Team Avanti
Mike Kilduff 
Bike: Scott CR1 Pro
Strengths: Well rounded rider
Weakness: I have other interests too
Longest Ride: 243km solo
Background:
Almost every day, no matter what the weather, I have used my bike as a way of getting to school, university or work. Most of my youth was spent racing small sailboats and windsurfing competitively.
In 2003 my family entered the Lake Taupo Cycle Challenge where I was invited to be part of a relay team. I agreed but said that if I was going to Taupo I might as well go the whole way around. I hadn’t done any long rides so I went on an 80km training ride the weekend before. I knew I could make it around despite the doubts surrounding me and ended up with a time of 5hours 50minutes.
As I finished I thought “That was great and I will never need to do such a long ride again”. But then the cycling bug caught me.
I competeted at Taupo several times improving in every attempt with more training and was rapt to get a time of 3hours 51minutes in 2009 in the Classic race.
Tour of Northland Team:
After enough bike racing as an individual, I thought it would be fun and a new challenge to ride as a team in the Tour of Northland. After a bit of networking with some of the riders I know, we made a team. We were lucky enough for Avantiplus Whangarei to come on board and help us out.
We’ll be using teamwork in the Tour to give us an advantage and target some stage wins as well as a good GC finish.
Race Results:
Since 2008 I have focused more on cycling and entered more events.
Taupo 2003 5hrs50min
Taupo 2004 5hrs30min
Taupo 2005 4hrs40min
K2 2008 5hrs49min 44th
Taupo 2008 4hrs11min 37th
Tour of Northland 2009 3rd GC White Group
Hell of the North 2009 5th
K2 2009 5hrs33min 14th Elite
Taupo 2009 3hrs51min 30th Elite
Tour de Ranges 2hrs48min 19th Overall
Charles Afford 
I have been road cycling seriously for 2 years after a lifetime of hobby cycling both on and off road and in a few events. This season has been busy, beginning with the ‘hell of the north’ ride, followed by K2, Fred Ogle and then the taupo enduro, in which I placed 4th with 9hr 51 min. 320km race-pace was quite an experience! I recently competed in the 7 day, 750km Wellington-Auckland tour, placing 5th overall, with 2nd in King of the Mountains and 4th in the sprint ace.
When I’m not riding I work at the marsden point oil refinery, which makes a nice training ride from town. My hobbies are 4x4’ing and mountain biking when I get time.
Hi my name is Tim Riddell. 
I ride a bike. I’m 17 years old and am looking forward to the tour of Northland which Avanti Plus has been very generous in sponsoring our team to ride in. The kit is fantastic!
I currently ride my bike 6 days a week based on a cycling programme put together by Ruth and Jonothan Jarman from the Marsden Wheelers cycling club, of which I am proud to be a part of. I race every week or there abouts on Saturdays as well.
I have been riding since about 2007, but only recently competitively. I have completed 2 previous tour of Northlands, although this will be my first year in the elites. I also am a part of the WBHS/WGHS Adventure racing team.
This year, my aim in the tour is to ride strongly in the group and help it as much as possible, with getting someone in our team in at least the top 10.
Tim
Tim Hitchcock
I began cycling in 2005 as way to get to and from university and work and found myself pushing it on each ride to get my commute time down as much as possible, this competitive streak lead me to racing. My first race was the 100k Flyer, during which I flatted around the first corner about 200m from the start line! Since then I have competed in a number of ‘fun’ rides and tours with varying results.
I have been riding more seriously in 2009/2010 and competed in my first ‘Elite’ event at Tour of Northland 2009. I thoroughly enjoyed the racing and vowed I would be back in 2010 with more training and racing in the legs.
My physique lends itself to more hilly terrain and I spend a lot of my training hours in the Hunua Ranges, South East of Auckland. This training has paid off with wining the Polka Dot Jersey as 1st in the King of the Mountains Classification at Wellington to Auckland 2010.
