Last week, Brandon Dwight (co-owner of Boulder Cycle Sport, and who helped me found the TIAA-CREF/CLIF BAR cross team) and I put on a fundraiser for the ACA's junior cyclo-cross program, the Mudskippers.
Almost 200 people came out to the Boulder Theater to enjoy Sam Smith's new 'cross documentary, Cyclofile 1.
The best part of the movie for me was seeing the featured segment on our team - very cool because Sam has been hanging out with the team and filming the kids at races and on trips since our very first season in 2004...so everyone got to see some "retro" footage of Brady Kappius winning the Portland USGP as a Junior, Alex Howes blasting onto the Jr Nats podium in snowy Providence, and both of Danny Summerhill's Jr National titles.
The latest installment of Chocolate, waffles, and 'cross is up over at VeloNews.com, and Brandon reports on not only his THREE!!!!! race wins so far in 2007 but also the fundraiser, and the crucial time (now!) for Boulder cyclists to express their voice about the proposed inclusion of a cyclo-cross course in the new Valmont City Park master plan...head on over to bouldercyclesport.com to find out how to get your voice heard!
Thursday, October 11, 2007
Volunteering at Community Cycles
I had the pleasure of working with Community Cycles, as a volunteer opportunity. They are a really cool non profit organization based in Boulder. They collect donated bicycles in any condition, fix them up, and either sell them for a cheap price to those who can't afford a bike or it goes into the "Earn a Bike Program." The Earn a Bike Program is for anyone who can't afford to spend their money on a bike and could really use a decent bike for transportation. In the program the person earning the bike comes to the shop and donates time working there, learning all about how to take care of bikes. At the end of the time they need to be there, they pick a bike from the shop, fix it up, and ride it out of the shop.
The shop at Community Cycles could definitely use a couple sets of new tools, since the stuff they have is pretty worked over. I was thinking maybe Pedro's could donate some nice tools to the organization. The tools will help with making the bikes as safe as possible, and also the people earning bikes can learn more about working bikes with the right tools.
By: Danny Hiller
The shop at Community Cycles could definitely use a couple sets of new tools, since the stuff they have is pretty worked over. I was thinking maybe Pedro's could donate some nice tools to the organization. The tools will help with making the bikes as safe as possible, and also the people earning bikes can learn more about working bikes with the right tools.
By: Danny Hiller
Tuesday, October 09, 2007
California Races
Hi Everyone - This is Bjorn, the rider from California
I just did my first race on the team bike and won! The bike is incredibly fast and I am excited to race in the team colors. This was the first race in the Bay Area Super Prestige Cyclocross Series. I got moved up to the 18 and under category.
The race course was fast and fun.
Here is an article about the race:
http://www.cyclingnews.com/cross.php?id=cross/2007/oct07/baycross071
Week 3 results
Saturday, Frisco Cross:
-Cody Cox 2nd in Cat 3 race!
-Kevin Mullervy 14th in Cat 3 race
- Conor Mullervy 15th in Cat 3 race
-Ethan Bell 22nd in Cat 4 race
Sunday, Frisco Cross:
-Kevin Mullervy 11th
-Conor Mullervy 16th
-Ethan Bell 13th
ACA Junior Cross Camp race results:
-Zack Gould 3rd in Junior 10-12
-Yannick Eckmann 1st in Junior 13-14
-Andrew Barker 1st Junior 15-16
-Robin Eckmann 2nd in Junior 15-16
-Cody Cox 2nd in Cat 3 race!
-Kevin Mullervy 14th in Cat 3 race
- Conor Mullervy 15th in Cat 3 race
-Ethan Bell 22nd in Cat 4 race
Sunday, Frisco Cross:
-Kevin Mullervy 11th
-Conor Mullervy 16th
-Ethan Bell 13th
ACA Junior Cross Camp race results:
-Zack Gould 3rd in Junior 10-12
-Yannick Eckmann 1st in Junior 13-14
-Andrew Barker 1st Junior 15-16
-Robin Eckmann 2nd in Junior 15-16
Monday, October 08, 2007
Danny's Vegas Road Trip
As the hours passed along on Interstate 70, my legs started to cramp and the only light at the end of the tunnel I see is the fact that for this entire 740 mile trip to Vegas, we were using a more sustainable fuel than petroleum diesel!
This was possible by driving Ben’s ‘96 Volkswagon TDI with B100 biodiesel in place of normal diesel (which incase you don’t know is 100% vegetable oil that has been chemically converted to a burnable, usable fuel substance.
Because the U.S. is not all that hip to t
he fact that biodiesel works in every diesel engine, finding a place to fill up with this earth-friendly fuel between Boulder and Las Vegas proved to be totally impossible so to compensate for this little problem Ben filled up four extra 5 gallon jugs with B100 to help get us all the way there.
Finally after about 14 hours in the car we rolled into sight of the VERY bright lights of Las Vegas, and we quickly bypassed The Strip and went straight to the Red Rock Canyon campground, only about 14 miles outside of the city but it seemed like we were in the middle of nowhere. At just about midnight we started to assemble
our tents while trying not to wake up our campsite partner Daimeon Shanks (Slipstream mechanic and my mechanic for Cross Vegas).
The next morning when we woke up we went for a sweet ride along the scenic drive in Red Rock Canyon, and then drove back into town, which only took about an hour and a half to go about 15 miles because the traffic was so bad. Thankfully after finally making it to the Sands Convention Center we unloaded the 2 show bikes that we brought for Salsa and Alpha Q to display and I went in to get my pass from CLIF BAR. It was as if I walked through the doors of heaven…bike heaven I guess. The building was absolutely massive, with more booths then I could count with bikes, parts, and people lining the walkways in every direction.
Ben and I headed for the CLIF BAR booth to meet up with Team CLIF BAR’s Dylan Seguin, who helps Ben organize our ‘cross team. I checked out their shiny old-school biodiesel tour bus promoting the Two Mile Challenge – getting people to ride their bike for all the daily activities they do within a 2 mile radius of home. I also got to meet Gary Erickson the owner and founder which I thought was a lot of fun because I got to finally put a face to the name I had been hearing about and reading about for so long!
After that we moved along to catch up with other sponsors – some old friends like Crank Brothers, Pearl Izumi and fi’zi:k, and others great to meet for the first time in person, like Salsa, Alpha Q and Kinetic Trainers.
Crank Brothers has been behind the team since 2004 and we’ve got some exciting plans in the mix for this year, so it was fun to hang out with them as always. Pearl Izumi, being one of our local Colorado sponsors, was fun to see in action at the show with all of their new clothes and shoes. Suzette from fi’zi:k was so busy we never got to talk! Everyone loves those saddles!
Meeting the Salsa crew was awesome. Everyone at Salsa had their own unique, fun personalities that I could tell they bring to work every day and to the bikes they make too. It was a lot of fun getting to know them and getting to give them some early input because as a rider it is great to have sponsors who like to take feedback into consideration for product development.
Alpha Q is the company behind the amazing forks we have been riding the last 3 years of the TIAA-CREF/CLIF BAR team. The team and I are psyched to be working with Kinetic Trainers this year for warming up at the races, and I am going to test out a new model at home once the weather gets nasty.
Later that night was the Cross Vegas race. With a 9pm start time, luckily I was able to grab a quick nap in Dylan’s hotel room, but with traffic I still got over to the race just in time to check out the course and get a pasta dinner off the Coleman stove. It was sweet to hang out in the stylin’ Luna Chix setup before the race, thanks!!
The race its self was a bit of a crapshoot and we don’t really need to go into much detail about it other than I went really hard on lap one and then the thick grass just started to feel like wet cement and I was suffering pretty good. On a lighter note I thought Chris Grealish and his crew of Boulder Couriers put on one heck of an awesome event as far as giving the people at Interbike an eye-opening experience of what a true European cyclo-cross atmosphere is like…a huge beer drinking crowd going nuts along every inch of the course!!! Not to mention it was under the lights which made the event about 10 times cooler!
Bloks first thing in the morning for a little Cross Vegas recovery...
By: Daniel Summerhill
This was possible by driving Ben’s ‘96 Volkswagon TDI with B100 biodiesel in place of normal diesel (which incase you don’t know is 100% vegetable oil that has been chemically converted to a burnable, usable fuel substance.
Because the U.S. is not all that hip to t
he fact that biodiesel works in every diesel engine, finding a place to fill up with this earth-friendly fuel between Boulder and Las Vegas proved to be totally impossible so to compensate for this little problem Ben filled up four extra 5 gallon jugs with B100 to help get us all the way there.Finally after about 14 hours in the car we rolled into sight of the VERY bright lights of Las Vegas, and we quickly bypassed The Strip and went straight to the Red Rock Canyon campground, only about 14 miles outside of the city but it seemed like we were in the middle of nowhere. At just about midnight we started to assemble
our tents while trying not to wake up our campsite partner Daimeon Shanks (Slipstream mechanic and my mechanic for Cross Vegas).The next morning when we woke up we went for a sweet ride along the scenic drive in Red Rock Canyon, and then drove back into town, which only took about an hour and a half to go about 15 miles because the traffic was so bad. Thankfully after finally making it to the Sands Convention Center we unloaded the 2 show bikes that we brought for Salsa and Alpha Q to display and I went in to get my pass from CLIF BAR. It was as if I walked through the doors of heaven…bike heaven I guess. The building was absolutely massive, with more booths then I could count with bikes, parts, and people lining the walkways in every direction.
Ben and I headed for the CLIF BAR booth to meet up with Team CLIF BAR’s Dylan Seguin, who helps Ben organize our ‘cross team. I checked out their shiny old-school biodiesel tour bus promoting the Two Mile Challenge – getting people to ride their bike for all the daily activities they do within a 2 mile radius of home. I also got to meet Gary Erickson the owner and founder which I thought was a lot of fun because I got to finally put a face to the name I had been hearing about and reading about for so long!
After that we moved along to catch up with other sponsors – some old friends like Crank Brothers, Pearl Izumi and fi’zi:k, and others great to meet for the first time in person, like Salsa, Alpha Q and Kinetic Trainers.
Crank Brothers has been behind the team since 2004 and we’ve got some exciting plans in the mix for this year, so it was fun to hang out with them as always. Pearl Izumi, being one of our local Colorado sponsors, was fun to see in action at the show with all of their new clothes and shoes. Suzette from fi’zi:k was so busy we never got to talk! Everyone loves those saddles!
Meeting the Salsa crew was awesome. Everyone at Salsa had their own unique, fun personalities that I could tell they bring to work every day and to the bikes they make too. It was a lot of fun getting to know them and getting to give them some early input because as a rider it is great to have sponsors who like to take feedback into consideration for product development.
Alpha Q is the company behind the amazing forks we have been riding the last 3 years of the TIAA-CREF/CLIF BAR team. The team and I are psyched to be working with Kinetic Trainers this year for warming up at the races, and I am going to test out a new model at home once the weather gets nasty.
Later that night was the Cross Vegas race. With a 9pm start time, luckily I was able to grab a quick nap in Dylan’s hotel room, but with traffic I still got over to the race just in time to check out the course and get a pasta dinner off the Coleman stove. It was sweet to hang out in the stylin’ Luna Chix setup before the race, thanks!!
The race its self was a bit of a crapshoot and we don’t really need to go into much detail about it other than I went really hard on lap one and then the thick grass just started to feel like wet cement and I was suffering pretty good. On a lighter note I thought Chris Grealish and his crew of Boulder Couriers put on one heck of an awesome event as far as giving the people at Interbike an eye-opening experience of what a true European cyclo-cross atmosphere is like…a huge beer drinking crowd going nuts along every inch of the course!!! Not to mention it was under the lights which made the event about 10 times cooler!
Bloks first thing in the morning for a little Cross Vegas recovery...By: Daniel Summerhill
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