Growing the Sport

Hey all,

Last Tuesday I had the opportunity to help out with an organization many of you may be familiar with, Trips for Kids. This program functions as a way for less privileged kids from the city to get out and experience mountain biking. The program was started up by Andrew Goodwillie, a fellow Haul'n Ass racer, and is run with great dedication today by Andy Brannon.

Many of the kids I rode with had never ridden a bike before. It is truly amazing how much us cyclists take for granted ridding a bike and all the skills involved. So we taught the kids the essentials of riding a bike: wearing a helmet, how to shift, brake, turn, descend/climb a hill, ect. For many of them being out on a bike their first time, they took to everything pretty fast!

The ride was a simple 30min tour of some of Bear Creek park's lucrative trails; the kids loved it! One even asked me how long we were going to ride because she was having so much fun.

The experience just made me realize how many kids haven't found something they enjoy yet, like mountain biking. Just a little step outside the box showed me how most of the world functions and reminded me of how fortunate I am to be where I am today.

Stay tuned for more exciting news...

Andrew

Opening weekend results

The CLIF BAR Development Cross Team got the 2007 race season rolling this past weekend with two American Cycling Association events here in Colorado.

Saturday was the Pikes Peak Supercross in Colorado Springs:

- Robin Eckmann took 3rd in the Cat 3 race!
- Cody Cox was 9th in the Cat 3 race
- Yannick Eckmann took 3rd in the Cat 4 race!
- Zack Gould won the Junior 10-12 race!

Sunday was the Foothills Cross in Littleton:

- Daniel Summerhill won the Senior Men Open race!
- Brady Kappius took 3rd in the Open race!
- Andrew Barker was 4th in the Cat 3 race
- Danny Hiller was 43rd in the Cat 3 race
- Zack Gould was 2nd in the Junior 10-12 race!

Photos from the Cultiva! Youth Project harvest

To start training camp weekend off right - connecting kids to where their food comes from and introducing them to some good old fashioned volunteer work, 8 of us worked at the Friday afternoon harvest for the ¡Cultiva! Youth Project.

¡Cultiva! is a youth operated organic market garden. Participants (ages 11-19) will plant and nurture a 2 acre garden, harvest the produce weekly to sell at the Boulder County Farmer's Market, and donate a portion of what is harvested to those in need in the local community. Through this project, youth will learn to care for and protect the environment, will learn how to operate a small business, and will take part in a variety of activities which create positive change for the community, the environment, and youth themselves.


Robin contemplates eating a Tomato Hornworm










Yannick washes carrots for the market








Zack tries to find some cucumbers in the greenhouse

Cody with eggplant harvested from the greenhouse

Start Global Cooling training camp

This past weekend, the CLIF BAR Development Cross Team had it's pre-season Start Global Cooling Training Camp. This camp is where the kids not only get their uniforms and bikes, practice skills and prepare for the race season - they also prepared for a season spent making a difference with the team's sustainable cycling mission.

This season the team is rolling out a new look, many new members, and an even greater commitment to demonstrating sustainable cycling team operations and educating our members and the cycling community about sustainability issues.

Let's start with the new look: thanks to a brilliant design layout from Le Sensation American and slick production work from Pearl Izumi, we were able to pull off a look that combines Clif's signature red, eco-messaging green, fast-looking white, and cross-appropriate black - all without ending up looking too Christmas-y, or Italian flag-ish.The kits go pretty well with our green Salsa Chili con Crosso frames, green Chris King headsets, and bright green Crank Brothers pedals. The best part about the design is we now have Start Global Cooling text on our sleeves to back up the top tube stickers - this message should be the most visible aspect of our bikes and uniforms when we're racing.

The team has grown again, adding many new members to help round out the American Cycling Association's junior cyclo-cross development programs. We've added three young guns in the 13-15 age range to bridge the gap between the ACA's Mudskippers team (8-12) and our traditional 16-22 group. Also joining on this year will be 9 new members coming from road and MTB backgrounds, some with much 'cross experience and some rookies.

The crew of 17 kids will be captained by veterans Brady Kappius and Daniel Summerhill, who jumps up to the U23 category after winning the silver medal at last year's Junior World Championships. The team will be contesting a full schedule of races in Colorado, the USGP Series, and Nationals - as well as sending kids over to Belgium this winter for Geoff Proctor's Euro Cross Camp.

During our training camp gathering, it was time to focus on the team's sustainable cycling mission and get everyone off to a good start on learning and participating. We started camp by volunteering at the Friday afternoon harvest with the Cultiva! Youth Project, picking, cleaning, and preparing vegetables for the Boulder Farmers' Market. Our homegirl Jen from Eco-Cycle joined us for pizza and explained the concept of Zero Waste and how the team is going to work towards Zero Waste operations as well as help make some local races and the USGP Series Zero Waste events.

After a cross skills clinic on Saturday morning, the team convened on the Farmers' Market for lunch and a local produce shopping experience. Saturday night the team was special guests of Eco-Cycle at their national gathering for progressive grassroots recyclers, where we toured the Center for Hard to Recycle Materials and listened to several inspiring speakers talk about Zero Waste and the problem of methane produced by too much organic material in landfills.

On Sunday, the team hammered each other in some practice races, and then rolled up to Fort Collins to check out the Rocky Mountain Sustainable Living Fair. I got to meet Bambi the Jersey cow, and we all took in demonstrations on alternative-fuel vehicles, solar power, straw-bale construction, wind turbines, organic farming and more.









That was pretty much it for the weekend. After all that with 15 kids in tow, I was thankful to chill on Sunday night with my lovely wife (who still likes me after the weekend's Cross Team invasion) and cook up a tasty dinner with all the local produce the kids bought at the farmers' market. I'm really looking forward to getting the cross season started to see how much these kids learn along the way!

Summerhill Worlds Diary

Now sitting on the plane home from Brussels, here is the last installment of my diary about my trip over to Belgium for Cross Worlds.

I believe that I left off about 2 days before the race, with an overall feeling of nervousness and anxiety about the upcoming event and as just about every other night over here my night sleep went a little bit like this: go to sleep around 10 or 11 and wake up around 2:30 without the ability to go back to sleep.

Knowing that I really needed to get some good sleep each night, and being nervous knowing that I kept having trouble sleeping, compounded the problem because as my nerves got worse and worse my sleep suffered equally.

Another aspect of preparation I needed to work on was my bike situation - which two days before the race I was still trying to get totally dialed in. I had left my two race bikes over in Belgium when I came home after the Euro Camp, and they needed some work. I also brought a 3rd race bike with me for this last trip of the season. With two bikes already having gone through some tough Euro races, and adding a third bike, I needed to get all the bikes ready to go. After checking over everything and hours of tuning up by the mechanics, my 3 bikes were as dialed as I have ever seen them.

With the bikes all set, I decided that in order to get over my fear of switching bikes and risk having a different position (which could mess a lot of things up when you are going full throttle) I went out and did what I called a blind trial which was basically not looking at the bike I was on before getting on it and going for a ride and seeing if I could notice a difference in the way it feels. This turned out to be a very good idea just because having gone through the whole season with out taking a bike change making sure the next bike I was going to get on was the same was very important.

Another thing I noticed while being over here this last trip was the incredible lack of interest I had in doing anything but thinking about my race and everything surrounding it.
For instance - all the hard work that a number of different people had to do just to get me there to race in Europe, not to mention how much work they did for me in getting me 3 working bikes, sweet race wheels, extra parts, tires and all that weighed very heavily in my mind, and thinking of how I would feel if I were to let them down after all of their hard work kept running circles through my head!

I also noticed a major difference in my attitude towards a lot of things over there, being so focused on doing well in the final race of the season...but most of all my irritability and feeling that I could emotionally snap at any moment. As much as I prepared, it was still pretty stressful!


THE RACE
Emotions and thoughts before the race go as follows:
- top 10 would be nice
- top 5 would be awesome
- podium: I never really thought about being that I didn’t want to feel the let down if I were to not make it to the podium sooo I didn’t really plan on getting a medal as being one of my goals

But as the selection was made it was already clear that I would be getting a top 5 and I was ready to settle for that until the last 500 meters when I realized that in the sprint finish I had already surpassed my goal of getting a top 5 and was now looking at a medal!

I feel that if I did one thing wrong and one thing at all (besides crashing) it would be that I didn’t quite believe Noel, my coaches, my parents, and anyone else who ever told me I could get a medal at the World Championships…because believing in myself the whole time like I did in the last 500 meters could have changed my overall mindset of how I was going to race the race in the first place!

Small things like being nervous or not being as confident leading into the race, I already know might be the reason for the problems sleeping I had, but since the race I have been having trouble sleeping again since I have been so excited about how the race turned out! I still hasn’t fully hit me that I got a silver medal in the Junior World Championships!!

Photo credit: Russ & Nancy Wright/AbbiOrca.com

Danny Sprints to Silver Medal at World Championships!

Russ & Nancy Wright/AbbiOrca.com

I'm happy to report that this morning, in Hooglede-Gits, Belgium, under sunny skies but on a muddy, slippery track, our very own junior sensation Daniel Summerhill rode an amazing race in the World Championships, sprinting to an amazing 2nd place finish!

Full race reports are available on VeloNews.com and Cyclingnews.com

Chris Milliman caught up with Danny after the race and provided this interview for VeloNews.com

And luckily for me, I'm staying at the same hotel in Brugge with Russ and Nancy Wright of AbbiOrca.com, and they shared the above photos of today's action.

T minus 2 days for Toast

Here's Danny's latest update from Izegem, Belgium - thoughts heading into the World Championships on Saturday:

Thursday Jan 25.

my lap top just the other day sooo now I have to grab bits of time here and
there using other peoples lap tops

but ya lately I have to say I have say that I have been doing a lot of
thinking about how exactly the next couple of days will un-fold with with it
culminating saturday morning at worlds

I have been training like normal going out for 2 hours or so every day but
unfortunately I have had a bit of a problem falling asleep or should I say
staying asleep on a regular basis

so with that I might ask if any one has any suggestions this this little
problem it would be greatly appreciated.

as far as thoughts that have been going through my mind lately the thought of
winning comes around every once and a while but I feel that doing the best I
can and leaving it all out there is what I envision my self doing more.

getting nervous has not really set in at all yet but there is definitely
something or some kind of feeling I have not been able to shake yet
and I feel that will all change after the pressure of saturday and I am on
my way home.

-Danny

Summerhill back in Europe for Sunday's World Cup

Monday Jan. 22

My flight over here went surprisingly very smoothly and did not take too much out of me besides the fact that I was not able to sleep at all on the plane which left me very very tired when I landed.

After I got to Izegem, I was able to get a solid nights sleep which was really cool just because last time I was over here it took days to actually fall asleep the same time every one else did.

The next day was the World Cup race which I had mixed feelings about.
I was scared about my legs not being fresh after just getting
off of a plane, but after the race was over and getting 19th, I realized I
would just have to look at it as an opener and a way to shake my "airplane
legs" out.

Other than that we woke up around 7:30 this morning to go for a walk as a
team where we discuss feelings and thoughts on up coming issues whether it
be the race or other things on our mind.

After that we ate breakfast and I went upstairs and took a very long nap...
which I was awakened from around 12:30 and was asked if I had ridden yet -
which I had not...sooo I went for about 2 hours easy and just thought about what I am going to do for the next week leading up to Worlds.

Jim Lennon's Euro Camp Review

Photos credit: Joseph Sales, from the Euro Camp

Due to the recent blizzards in Denver my flight was cancelled and moved to Sunday (Christmas Eve) with an unexpected upgrade. I began my Euro Camp with some pre flight coffee and a croissant in my first class recliner at the very front of the plane. As it was my first time flying first class I noticed the level of hospitality and happiness in this part of the cabin was much higher. Thoroughly stuffed, I arrived in Chicago feeling better than ever but not looking forward to the 8 hour coach flight to Brussels. Thankfully the Chicago Brussels flight went better than expected with no delays. Geoff and his son met Danny and I at the airport early Christmas morning to pick us up and drive us to base camp where everyone was eating breakfast. As soon as I got there I unpacked my bike and went for a ride around town to get ready for my first world cup. There was something like 15,000 fans that day which is far more than any race I have ever done. The level of competition is very intense and the crowd involvement is incredible. The courses were set up to be technically challenging combined with the weather and sand it made for some amazing racing. Everything was done for us except race our bikes. Our hosts Ells and Noel were extremely gracious providing us with clean living and lots of great food. What an amazing way to end my first year as a cyclocross racer. My experience here has taught me a great deal of what’s required in both preparation and skills to be a competitive racer and I look forward to next year. By the way the chocolate and waffles really are that good!

National Team Coach Geoff Proctor's report

Here's a great report on VeloNews.com on Euro Camp IV, from National Team Coach Geoff Proctor. TIAA-CREF/CLIF BAR's Daniel Summerhill is featured prominently in the article thanks to his amazing race performances at the camp.