As I was riding my bike in Sonoma County yesterday in sunny, 80 degree weather, winter was likely the farthest thing from my mind. Well, OK; maybe I thought of winter for a few seconds after the ride as I was putting the hurt on a tasty vanilla shake from the Sequoia burger shack in Sebastopol. Other than that, though, no real winter thoughts. To my surprise and delight, however, when I opened up my inbox this morning, I found this little nugget of video winterness courtesy of Jenn Berg, TCB pro free skier extraordinaire. Seeing all the cool winter…

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During his 15 years of racing at the highest level, Santa Cruz Syndicate’s Steve Peat has won just about every significant race on the UCI downhill circuit, except a World Championship. Well, that all changed over the weekend in Canberra, Australia, as Peaty absolutely killed the upper half of the track to finish atop the World’s podium with a time of 2:30.33. And, since a gold medal at the World’s apparently isn’t enough for the Syndicate, Greg Minnaar figured he would ride real fast, too, and finished in second place, just 5 seconds off his teammate’s pace. The team’s…

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With the start of the cyclocross season only a few weeks away, Team Clif Bar pro rider and Durango resident Troy Wells just checked in to share how his training is taking shape. I have to admit, his ride descriptions and pictures made me long for the days when my only responsibilities involved making sure that my chain had some lube and that I had a ride up to Tahoe for a weekend of trail riding. Anyway…here is what Troy had to say: With ‘cross season kicking off in just over 3 weeks with CrossVegas, people are starting to catch…

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The Tour de France finished up its three-week run Sunday with the traditional sprint finish on the Champs Elysees. And while most of the mainstream press focused on the internal squabbles within the powerful Astana team throughout the race, we here at the Clif Bar world headquarters were extremely happy to sit back and watch Garmin-Slipstream put on an exceptionally professional showing. The penultimate stage on the Ventoux was epic. With all the lead riders represented at the head of the race and podium positions on the line, the pace was fast and the attacks often. Try as they might,…

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Make no mistake: Bradley Wiggins is the revelation of this year’s Tour de France. The Garmin-Slipstream rider again stayed with the leaders as today’s stage 16 took the peloton over two colossal climbs, keeping himself solidly in third place with only five stages remaining. “Wiggo” is already known world-wide as a master of the individual and team pursuits on the velodrome, but his incredible performance in the Tour so far has surprised just about everyone. So, how does a track rider become a podium contender in the world’s most grueling cycling event? Well, to begin with, you gotta lose…

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The Tour de France continued on its march toward the Alps today on stage 11, a mostly flat course containing only two small climbs with a flat run-in to the finish—perfectly matched for the legs of the world’s top sprinters, including Garmin-Slipstream’s young rocket, Tyler Farrar. Nonetheless, two breakaway riders gave it their best to foil the hopes of the sprinters’ teams, riding off the front for over 150 km before being caught near the end of the stage. After a relaxed day yesterday, the Tour heated up significantly during today’s stage, as narrow roads and a four minute…

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With the race’s first rest day in the bag and two transitional stages approaching, Garmin-Slipstream finished up the first segment of the Tour de France in fine form. Bradley Wiggins and Christian Vande Velde remain in 5th and 8th place respectively, giving the team high hopes for a podium spot in Paris at the end of the three week race. What exactly does professional cycling team do on a rest day during le Tour? Well…they ride, eat, nap and mostly perform media interviews. And when you have two capable riders sitting high on GC in the world’s toughest race,…

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As literally 6-8 of you know from reading my March 18 posting “Our Friend Jeff Goes Big Time”, Jeff Hantman is one of our more storied employees. He has raced his bike all over the place, crafted priceless works of art out of scavenged junk, founded Halfwheel Fenders, twice placed 36th in the World Beard and Moustache Championships (only the Germans can defeat him) and performed somewhat mediocre acts of gravitational defiance for the Cretu Brothers Circus in Bucharest. The good news is though, Jeff is back! And if you call our offices here, you might just get to talk…

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Years ago, when I first got traded from Sports Retail to the Team Clif Bar lair (a dubious move that still has Marketing management scratching their heads), I received a few emails from a young fellow named Chuck Engle, a runner who apparently had been on the TCB roster for years. Interestingly, Chuck signs off all his emails as “Marathon Junkie”, which struck me as a bit strange at the time. The self-applied nickname becomes a bit less odd, though, when you truly grasp the scope of Chuck’s prolific running career. Heading into this past weekend, Chuck had finished over…

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Two things are certain when it comes to pro gravity outfit Santa Cruz Syndicate: 1. they are really freaking fast and 2. they just might have the coolest name in the professional cycling world. The word "Syndicate" gives them a sinister touch of 60's spy movie style while adding enough intrigue to play mind games with the competition. Odds are that L.A. would have won at least thirteen Tours de France had he raced for the US Postal Syndicate. Syndicate has been killing it so far this year on the international gravity circuit, and their performances at the '09…

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For a fan of cycling’s spring classics, things simply do not get any better than this week. In a span of 9 days, pro cycling enthusiasts are treated to three of the most exciting races that Europe has to offer, complete with cobbles, crashes and weather that only the Flemish can truly appreciate. After last week’s Tour of Flanders and Wednesday’s Ghent–Wevelgem, the racing reaches its high point this Sunday, with the “Queen of the Classics”: Paris-Roubaix. Three U.S-based teams are making the start at this year’s edition of the fabled cobblestone classic and Clif Bar is proud to…

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Jeff Hantman (in pink tutu to the left) is old school. He started his stint here at Clif Bar somewhere around 2002, although the date varies depending on who you ask. If you're a Clif Bar retailer, sales rep, or industry insider, chances are you've talked to Jeff, as he was a jack of all trades here at the CB&C headquarters. If you raced cyclocross here in NorCal, you probably knew him as well, as Jeff was one of the best, if not hairiest, riders around. Although Jeff certainly enjoyed coming into the office everyday, eventually the call of the…

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For the second time in as many years, Team Clif triathlete Linsey Corbin finished an impressive second place at Ironman 70.3 at Pucón, Chile. Set in the South American nation’s beautiful Lake District with 2847 meter Volcán Villarrica as a backdrop, Pucón serves as an idyllic setting for what has become one of the most competitive early-season events on the multisport schedule. “Racing in Pucón is much more than just a race” said Linsey. “The people of South America are all friends, they are so excited to see you around town and shower you with hugs and smiles. The food…

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This report just in from Luna Pro Team Media Liason and really fast mountain biker Alison Dunlap… Congratulations to Catharine Pendrel and Georgia Gould for an outstanding race at the Olympics! I went online last night and watched the entire race from my computer. It was amazing coverage, except I had to make up my own commentary. I was thrilled that we actually got to watch the entire race, and not a five minute highlight segment squished into the NBC swimming and gymnastics show. I have few details on the race, but from what I saw and read, it was…

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This past weekend brought some tremendous results for Team Clif Bar cyclists, as BMC's Jeff Louder won the overall at the Tour of Utah, while Brooke Miller from Team TIBCO sprinted to victory to at US Pro Criterium Championships at Downers Grove, Illinois. Louder, a Salt Lake City resident, used his knowledge of the local Utah roads and a strong time trail to claim his first title in the fourth edition of the Tour of Utah. Louder won the queen stage of the tour on Saturday, a grueling race from Deer Valley to Snowbird that featured 14,000 feet of climbing…

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When one ponders the great cycling destinations of the world, the same locales almost always come to mind: The French Alps...Tuscany...the Pyrenees...North Carolina. Well, OK, some might argue that last one doesn't belong. But, after spending a week on my bike with some Team Clif teammates in the Tar Heel State, I'm here to tell ya it’s pretty dang cool! If you need a little more convincing, I've compiled my top 7 reasons why summertime in North Carolina can be quite delightful for an avid cyclist. Read on... 1) The Crossroads Classic criterium series—Neal Boyd and his minions at Charlotte…

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The 14th X Games start up this week in LA, and as always, they are sure to supply a year’s worth of extreme entertainment in just 4 insane days. Clif Bar may not be the first company that comes to mind when the subject of extreme sports pops up, but we do occasionally like to get our board, skate or BMX on. One of the things we are most proud of here at the Team Clif Bar world headquarters is our relationship with Andy MacDonald. For those of you not in the know, Andy is a legend in the world…

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What do you do when you train hard and travel a long distance to a race only to find out that your competition can’t race? Well, if you’re a pro…you do what the pros do and race anyway! Pro mountain biker and Team Clif Bar athlete Joanna Petterson traveled all the way from Boulder, CO to the Catskill Mountains of New York State to compete at the Windham dual slalom, downhill and super D races, only to find out that most of her competition for the dual slalom didn’t make it. “Unfortunately, the turnout for the dual slalom was slim…

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Pro triathlete and Team Clif Bar athlete Linsey Corbin has been on a hot streak of late. After finishing fifth, fourth, third, and then second place consecutively in her last four triathlons, Linsey jokingly told us last week that “this can only mean first place is right around the corner.” Hmmm…maybe she wasn’t joking… The Victoria Half Ironman Triathlon is one of Canada’s most popular multisport events, drawing close to 600 athletes into the sold out field. The event has a reputation for being super organized, incredibly scenic, and very fun. “The [Victoria] Half is very much a grassroots triathlon…

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Our reliable friends at Wikipedia define free solo climbing as “a form of free climbing where the climber (the free soloist) foregoes ropes, harnesses and other protective gear while ascending and relies only on his or her physical strength, climbing ability, and psychological fortitude to avoid a fatal fall.” Those same folks describe BASE jumping as “a sport involving the use of a parachute or the sequenced use of a wingsuit and parachute to jump from fixed objects--with the parachute unopened at the jump.” Combine these two acts and you get something called BASEclimbing… Castleton Tower reigns supreme as the…

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In a nation known for its hilly stage races and flat, fast criteriums, northern Michigan’s Tour de Leelanau is a bit of an anomaly in the U.S. With its one-day format, relentless rolling hills, and cold, damp weather, this race is more typical of a Belgian Classic than a standard American road race. Knowing the tough course would whittle the race down to a select few by the finish, BMC race director Gavin Chilcott made sure his team was represented well in the 16-man break that finally escaped the peloton at 72km. “The race unfolded as we expected,” Chilcott…

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Sometimes dealing with the stress of starting a major athletic event can have adverse effects on an athlete’s performance. Strong athletes tend to put a lot of pressure on themselves to do well in races, only to have that pressure render them exhausted during the event. Having only recently come back from an IT band injury that slowed her training over the winter, TCB athlete Kelly Couch rolled into last week’s Wildflower Triathlon with no expectations and reaped the benefits of competing in a relaxed-but-focused manner. Since she was unable to run with much intensity during the off season, Kelly…

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Oh Erik and his mind games...A ghost? Perhaps. Perhaps not. It was, after all, quite a blustery day down at Sea Otter. It's not every day your ragtag three piece blues/punk/funk outfit gets asked to jam on the top of the 2 Mile Challenge bus during the Clif Bar party at Sea Otter. And when you throw in the fact that Clif Founder/Owner Gary Erickson had offered to sit in on the trumpet during the gig, it was an offer we couldn't refuse. And, despite gale-force winds that forced us to play more like under the bus rather than on…

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Slipstream-Chipotle neo pro Martijn Maaskant rode like a Classics veteran this past Sunday to place 4th in Paris-Roubaix, arguably the world’s toughest single-day bike race. Marking moves like a rider 10 years his senior, Martijn rode intelligently to stay with the best riders in the world, eventually ending up in a chase group of three which could not catch a strong winning breakaway. Maaskant attacked his chase group as they entered the historic velodrome in Roubaix, finishing his final lap on the track solo and missing the podium by only one spot. The Dutch rider, known by his teammates as…

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