Successful Junior 'Cross Fundraiser

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!

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

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

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 the 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

Yannick's first win of the season

Below is soon to be 14-yr old Yannick Eckmann's race report from his first win of the season, last Sunday's Red Rocks CX #1 cat 4 event:

I didn't have a good start, but by the first barrier I was in first place and went through the
sand pit in first also. After the sand pit I knew that I had a little gap because Zack kind of
slowed the chase group down in the sand and helped me stay out front. From that point on I went for two laps as fast as I could.

Once I was about a minute ahead, I slowed down a little bit to recover and make sure I wasn't going to blow up, and to be more careful so I wouldn't get a flat tire on the course. Every lap I seemed to have a bigger gap, probably because I really liked the singletrack trails and the sand section at the bottom of the hill which I was able to ride through pretty easily.

Luckily I had enough of a lead to be careful on the last lap. After the race I was really tired though!

by Yannick Eckmann

Zero Waste @ Boulder CX Series

Hey y'all

Andrew Simms here, I'm one of the new riders on the team. Unfortunately I can't race this year due to an injury, so I get to help out the team in other ways. I am helping out with our project to make the all of the Boulder CX series races Zero Waste events. Pretty Cool! Basically we set up a couple of recycling and composting stations around the venue and the spectators learn how to recycle or compost properly. Who knew that recycling could be fun? To learn more about recycling and composting visit Eco-Cycle's web site. See you all at the races!

Boulder CX #1 and Red Rocks Cross #1

This past weekend was a double header on the front range. Saturday was the classic Boulder Research Park race. Loose, technical course with lots of turns and a good road stretch through the parking lot. Out of the gates, Danny and I opened up a gap, with Alex Coehlo right on our wheels. Coehlo was running way too little pressure and had to swap out is rig for one with more pressure. After a lap Brandon Dwight of Boulder Cycle Sport was with us as well. The 3 of us worked together, trying to put time on the others. After a few laps, Coehlo made contact again and we were back to 4. Brandon threw down a big attack and rode all the young ones off his wheel. I just lost contact with Danny and Alex. In the end I faded and finished 5th. Alex got 2nd and Danny 3rd. Team CLIF BAR helped make the event Zero Waste by with 3 recycling/composting stations around the venue! Thanks to BoulderRacing for stepping up and leading the way for the local 'cross scene to become more sustainable! The CLIF BAR Development Team is proud to work with Eco-Cycle in helping the BoulderRacing Cyclo-Cross Series move towards Zero Waste.

Sunday was a new venue in Bear Creek State Park. Cool course, again, loose and technical. Not very many parts to throw down the hammer and gap anyone. Out of the start, Danny and I rocketed up the start hill and bunny hopped the barrier right before the sand pit. The crowd was digging it. After a few laps, the group dwindled down to 4. Two CLIF BAR riders vs. two Boulder Cycle Sport riders. I knew we had the technical advantage on the other 2, as we could hop the barriers and make up a quick few seconds, and we were railing the corners. Brandon had his teammate Chris put down a few attacks but Danny and I were able to keep it together. We were playing a little bit too much cat and mouse and another rider bridged up to us. All of a sudden it was a front group of 5. With a 4 to go, Brandon nailed a rock and flatted his $10,000 bike (you would think for that price it would have auto inflating tires or something). With one final lap remaining, the rider who bridged up (beard man) attacked through the finish. Danny and I tried to cover. Brandon's teammate Chris couldn't hang on and dropped back. At the bottom of the descent, beard man came in a little to hot and lost his chain. I told Danny to drill it. We cruised up the run-up and have a 5 second gap. Going through the barriers I passed Danny and told him "I'm feeling good and am gonna take it," and he said "go for it." I drilled the last lap, hopped the last barrier, and cruised in for the win. Danny took second. 1-2 finish for CLIF BAR. No better way to finish the race!


Check out these photo galleries for pictures of the races:
Red Rocks
Boulder

Up next is the ACA Junior Cyclo-cross Camp in Winter Park, CO. The camps are a lot of fun and get a bunch of new kids into the sport...there are over 100 kids coming to camp! I can't wait.

Brady

Photo courtesy of http://crossniacs.com/

Fundraiser for ACA Junior cross programs this Thursday!

Head over to cyclofile.com for the scoop (and previews) of Sam's 'cross films. Highlights of the 2007 season will be posted each week on the site too!

Aspen

This past weekend was the first weekend of the western slope series for cyclocross in Aspen. The courses were technical and a lot of fun. The turn out was not so great but it still was a good race. On Saturday there was a big run up section that burned every lap. I finished up first and Conor finished up 6th because he got a flat on the last lap and had to run the last lap. Then on Sunday it had some technical turns, I ended up 2nd and Conor third. His rear skewer came open going down the downhill part of the course but got it fixed and ended up third. Then on the way back from the races going back to Grand Junction we noticed this sign that said Premium Biodiesel available here. We just thought that it was very cool to see that, I have never seen a gas station that carried biodiesel so I decided to take a picture of it.