For American veteran Amber Neben, riding in 2011 with HTC-Highroad will be a return to her racing roots. Back in 2003 and 2004, at the start of her career, the 35-year-old was in a women’s squad run by HTC general manager Bob Stapleton. Seven years on, she’s back with Stapleton again. “Bob’s support in the very beginning on my career is a big part of why I am where I am now,” Neben says, “so I will always have a special place in my heart for him.”

A professional since 2002, Neben’s career has seen some major high points, such as a World Time Trial Championships gold in 2008, a national road-race title, and two wins in the gruelling Tour de L’Aude stage race in France. However, it was only by chance she  started riding a bike.“I was on a track and cross country scholarship at the University of Nebraska,” she recalls, “But I had multiple stress fractures, and I just could not train at the level necessary to compete. So I stopped running and started mountain bike riding. Then in 2002, I turned pro on the road.”

Reputed to be one of the toughest racers out there, Neben has survived everything from skin cancer to teams suddenly collapsing through lack of funds to several bad crashes, one of which saw her racing with a lump of rock in her arm for five days before it was finally extracted. Throughout good times and bad, her principal race skills, though, have remained the same - “time trialling and climbing.”

As for the setbacks Neben has experienced, she believes “adversity can be a burden or it can be a bridge. I have always chosen to see it as a bridge.”

And in 2011 her principal goals  are simple: to work as best and as successfully as she can with the other riders on HTC-Highroad. “They already have a solid core and I want to work within that. I will try to fit into the existing infrastructure of riders,” she says, “But in any case,  I am really excited to be back. For me, racing with HTC-Highroad is a kind of homecoming.”

2011 Results

• Stage Winner ITT and Overall, Sand Dimas
• Stage winner ITT and Overall, Redlands
• Winner, Stad Roeselare
• Overall Winner, Nature Valley Grand Prix

2010 Results

• Stage Winner, 2nd Overall Women's Tour of New Zealand
• 2nd place U.S. National Time Trial Championships