At Your Door

Look what you could have waiting on your doorstep every Monday - saving you a trip to the grocery store and providing a great variety of organic (and local when possible) fruits and veggies:



Bananas
Haas Avocado
Valencia Oranges
Local Acorn Squash
Broccoli
Carrots
Jewel Yams
Local Red Kale
Local Red Leaf Lettuce
Red Onions
Zucchini
Parsley, Italian
Local Bartlet Pears
Local Apples
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Sound good? Check out team sponsor Door to Door Organics.

This service is incredible. You can get fruits and veggies, and additional items like frozen Alaskan Salmon, local honey, local quinoa, peanut butter, coffee, and more. Best part about it is they are totally flexible. Want to change a few items on your menu for the coming week? Want to switch box sizes? Want to put your delivery on hold for a vacation? NO PROB!

The Cross Team's Start Global Cooling effort

A lot of you may have first seen these slick top tube stickers at round one of the USGP Series in Gloucester, MA October 7-8, as the TIAA-CREF/CLIF BAR Cross Team rolled out it's START GLOBAL COOLING campaign - thanks to the dedicated efforts of CLIF BAR and Native Energy.
Or you might have seen this photo on Brandon Dwight's VeloNews.com weekly cross diary, "Chocolate, Waffles, and Cross."

The point of the program is to let everyone know how simple it is to make small steps in our everyday lives to combat global warming - by reducing the carbon footprint we leave on the planet.

For the scoop on the START GLOBAL COOLING campaign, visit Native Energy's website. CLIF BAR started the Cool Tag program with Native Energy to encourage people to purchase a $2 wind energy credit from Native Energy that offsets the CO2 emissions produced by ~ 300 miles of driving. So, if you drive to and from a race, buy a Cool Tag and support wind energy development, and feel better about driving to the race!

Racers participating in the Crank Brothers US Gran Prix of Cyclo-Cross Series can buy a Cool Tag when they register online for the races at BikeReg.com.

If you're driving a long ways to get to the race, or flying to the race, buy a couple!

For the 2006 cross season, the fine folks at Native Energy have helped our team calculate the carbon footprint associated with all of our driving and flying miles, hotel stays and other sources. As part of their sponsorship of the team, CLIF BAR is purchasing wind energy credits from Native Energy to off set the team's carbon footprint for the season...so we can be climate neutral and race our bikes all fall and winter knowing we're doing a small thing to fight global warming.

***The point of this post, actually - if you've read this far - was to see if anyone out there is interested in purchasing a set of START GLOBAL COOLING top tube stickers for their race bike, commuter bike, whatever...we don't want our team stickers to be something exclusive and hard to find...we want everyone to have one and spread the message. Start posting your comments, and we'll work on getting the stickers up for sale. Proceeds to Native Energy to support the development of more Native American-operated wind farms.

cyclingnews.com cross round-up

Check out the latest cross news on www.cyclingnews.com:

The bad:

- another doping scandal for cycling, this time in cross...involving the German team, Stevens Racing. We'll send that one over to be filed on Dopers Suck.

- Jonathan Page might miss the entire 06/07 cross season after tearing his rotater cuff in the first round of the World Cup in Aigle, Switzerland. That race goes down in my books as one of my least favorite, ever...now it probably does for JP too. Heal up quick and be back for Worlds!

The good:

- Sven, Tim and Lyne are racking up the wins so far this season!

- Cross Crusade continues to set attendance records...if anyone doubts cross is the fastest growing cycling discipline, all they need to do is see the maxed out fields lining up in Portland and Gloucester.

- Tom McD's great race at the Granogue Estate in Wilmington, DE went off today with it's best ever Elite Men's and Women's fields...

And, last but not least, our gang finally got the old press release up on the site...

Cross Team members represent at Collegiate MTB Nationals

Peter Stetina (Colorado State University) and Brady Kappius (Colorado School of Mines) took the weekend off from cross to represent their schools at Collegiate Mountain Bike Nationals in Angel Fire, NM this weekend.

Both are three-year veterans of the TIAA-CREF/CLIF BAR Cyclo-Cross program, and both are in their freshman year of college...Peter is majoring in Exercise Science, and Brady is majoring in Materials Engineering.

Collegiate Mountain Bike Nationals is divided up into two racing categories, based on school size. Colorado State University competes as a Division I school, and Colorado School of Mines as Division II - so unfortunately these two teammates and long-time friends don't get to square up against each other in the same collegiate races!

In Friday’s Short Track event, both riders showed their cross form to be ready in this all-out 30-minute, short course mountain bike event - both landing on the podium:

Results
Division I

Men

1 Alex Hagman (Fort Lewis College)
2 Eric Ransom (Fort Lewis College)
3 Noah Singer (Fort Lewis College)
4 Andy Schultz (Montana State University)
5 Peter Stetina (Colorado State University)

Division II

Men

1 Garrett Brady (Western State College)
2 Braden Kappius (Colorado School of Mines)
3 Douglas Shryock (University of Montana)
4 Patrick Hurley (Warren Wilson College)
5 Phil Grove (University of Montana)

Update from Andrew Barker

A little while back the team and I traveled to Massachusetts for the first two races of the national US Gran Prix cyclocross series in Gloucester. We were able to crash at Ben's aunt's house which turned out to be a very relaxing and cool place to stay (Thanks again Aunt Ricky!). The next two days for me consisted of breakfast, getting a few laps of the course in the morning, warming up on the trainer, racing, cooling down, lunch, watching the Clif Bar tent and informing people of how Clif Bars ROCK, cheering on the rest of my teammates in the U23 and Elite races, and finally disassembling our little camp. The trip became a great learning experience for me in how the team operates and how the local east coast 15-16 boys are pretty
competitive.

Last night I read a little article about carbon dioxide emissions in a Scientific American magazine to educate myself a little more on exactly what environmental problems we as a team are trying to take steps to solve. The article was really startling in that we, the people of the world, need to start acting now in order to lower our carbon dioxide output in order to prevent radical and permanent climate changes in the nearing future. It also explained how the task of lowering carbon dioxide release into the atmosphere is entirely possible even with growing population and developing economies. The whole thing just made me think of how we live on such a delicate planet, but do not treat it like one. So…just by thinking about what we are doing to our world first, we can take care of this problem.

Lastly, I want to thank everybody for their support on making this trip happen, and please stay tuned for our adventures to come!

Andrew

Team in the news

So far the TIAA-CREF/CLIF BAR Cross Team has been getting a positive response within the cycling media, already having their initial press release posted on Bicycling.com, VeloNews.com and cyclocrossworld.com.
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Stay tuned as the team continues to make headlines for its environmental sustainability mission and for our its strong race results!

Gloucester - Coach's Report

We’re through the first big travel weekend of the season for the TIAA-CREF/Clif Bar cyclo-cross team. Gloucester, MA is always a great race with great atmosphere and people, and this year was no exception. I think we mostly had a great time, except for Reed who was on one leg most of the weekend, and Nick who got sick.

I have two roles with the team from which to view the trip. First (since it takes most of my time), I’m the assistant team manager. That means being Ben’s assistant for whatever he needs, working out the logistics of every big trip from the time we get on the airplane (or don’t, if you’re named Howes or Stetina) to the time we come back. We’ve got to make sure pickups at the airport go smoothly, we get to housing at a decent time, all the riders are set up to get on the course for their warmup/course inspection at the appropriate times, everyone is set to race…and all the while of course we’ve got to ensure the riders get enough sleep and eat well. When we’ve got anywhere from 6-10 riders plus staff, it can get complicated.

For this trip I think things went pretty well. Thanks to Ben, Brady and the mechanics, really no one is traveling with a bike anymore. That makes airport stuff way easier all around. We also had a much smoother time with the Boston Port Authority police this year, even without Brandon to help us. Everyone’s flight got in on time, we even had the extra space to give Shriver a ride to Gloucester. Ben says it all the time, but in cyclo-cross, while we’re all competitors on the course, helping each other out the rest of the time is kind of the norm.

We had beautiful weather in Gloucester, making it a lot easier to keep our team space in order. We also got to partner with the folks from Clif Bar who had a display in the expo area. We just set up the team space next to them, and act as a second team space for our fellow Clif teams - Clif riders Mark and Jesse, and of course the fabulous Luna Chix Georgia and Katerina. It also gave our riders a chance to staff the Clif booth for periods, and meet lots of the great New England fans who came out to watch the racing at Stage Fort Park.

Thanks to Stu, who drove up from NY to help Ben shop and prepare food, we had good meals for the riders for the whole trip. Stu even made apple crisp on Saturday, which was his birthday! Congratulations on being able to vote now Stu.

My other job with the team is as team coach. This one is a bit more ethereal, I basically view it as trying to always have the riders in position to put forth their best ride on any given day. The results are pretty cool when the team has talented riders like Toast and T-Biz, but as long as everyone is ready, puts out a 100% effort, and gets better in the long run – we’re happy. We’re a development team, and it’s important not to forget that. All that being said, we actually had pretty good results for the first trip of the year – highlighted by Jim’s win Sunday.

While Troy is off racing in the mid-atlantic this weekend, we’re looking forward to the next big team race, USGP rounds 3 & 4 in Longmont & Boulder. It’s actually a “home” race for the whole team being in CO. We’re excited to have all the riders’ families there for the races (Brady’s dad is promoting one of the races!). I’m taking the opportunity to run a power clinic that week up in Brandon’s shop, Boulder Cycle Sport.

Gloucester, MA - USGP 1 & 2

Video of Junior National Champion - Danny Summerhill

2005 Junior National Cyclocross Champion Danny Summerhill is displayed in the video montage made by Evan Schmitt, check out his site - http://www.seattlecyclocross.com/ .

Clif Bar Cool Tags Program

Make the world a cooler place. Start Global Cooling today.

Start Global Cooling! Every time we use fossil fuels to drive our cars, heat or cool our homes, even grow and cook food, we create greenhouse gases. Excess greenhouse gases accumulate in the Earth’s atmosphere and cause an unnatural build-up of heat.

But there’s hope — with your help we can make the world a cooler place. By helping to build new sources of clean energy and by using energy more efficiently — we can slow global warming. And it’s easier than you might think.

Purchase a Cool Tag™ at CLIF BAR events and you will keep 300 pounds of carbon dioxide (CO2) — the main contributor to global warming — out of the air. That’s roughly the same as neutralizing the global warming emissions generated from traveling 300 miles in the average car.

How does it work? For each $2 Cool Tag sold, CLIF BAR invests $2 in NativeEnergy’s WindBuilderssm program, helping the Rosebud Sioux Tribe build the Rosebud St. Francis Wind Farm in South Dakota. Wind farms deliver clean, renewable energy to the grid without releasing CO2 into the air — thereby displacing energy that comes from polluting facilities.

TIAA-CREF / CLIF BAR Juniors in Action

Peter Stetina & Stu Gillespie from the Rocky Mountain Sustainable Living Fair

Last weekend I attended the Sustainable Living Fair in Fort Collins, CO. I
could only begin to get a feel for what was going on because I had to zipp
off to a race that afternoon. What I did see, however, I liked.
Located in the backyard of cycling and enviro-friendly sponsor New Belgium
Brewing Co., the fair had everything. Live music, lots of promo tents and
tons of free swag! There were also lectures on how to build houses
according to more efficient design patterns and about healthier living in
general and much more. We visited tons of companies and made good small
talk. Everything there was compostable (aka water cups made from corn!) and
natural. I decided to support the local farmers and bought some honeysticks
in a variety of flavors. I truely believe this is a very progressive event
in addressing the issue of enviornmental sustainability; they were able to
keep it fun and informative at the same time!
-Pete

John Verheul - Forest Guardians dinner

On 9/21/06 my wife and I attended a benefit dinner for the Forest Guardians. Forest Guardians is a Santa Fe based organization dedicated to preserving and restoring wildlands and wildlife in the Southwest US. The organization was founded in 1989, as a result of eight years worth of erosion of federal conservation law.

Forest Guardians work primarily as an activist organization, lobbying state and federal officials on issues of wildlands conservation and preservation. As an excellent money raising organization, they are also able to literally buy Bureau of Land Management (BLM) land leases which would otherwise go to factory farming organizations who would graze cattle on the land. Cattle are particularly hard on land, as they pull grass up by it’s roots, making regrowth much more challenging. This is primarily due to their lack of front teeth, they must grip the grass with their gums and pull it out in order to graze. In comparison, horses and other animals cut the grass with front teeth, making regrowth a matter of days (how often do you mow your lawn?)

Additionally, Forest Guardians work to protect several endangered species in the SW, as well as old growth forests that are a main source of biodiversity.

The benefit dinner featured a silent auction, followed by a live auction, and a catered vegetarian dinner. We estimated there were nearly 200 people in attendance, and that over $30,000 was raised in the live auction alone. The items auctioned off ranged from a one day horseback riding trip in Southern NM to a 5 day ski vacation at Telluride. Bidders seemed to enjoy bidding against each other, and in many cases auction items sold for well over their retail value.

The president of the organization gave a short welcome, followed by a keynote address from Jim Baca, a former mayor of Albuquerque and BLM commissioner.

Besides enjoying a fun evening out on a weeknight, my wife and I met a number of active environmentalists in the Northern NM area, and also saw a model environmental fundraising event in person.

For more information, see http://www.fguardians.org/.

CLIF BAR’s Development Cyclo-Cross Team Starts Global Cooling, Starts Season

Boulder, Colorado October 15, 2006—When the members of the TIAA-CREF/CLIF BAR Cyclo-Cross Team rolled to the start line in Gloucester, MA for the opening round of the 2006 Crank Brothers US Gran Prix of Cyclo-Cross Series, they not only began the third season for the national-level development program, but also set off on a pioneering environmental sustainability mission.

The American Cycling Association’s Junior and Under-23 cyclo-cross development program took inspiration from CLIF BAR’s exemplary sustainability commitment. The team is focusing on three major sustainability components:

1. Promoting CLIF BAR’s “Start Global Cooling” campaign: Through the wind energy company Native Energy, the team’s carbon footprint from the season’s travel miles will be offset by the purchase of wind energy credits. To learn more, visit www.nativeenergy.com.

2. Working with Boulder-based Eco-Cycle to become a Zero Waste operation: During team events in Boulder and when traveling to races, the team will be recycling and composting as much of its waste as possible. To learn more, visit www.ecocycle.org.

3. Supporting local and organic food sources: Team sponsor Door to Door Organics is providing each kid and their family with a box of fresh produce every week of the season, and when traveling to races the team is seeking out local and organic food sources to cook all of their meals. To learn more, check out www.doortodoororganics.com.

Each of these is a relatively small step towards sustainability, but each component will add up within the team, across the season, and will begin to make a difference. It is the team’s hope that through it’s sustainability education program and sustainable operations, it will help educate and inspire cyclists, teams, events, and the industry to start taking their own small steps towards sustainability.

On to the start of the race season: October 7-8 at the famous New England race venue Stage Fort Park in Gloucester, MA. Headlining the team’s development effort were three juniors who turned in outstanding performances. In the 15-16 age group, new team member Andrew Barker rode aggressively and notched two 3rd place finishes.

Cyclo-cross rookie Jim Lennon finished up his second cyclo-cross race ever in 4th place on Saturday, and then Sunday, Lennon and teammate Daniel Summerhill (defending Junior National Champ) put the USGP on notice that the junior field will continue to feature some of the most exciting racing of the series. The two used impressive teamwork to form 2/3 of the lead group, and Summerhill helped Lennon sprint to his first USGP win and the Series leader’s jersey – while taking 3rd place himself.

Next up for the team will be their hometown race weekend, round two of the USGP Series in Boulder and Longmont, CO.

You can keep up with the kids and find details about their in-progress website on their blog: www.eurocrossers.blogspot.com

Team Roster:

Andrew Barker (15) Golden, CO
Stu Gillespie (24) Boulder, CO
Alex Howes (18) Boulder, CO
Brady Kappius (19) Golden, CO
Jim Lennon (17) Centennial, CO
Taylor Phinney (17) Boulder, CO
Peter Stetina (19) Boulder, CO
Daniel Summerhill (17) Centennial, CO (2005 USGP and Jr National Champion)
Tejay van Garderen (18) Fort Collins, CO
Troy Wells (23) Durango, CO (2005 U23 National Champion)






2006 TIAA-CREF/CLIF BAR Cyclo-Cross Team Sponsors:

CLIF BAR
American Cycling Association
5280 Magazine
Cyclocrossworld.com
Boulder Cycle Sport
Javelin bikes
Alpha Q forks
fi’zi:k saddles and bar tape
Crank Brothers pedals
Mavic wheels
Challenge tubular tires
Hutchinson clincher tires
Hincapie team clothing
SWIX baselayers and gloves
Sheila Moon accessories
Curve socks
JBV Coaching
Cycle-Smart, Solutions for Cycling

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Exclusive Sustainability Partners:

CLIF BAR – The Natural Performance Enhancer
Pedro’s environmentally-friendly bike care products
Door to Door Organics produce delivery service
Patagonia outerwear
Equal Exchange Fair Trade coffee, tea and chocolate

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Staff:
Ben Turner, team manager
John Verheul, team coach and assistant manager
Daimeon Shanks, mechanic
Nick Legan, mechanic
Reed McCalvin, soigneur
Rob Wuebker, sustainability consultant
Jason Kawakami, team chef