CLIF BAR kids win Best Cyclo-Cross Team in ACA

Following the Colorado State Championships, Dec. 9, the American Cycling Association named it's Best Cyclo-Cross Teams and Riders for each category, based on a points system for a select series of races this year.

Despite many kids missing races at home due to US Gran Prix trips, the CLIF BAR Development team was well-represented in the final rankings, both as a team and individuals.

In Jr. 10-12, Zack Gould was 1st!

In Jr. 15-16, Danny Hiller was 3rd!

In the Open Men division, Brady Kappius was 8th, and along with Danny Summerhill, teamed up to take 3rd in the team competition.

In Cat. 3, the big squad of 6 CLIF BAR teammates won the Best Team competition. Conor Mullervy was 2nd, Robin Eckmann 3rd, Kevin Mullervy 9th, Andrew Barker 12th, Cody Cox 17th, and Yannick Eckmann 20th.

In Cat. 4, Yannick Eckmann was 6th.

Summerhill wins, Cat 3 kids sweep podium at CO States

Category 3 Men: CLIF BAR kids sweep the podium!
Barker (2nd), Eckmann (1st), C. Mullervy (3rd)

Does is always snow for the Colorado State Championships? I think the past two years it did, and this year a new race course in Lyons was broken in with a Friday snowstorm and bitter cold temps.

In the Junior race, Zack Gould braved the 12 degree weather and took home the silver medal.

In the Cat. 3 race, the CLIF BAR posse of young guns was in full effect, at one time holding down the top 4 spots in the race. Robin Eckmann showed impressive form in winning by a wide margin; Andrew Barker steadily moved up all race and wrapped up 2nd place; Conor Mullervy nailed down 3rd place. After being in the mix for top 5, Kevin Mullervy succumbed to some mechanical problems and ended up 16th.

Funny analysis of the Cat 3 results page: the kids took it to the old guys, most of whom have connections with the team!

1	Eckmann	Robin	Clif Bar Development CX Team
2	Barker	Andrew	Clif Bar Development CX Team
3	Mullervy	Conor	Clif Bar Development CX Team
4	Hopper	Tom	part-time CLIF BAR team mechanic this year
5	Opperman	Matthew	part-time CLIF BAR team mechanic the past few years
6	Barclay	John	Unattached
7	LaBarr_Dusty		Georgia Gould's husband, Luna Chix CX mechanic
8	Steposki_Waldek		Luna Chix team manager

In the Open race, Danny Summerhill and Brady Kappius immediately made the lead group of 5, riding with Brandon Dwight (Boulder Cycle Sport), Matt Pacocha (VeloNews) and Jeremy Horgan-Kobelski (Subaru-Gary Fisher). Danny constantly tried to shed some of the group, and succeeded in getting away with just Dwight and JHK. Brady faded a bit mid-race but held on strong for a 5th place finish, while Danny went to the wire with the other 2 and pulled away through the last barrier section for the win, and his first elite State Championship.

USGP makes BIG difference by going Zero Waste!

Thanks to the US Gran Prix of Cyclo-Cross Series organizers, Crank Brothers, CLIF BAR, and Eco-Cycle, the inaugural Zero Waste effort for the national 'cross series was a big success, and made quite a difference for the environment.

In addition to educating racers and fans about recycling and composting and putting the concept out there that it is possible to organize and participate in major events with a minimal impact on the environment, the statistics clearly show what a difference Zero Waste events can have:

Overall diversion rate: 79.5% --> almost 80% of the total materials collected at all the events was kept out of landfills thanks to reuse, recycling, and composting.

Resources Saved: 4.8 trees, 2,078 kilowatt hours of energy, 1,915 gallons of water and diverted 11,715 pounds of compostable materials from the landfill.

Zero Waste results for Portland USGP

It was a cold, wet, and windy weekend in Portland Dec. 1-2 for the final round of the US Gran Prix Series, but that didn't stop Jen and the team from pulling off another successful Zero Waste event. Special thanks to Robert from 1-800-Got-Junk for taking care of hauling our recyclables to the recycling facility and our compostables to the compost facility.

Thanks to all the eco-friendly folks in Portland, the weekend achieved the highest diversion rate of the USGP Series!

Diversion Rate: 83%
Resources Saved: 1.8 trees, 535.5 kilowatt hours of energy, 493 gallons of water and diverted 1350 pounds of compostable materials from the landfill.

Cody Cox and his School Visit

Today, Tuesday, the third of December 2007, I had the great pleasure of doing my first school visit. I decided to visit my old elementary school of which I have had many great experiences. I met with my old counselor and second grade teacher to discuss what class would be appropriate. It was decided that I would do the 5 grade class. I also arranged with the P.E. teacher, who is amazing, to do a recycling type relay with the kids. Following this activity they met with me in the media center. I put together a great slideshow so the kids could all see what I was talking about. At first I discussed who I was and then progressed into the sport of cyclocross. I also talked about our team as a developing focus and also its strong environmental mission. We discussed the barriers and running sections and shifted into the bike which I brought with me. The kids were fascinated with the bike; half my time there was explaining it and especially the SRAM Double Tap shifters, which they thought were awesome. I then discussed the importance of leaving a “green” world and what they can to do help. I mentioned that Hummers were not a great thing to own and that new great options are being developed such as hybrids. I also discussed the strong importance of recycling and to a good surprise, the school recycles pretty much everything, so the kids were very responsive on that subject. I also talked about composting and how they could do it. They really were fascinated by it. At the end I did some questions and answered them. One question was if I had ever heard of Team Health Net. I was shocked to hear a fifth grader ask me about that. It turns out his dad is the team physician, which was really cool. I told the kid he should start doing this sport, and he already does. He did the junior division at the two local cross races here in town. Looks like our team can add another great member!

Robin Eckmann race report: 11/25 Red Rocks CX

At Sunday's race it was the first time in a while where I was again able to relax before the start. My goal at the race was actually just to watch my pedal frequency and be relaxed on my bike, and to look back and say this race really helped me prepare for the next USGP and Nationals.

I was not even planning to try for the win, I was just thinking to myself that I want to be in the first ten, then I need to make the first selection of the race because it was really windy at the beginning. After two laps about 10-15min into the race, three of our team were in the lead group (Andrew, Kevin, and me) and there was no other team in the front group. We were tying to figure out how the Belgians sometimes do it at Worlds with many in the front group, and we decided to try to ride like the team time trial guys in the Tour de France.

After four laps, Andrew had some bike problems so we were down to two left but then with two laps to go Conor was trying to make the move up. When Conor made it up to the group then I made the last move and I won. I was really happy because that was my first cat.3 win in cyclocross.

Thanksgiving Weekend

Well last weekend racing down and Denver was a good time. Though the drive over from Grand Junction was just a mess with all the snow and traffic. The course on Saturday was real fun and technical. Along with it being really bumpy and muddy and had a good steep s-turn climb which started to hurt after a couple of laps. And the whole team had some good results.

Than it was Sundays race witch was also another great course. Warming up on the course it was really slick and muddy. It was like a slip and slide. Though by the time we started the mud harden up a little bit but was still slick. Then we got the call ups to the front line. I had an awesome start and was off the front at the beginning. Andrew and Robin followed and we worked together to make a bigger gap from the field. Kevin was just behind us with a Pro Peloton racer and was working for us by trying to slow him down. Andrew had some bad luck and had a mechanical with his bike causing him to drop back from the break. With about two or so laps to go Kevin started to bridge his way up. Never did get up to us but did make a gap from the fellow Pro Peloton racer. Robin attacked on the last lap to get the win. I took 2^nd and Kevin took 3^rd, sweeping the podium which was awesome. Andrew and Yannick finished up strong finishing up not far behind.

Conor

Zero Waste results from New Jersey USGP weekend

This time around we had a diversion rate of 80% (only 11.5 bags of trash, believe it or not!). Resources saved: 0.9 trees, 625 kilowatt hours of energy, 576 gallons of water and diverted 6465 pounds of compostable materials from the landfill.

thanks to Jen from Eco-Cycle for running another amazing Zero Waste cyclo-cross weekend.

Finally posting New Jersey USGP results

catching up after a busy couple weeks and Thanksgiving...here are the team's results from the second US Gran Prix Series weekend, in Mercer County, NJ:

Saturday -

Danny Summerhill, 14th overall Elite Men / 2nd U23
Alex Howes, 33rd overall Elite Men / 9th U23

Andrew Barker, 6th Jr 17-18
Cody Cox, 14th Jr 17-18

Robin Eckmann, 2nd Jr 15-16
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Sunday -

Danny Summerhill, initially 22nd overall Elite Men / 5th U23 after coming back from a broken chain - but DQ'd for an illegal bike change.

Brady Kappius, 26th overall Elite Men / 7th U23

Andrew Barker, 11th Jr 17-18
Cody Cox, 14th Jr 17-18

Robin Eckmann, 1st Jr 15-16
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Overall USGP Series standings after 4 races:

U23 = Summerhill 3rd, Kappius 10th

Jr 17-18 = Barker 11th, Cox 16th

Class

Well the last couple of weeks or so I have had some presentations to do in my English class. The first presentation I talked about our team, and what were doing to help start Global Cooling. I started off on talking about how we try and make the races in Colorado zero waste. I also gave the class a couple of tips on what they could do, even if it was only in there rooms. The easiest way the class thought they could help out is to start recycling and actually use the recycle bins around campus. My professor really liked what our team is trying to do and now does not let us use the trash can and makes us recycle during class. Also, I let them know to ride there bike or walk when ever they can. There is no reason to drive and put Co2 into the air especially when it’s only less than two miles. I found this really cool, because going to class now I see some of my class mates riding there bikes to class instead of driving. I also let them watch a clip on what Cyclocross really is. A lot of them had never heard of it and found it really interesting. My next presentation was just last week over Global Warming. Sure the class has heard of it, but most of them did not know how bad it is already. And a lot of them had no idea that we were contributing to Global Warming that much. These presentations were fun to give, because I got to teach people on this issue and I learned a lot more information in the process.

Conor