Best race so far

Last Saturday and Sunday were my best races in my season so far. It was the Boulder Cup that weekend. The first day at the reservoir was really good. I raced the juniors Elite which started 2 minutes behind the Cat.3. So we basically chased the cat.3 down. I had a perfect start. I got the whole shot and kept my pace up as long as i could. I got a a gap in the first lap. But I got chased down from a lot of my team mates and other people. I tried to stay away from them, I went each lap so fast as possible. Also each lap i got closer to the leader from the cat.3 guys. In the last lap i was in 7th place in the cat.3 and first place in the juniors elite. When i finished i needed 34 seconds more to catch the leader of the cat.3 but that didn't happen. I still said to my self I still have another day.

On sunday we started 2 minutes behind the cat.3 again. My brother robin got the whole shot, Skyler from Black Sheep was in second and I was in third. After like the 3 corner before the hurdles I past both of them and went through the hurdles first and got a gap. Each corner the gap got bigger and bigger. In the first lap I caught a lot of  cat.3 riders. In like the 3 lap in the race i was close to 5 place. I was far gone from the junior field i was like 45 seconds ahead. I didn't slow down though I wanted to catch the leader from the cat.3 guys. It took me another 2 laps until i caught the leader. When i passed him i just kept on hammering it down so i rode away from him too. The announcer went crazy yep talk about how old i am and that i started 2 minutes behind a caught all of the riders and all that. Oh by the way the run up after the hurdles was just amazing the crowed was just yelling and everything it felt like i was in the pro race. On the end of the race I ended up in 1st, 43 seconds ahead of the first cat.3 rider and more than 1 minute in front of the next junior Elite rider. A lot of people came up after the race to congratulate me and all it was just so cool.

So that is why is was my greatest weekend ever.

written by Yannick Eckmann 

Photos from Sunday's Super Prestige

Veghel-Eerde (Superprestige #2), Ned (C1)

Summerhill strong, still having bad luck at Koppenburg

Race report from the Koppenburg 'Cross on cyclingnews.com.

Daimeon Shanks and Alex Howes finish cleaning the interior

Working on the bus interior

CLIF BAR Juniors relax after painting bus

Yannick and Robin Eckmann add a fresh coat of green

Danny Hiller & Zack Gould prep the bus for painting

CLIF BAR kids' clinic at Louisville USGP

Summerhill 20th in second World Cup

On Sunday in Tabor, Czech Republic, TEAM CLIF BAR's Danny Summerhill finished a respectable 20th place after chasing hard all day to make up ground after two early pile-ups put him way back.

Danny's race report:

"Bjorn [Selander] got a really good start and I followed probably top 15 first corner then going through it someone crashed right in front of me sending me back a few places - then 300 meters later I got caught behind someone else who had crashed which put me almost last, so at that point I was pretty scared, and knew I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I didn't step it up! (haha)...so I slowly started picking off riders and was able to get in a group of 2 czech riders and we we're coming up to what was basically the second pretty big group with Sinkeldom and Adams and I dropped my chain. Fast forwarding a few laps I finally caught the really big group by myself with 2 to go... And even though I know that I proved to have a lot of power to make it from almost last to top 20 I am still quite mad in general that I wasted sooooo much energy just making it up to that group because I feel like this course suited the 3 of us soo much more than most other people as it was very dry and reminded us a lot of a home race!!!"

Other then that I am working on not getting down on my self because I know this trip is for learning and january is for kicking ass but it is still a pain knowing I could have, from what I feel right now done a lot better!!!