when my back hurts and my legs are throbbing. I’ve never used anything like it before, it’s so cool.

“Using it on my back, which is where I get the most pain, really helps. It almost completely wipes it away, knocks the body into feeling something new.”

It took a little while for Holly to take it all in, but now she seems ready and dedicated to tackle the sport again and write her name in the history books. She’ll be competing in the track champs coming up soon, but has her eyes set on the international tournaments.

With the world championships and the Commonwealth Games coming up later this year, she’s still looking upwards, always driving to new heights, knowing the only limits are the ones she sets for herself. “I’m really going to try to smash those competitions,” she says.

In the world outside the velodrome, Kimberly Cadzow is on a different track. A rising figure in the sport of women’s road cycling, she’s looking forward to a future of possibilities.

Relatively new to the sport, Kimberly has only been training for about a year and a half but has already achieved success. Winning the under-23 Elite Women’s trial at the New Zealand nationals in 2021 was quite the debut.

“It was quite cool because I was given the white jersey, you know? I didn’t expect to come away with that. I’d been training extremely hard but so many events were being cancelled due to Covid. My coach and I knew our numbers and position were good but we hadn’t had the chance to show how good we were.

“So to get that result is good, it’s great.”

There are several disciplines in road cycling. Time trials, where competitors will lap a circuit, trying to get the best time. Single-day races that can be up to 290km in distance, often up hills. Stage races are ridden consecutively over several days or weeks with three-week races called Grand Tours.

Training is difficult. Much like track cycling, Kimberly is training for three or four days in a row, followed by a rest day that she’s still going to spend on a bike in active recovery. Training could be anything from working on sprints to a four-hour ride through the hill ranges of Queenstown.

With outdoor cycling, you’re often at the mercy of the weather.

“Today I’d say it was about 27 or 28 degrees. I think my nose is quite burnt actually. It was really hot doing those climbs.”

Kimberly transitioned to road cycling from triathlon. She says she’s still getting her bearings in the sport, but the mental fortitude she gained in triathlon is doing her massive favours.

“When you get heavy into triathlons, you learn how to bear through pain and gnash your teeth when you would normally crack. And that’s what’s helping me with road cycling. I know how to deal with pain and push through to the other side.”

In her cycling club, she’s one of the only female competitors. But there are no prisoners taken and they don’t give her an easy ride, which is just the way Kimberly likes it.

“I get on better training with the guys. They push me around and make me work extra hard. Wakatipu cycling is mostly only men. They don’t treat me like a girl, and that's kind of my secret weapon. Training with them.”

Three and a half hours is a long time to be riding. Kimberly says on those big training days she normally multitasks, finding ways to get the most out of her rides and the time.

“I’m a very good multitasker. On practice rides, I’ll listen to music, podcasts, sometimes if I’m running behind on university work, I’ll listen to a lecture. It’s about keeping myself entertained during rides.”

On the nutrition side, she’s getting her macros in, with a side of concern regarding the anabolic window - the short amount of time after training that the body needs nutrition to repair itself.

“I’ll come in from my ride and I’ll have a protein shake. You’re out there for so long riding you’re tearing through the muscle. There are a lot of studies showing that, as a female, if you don’t get protein in within about thirty minutes you’re going to start eating away at your muscle."

“Then all the good work you’ve done goes out the window, so I’ll just have a protein shake and start recovering.”

She’s also been using Myovolt and says that the hands-free design is a major plus.

“It’s really good. It’s great for me because I’m either making food or laying in front of my computer trying to do Uni work. It’s great because I just strap it on for ten minutes, and I can get up to get a drink. It doesn’t hold you in place.

“You’re not stuck, compared to other stuff. Little things like getting your laptop charger or a drink are easy with it. It works really well for me, especially with my quads because they’re always abused.”

What she’s also found is that her back can get a little tight - something that she says Myovolt has really helped with.

“I get a sore back because I'm sitting in a compromised position and your lower back does get a lot of pressure on it. It helps loosen it up. I put it on as I eat my breakfast, I go out for a ride and my back doesn’t get sore by the end of the ride.

“Even using it for my hamstrings is great, because I’ve always had this dominant right hamstring and it’s really helping with that.”

She says it works extremely well, and it’s something that she can take anywhere, and use at any time. It’s easy to use, portable nature is a godsend, especially with the long, difficult, consecutive training sessions expected in road cycling.

Myovolt will be part of Kimberley’s travel kit when she heads away in March for her first international competition at the Oceania Cycling Champs in Brisbane. Later this year she’ll be travelling to Europe to join another team for her first European circuit with races in Italy, France and the UK.

Kimberly is excited to experience the big pond of European road racing and the new challenges it brings.

“In New Zealand, we don’t have the depth of road racing. There are only about twenty girls, but overseas there’s a peloton of about a hundred and thirty. You’re literally rubbing shoulders, rubbing bars and smashing wheels and you need to hold your own which will be different.

“I’ll be trying to prove myself and learn a lot this season. Get to grips with the whole thing. There are races with cobblestones and bad road conditions all of which are new for me. It’ll be interesting.”

Holly and Kimberley are two athletes to keep an eye on, as they rise to the challenges of international competition and push the boundaries for women in professional cycling.

Whether you’re a road cyclist, a track cyclist, or just enjoy riding at weekends, Myovolt can help recover your leg muscles and knees faster to keep niggles and pains at bay. Focal vibration therapy stimulates localised circulation to remove waste products and reduce DOMS stiffness or soreness.

Lower back pain is the most common overuse injury in cycling with people who regularly ride long distances particularly prone. Poor bike fit, incorrect riding posture and too slow cadence (rpm) are the main causes of lower back pain for cyclists. Strengthening exercises for the core and back muscles together with Myovolt for warm-up and recovery treatment can help support lower back performance keeping you on the road for longer.  

Myovolt. Good vibrations. Great recovery.

“You’re not stuck, compared to other stuff. Little things like getting your laptop charger or a drink are easy with it. It works really well for me, especially with my quads because they’re always abused.”

What she’s also found is that her back can get a little tight - something that she says Myovolt has really helped with.

“I get a sore back because I'm sitting in a compromised position and your lower back does get a lot of pressure on it. It helps loosen it up. I put it on as I eat my breakfast, I go out for a ride and my back doesn’t get sore by the end of the ride.

“Even using it for my hamstrings is great, because I’ve always had this dominant right hamstring and it’s really helping with that.”

She says it works extremely well, and it’s something that she can take anywhere, and use at any time. It’s easy to use, portable nature is a godsend, especially with the long, difficult, consecutive training sessions expected in road cycling.

Myovolt will be part of Kimberley’s travel kit when she heads away in March for her first international competition at the Oceania Cycling Champs in Brisbane. Later this year she’ll be travelling to Europe to join another team for her first European circuit with races in Italy, France and the UK.

Kimberly is excited to experience the big pond of European road racing and the new challenges it brings.

“In New Zealand, we don’t have the depth of road racing. There are only about twenty girls, but overseas there’s a peloton of about a hundred and thirty. You’re literally rubbing shoulders, rubbing bars and smashing wheels and you need to hold your own which will be different.

“I’ll be trying to prove myself and learn a lot this season. Get to grips with the whole thing. There are races with cobblestones and bad road conditions all of which are new for me. It’ll be interesting.”

Holly and Kimberley are two athletes to keep an eye on, as they rise to the challenges of international competition and push the boundaries for women in professional cycling.

Whether you’re a road cyclist, a track cyclist, or just enjoy riding at weekends, Myovolt can help recover your leg muscles and knees faster to keep niggles and pains at bay. Focal vibration therapy stimulates localised circulation to remove waste products and reduce DOMS stiffness or soreness.

Lower back pain is the most common overuse injury in cycling with people who regularly ride long distances particularly prone. Poor bike fit, incorrect riding posture and too slow cadence (rpm) are the main causes of lower back pain for cyclists. Strengthening exercises for the core and back muscles together with Myovolt for warm-up and recovery treatment can help support lower back performance keeping you on the road for longer.  

Myovolt. Good vibrations. Great recovery.

Great for recovering tired, overworked knees, quad, calf or hamstring muscles. The neoprene leg brace has an adjustable fit ...