Shanks (25), who will compete in the 3000m individual pursuit at Beijing, needs the best equipment to achieve her goals at the Olympics.
In her luggage is a road bike (value $7000), training pursuit bike ($9000) and track racing bike ($12,000).
Her first stop is California where she will join the Jazz Apple team for a month of road racing.
Shanks' training base will be in California and she will race in a series of one-day road races for her team.
Her big event in June will be the Mt Hood six-day road race in Oregon.
She leaves for France on July 1 to join her coach Craig Palmer and fellow Olympian Hayden Roulston at the New Zealand training base in Limoux, France.
Shanks will move to the New Zealand Olympic training base in Bordeaux on July 13, for the remainder of her Olympic preparation.
"We leave for the Games village at Beijing on August 9," she said.
Her Olympic timetable is: August 15 (heats), August 16 (second round) and August 17 (medal round).
How does she feel about her Olympic prospects? "At the end of the day it is just another race on a 250m track that I've raced and trained on month after month," she said before leaving Dunedin.
Shanks had the added advantage of racing on the Olympic Games track in Beijing at a World Cup event last December.
"I've ridden on the track and know what it feels like," she said.
"It's just a matter of putting everything I've done in training into practice on the day.
"I know all the other girls who will be competing against me.
They will be going through the same things as well."
The pursuit is really a time trial on the track.
"I don't have to worry about the other girls," Shanks said.
"I can't control what they do on race day.
All I can do is to focus on myself.
It is a very controlled event."
Shanks has done a higher and more intense mileage in her build-up and is expected to be in a better position than last year. Palmer is also monitoring her closely with biomechanical analysis and noting the power output she puts in on the bike.
Shanks, who only began serious cycling in 2005, has made remarkable progress since giving up playing netball for the Otago Rebels.
"I cycled a little bit before that," Shanks said.
"I rode to school when I was a pupil at Tahuna Intermediate and did a little bit of mountain biking in my holidays.
But nothing serious."
Shanks' best times for the event are: 3min 35sec (world championships, Manchester, April 2008), 3min 37.438sec (Invercargill, February 2008), 3min 37.7sec (world championships Majorca 2007).
