Primal Pizza Party - Saturday, June 7th...

Touted as being "The World's Most Challenging Human Endurance Competition", the 5th edition of the Primal Challenge Eco Adventure Race will be held this June 21 - July 2 in Montana and our very own Eric Wallace, Kathy Roche-Wallace and her daughter Melissa will be among the many teams competing in this multi-day, multi-discipline adventure race. They will be joined by 2007 Primal Quest participant Scott Campau, of Muskegon.

To help offset the expense of this event (yes, it's expensive), we are hosting a Primal Pizza Party at the BiCi Bistro in downtown Battle Creek on Saturday, June 7th. Any pizzas purchased after 7:00 pm (dine in or carry out) will have profits donated to Team Active's Primal Quest Team. Click on the image to the right for more information and get your friends together and plan on making a night of it. Several Team Active Racing Members (including the Primal Quest "crew") will be on hand and looking forward to meeting the public.

Of particular note is the fact that Kathy and her daughter Melissa are the first mother-daughter team to ever compete in this event. This has interested race officials as a special interest feature and you may just be seeing Team Active Racing appearing in some national publications before, during and after the event this year! So, stay tuned and keep an eye out for Team #28.

So, mark your calendars and come out on Saturday night for some pizza and support a great cause. We're looking forward to seeing you...

Team Active Racing

Bike Lanes, Hospitality Classic and Race Results

Bike Lanes
This past Wednesday a group of us from the team joined several other community members, Battle Creek's Mayor, the head of the Rec Department and a City Engineer to help promote and create awareness for Battle Creek's bike lanes. With gas close to (or over, depending on the day) $4 per gallon, the sport of cycling is starting to gain further respect in communities across the nation as a viable (and inexpensive) means of transportation. Plus, it's great exercise and the best way to efficiently get from "point A" to "point B" as far as we're concerned. To the right is a shot of the team members that were present for the event and we opted for the long route of 18 miles. Several others came out and participated in shorter routes, all leaving from Riverside Elementary School. We appreciate the City's focus on bike lanes and helping us enjoy the sport we love.

2008 Oaklawn Hospitality Classic - 25th Anniversary
Mother Nature again held up her end of the deal and provided Historical Marshall with yet another beautiful day for the 25th Annual Hospitality Classic, sponsored by Oaklawn Hospital. In addition to being Marshall's leading employer, the Hospital is a two-time Team Active Racing sponsor and again this year Team Active Racing provided cycling support as Bike Patrol on the course to keep the 10k, 5k and 1 mile Run Run participants safe. I left the bike at home this year, however, as I was asked to be the Emcee for the day with classmate Matt Davis (of Rosemary Davis Realtors). We had a good great time, there was record turnout and Team Active Racing members Matt Wright and Jennifer Blank also ran in the event.

Race Results
Racers didn't disappoint this past weekend with participants competing in mountain biking, endurance, off-road triathlon and a duathlon (in the snow, no less). Here are the results from the weekend and great job to everyone!

Owasippe Mountain Bike Race (thanks to Josh Radi for the update and great pictures!)

Great results this weekend at Owasippee. We had three riders representing Team Active Racing. Daryn, Matt G., and myself. Overall the race was a bit nipply, but we pulled through and had a pretty good time. The overall results went like this:

Daryn Franks - 5th Place (Elite)


Matt Gaffner - 1st Place (Expert)


Josh Radi - 1st Place (Sport 19-29)

We all ate burgers afterward to end the day off the right way, and minus the cold part, I loved the race course. The technical downhill sections were excellent, and remind me why I started riding mountain bikes to begin with. I would love to go back and ride these trails sometime in the next couple of months if anyone's interested.

-Josh

12 Hours of Addison Oaks & X-Terra Triathlon (thanks to "rookie" Mark Sherman for the following update)

We've had a great weekend for Team Active Racing! Saturday Eric W., Kathy and her daughter, Melissa, all raced solo at 12 hours of Addison Oaks. All completed between 80 and 90 miles. Eric took 8th in the single speed, Kathy got 2nd and Melissa got 3rd.

On Sunday the crew headed back to Battle Creek and competed at Fort Custer in the Xterra off-road triathlon. Melissa won overall womens, Kathy did a great job on Sunday and got 5th overall. Eric isn't sure on what he placed yet, but he had a faster time than both Melissa and Kathy. This weekend has been Great training for the Wallace's big Primal Quest Adventure Race, which starts in about a month! So great job to everyone this weekend! Keep up the great work!

From,
The Rookie (Mark Sherman)

Starkerman Duathlon - Gaylord (update by Jonah Curtis - and yes, I decided not to edit and correct the grammar)

hey dudes,

sounds like lots of people were having themselves some fun at the races this weekend, and taking home some hardwear. nice job!! i had a time myself up in gaylord at the starkerman du. here is what 3disciplines said about it on their site: 24th Starkermann Duathlon - Once again the Starkermann did not disapoint. Three straight weeks of mid 50 to 60 degree temperatures very little rain. But race morning we had temperatures about 39 with winds gusting to 30mph. at times. If that was not enough as I said the Starkermann delivers; rain, sleet, snow on and off all day.

I think that the winds may have even been higher out there on the backside of the bike course at times. i have also never ridden on hills quite that tough. i was out of gears and going as fast as i have ever gone on the downhills, and out of gears and going as slow as i ever have on the ups, all the while fighting the snow and sleet. i felt pretty good though and finished 1st clydesdale and 10th overall. only 4 people had a better than 20mph average on the bike on those monster hills and i was right behind them at 19.5. sounds slow, but it was all i could do to stay even that fast with the winds and snow. here are my official results:

Run1 Pace T1 Rank Bike Rate T2 Rank Run2 Pace Finish
21:19 6:52 0:42 1 56:06 19.5 1:14 1 23:43 7:38 1:43:03

In Closing
As you can see, the Team continues to do well at events and spreading "gospel" of Team Active Racing. While we likely don't say it enough, we want to be sure to thank our sponsors who are listed on this site. They're all listed top-right in the orange box!

Until next time...
Eric

Just an add to Willow Duathlon

Just a note regarding the team duathlon - This was Jennifer's first TA race (as the runner).  She did great and is a very strong runner - she was the first female over the finish line!  We would not have won without her run.  Great job and we are doing another event June 1st (team tri with a top secret swimmer...)  

Race Results - Fort Custer and Others

Greetings everyone. Last weekend was a busy one for the Team as we had racers participate in the Fort Custer Stampede, a team duathlon in the Detroit area as well as a 5k in Lakeview. Below are the results, and as you can see the Team continues to place very well...

Lakeview 5k
Triathlete Matt Wright placed 2nd overall and 1st in his age group in the Lakeview Fitness Expo 5k this past Saturday. Matt has some triathlons scheduled later in the year (swim, bike, run), so these events are excellent cross training. Great job Matt!

Team Duathlon
Danny Wolin and Jennifer Blank competed as a team in the Detroit area last weekend in a duathlon (run, bike, run) with Jennifer putting in the run and Danny dominating the bike portion of the event. They took top honors for the event and Danny's bike split was one of the fastest of the day. Yet another excellent showing by Team members.

Fort Custer Stampede
In addition to serving burgers, hot dogs and Great Harvest rolls to well over 200 people on race day (yes, Team Active Racing was the most popular team Sunday), racers put on a very good show on the course. Below are the results from the event. A special thanks to all racers (and spouses/significant others) that arrived to help with the day's festivities and keeping things moving.

Beginner
Austin Kucharski beg. 10 and under 4th
Cameron Wallace beg. 10 and under 5th
Charlie Swett beg. 15-18 4th
Angela Bowers beg. wom. 30+ 1st

Sport
Josh Radi sport 19-29 1st
Keith Wilkinson sport 40-44 5th

Expert
Dan Frayer exp. 29 and under 9th
Matt Gaffner exp. 30-39 5th
Eric Cook exp. 30 - 39 20th
Mike Groat exp. 40-49 11th
Jim Gallagher exp. 40-49 15th
Kathy Wallace exp. women 4th

Elite
Daryn Franks elite men 7th

Full Results Here

Photos
Team member Dan Frayer took several photos and uploaded them to his Flickr account. Check out the link: http://www.flickr.com/photos/danfrayer. Thanks Dan, and be sure to check out his site for his own recap of the race.

Also, thanks to Team member Mark Sherman for the great shot of me (looking forward to finishing) from race day. While I certainly didn't "burn up" the trail, it was a great ride and moves me that much closer to this year's Lumberjack 100 in June. I tried to keep a 100-mile pace going and while I finished in just over 2 hours, LJ will have me on the bike for 10+ hours. Lots of time to think and reflect on life...

Until next time,
Eric (aka Cap'n Crunch)

Do The Test...

Don't worry, this has some "cycling" relevance (but you have to watch it to find out what that is). Check out the video below... Be sure to post your comments and let us know what you think.

Successful day at Fort Custer

There will be more postings later in the week, but I wanted to let everyone know we had a wonderful day at the 2008 Fort Custer Stampede. The weather was perfect, the course was in great shape (the rain really tamed down some of the sandy sections and the trail was super fast) and we had a successful cookout for 100+ racers with free burgers and hot dogs. A special thanks to team member Mike Groat for hauling over his big grill (more like a pig cooker, actually) and being the cook-master for the afternoon. Sponsor Great Harvest Bread Company provided some great goodies (that went fast, I might add).

Below are some pictures from the Sport and Beginner races and we'll have some from the Expert and Elite race soon, as well as results. Great job team, the mountain bike community was impressed today for sure and we put on a great show. I heard more than once that we were the "coolest team" there. Of course, we were the only team giving away free burgers and 'dogs, but I'll take the compliments! Great job everyone.

Angie in her first mountain bike race. We'll convert her from a "roadie"sooner or later!


She took first place (by about 5 minutes) in her first race. Looks like she'll be moving up to Sport soon...


Josh hammering away for another 1st place finish in the Sport category. Not bad for his first year of racing a mountain bike. Great job Josh. Below is a note that he sent along recapping the day:

Today, Team Active Racing had an arsenal at its disposal. My job was to race, and I did my part by winning Sport Men 19-29. With the help of some Advil after last weekends fight with the tree, I was able to recover back to 100% for the Fort Custer Stampede. I'm glad that I could do well here in my hometown. First of all, I would like to thank my family for coming and supporting me. A special thanks goes out to the TAR mechanic Willie for fixing my Lefty, he got it back to new condition. Also thank you to Team Active Racing for the Awesome Jerseys! Thanks to the Great Harvest Bread Company for the excellent cookies and bread. It really hit the spot after my race. Also, I would like to thank Mike Groat and Steve Bessonny for the cookout. It was very appreciated by all riders and non-riders alike. This event was a textbook case for a great day of racing. My next race is the Owassippee TT Sunday May 18th. Thanks again to everyone, and look forward to more results from Team Active Racing.



Keith putting his head down to bring it home.


Here's Cameron taking a look around to see just how far away the finish line is.


Here's Austin following in his father's footsteps. Are we looking at the 2018 Trans Iowa winner?

Comments on the BCE Article

Unfortunately the article in the Battle Creek Enquirer that appeared a few days ago had a few negative postings from some folks that seem to think that cyclists have been taking up too much of the road when riding in Battle Creek on our group rides. As Team Manager, I crafted the following "rebuttal" but only after typing it, realized that I'm limited to only 1,000 characters. So, I'm posting the full response below. Here goes...

Thanks for the positive comments about the Team and we are excited about the nice coverage to hopefully get others involved with the sport of cycling. We truly do have some amazing athletes racing for us and feel that we can use this to help gain exposure for Battle Creek and the surrounding areas to hopefully attract more visitors to this community (and spend some dollars). Yes, we are a racing team, but hopefully our efforts will result in some economic benefit too.

I know that the issue of bike lanes and sharing the road can be somewhat of a "hot topic" at times, but hopefully motorists keep in mind that bike are on the roads, especially starting this time of year now that the weather is getting nice. While the bike lanes certainly are appreciated and used when possible, many non-cyclists don't realize they sometimes have debris that can pop a tire or cause an accident. Additionally, riding along close to the side of the road or along the curb with cracks and potholes that are resulting from the long winter is also dangerous. Just as someone driving an auto has to drive defensively, we too find ourselves dodging obstacles on the road to keep ourselves safe, which may necessitate us coming out a bit in the lane to avoid a dangerous situation.

Believe me, as a cyclist the last thing I want to do is get into a competition with an auto, because I know who will win that battle (not me). But the hope is that as more people in our community become aware of the sport of cycling and the fact that we are out on the roads we'll all be able to co-exist. We often times get people coming up along side the group rides and honking their horns and waving (yes, with all their fingers) because seeing 20+ cyclists on a group ride is not something you typically see around here and many think it's a pretty cool sight. While I cannot speak for all cyclists that are on the roads (just as nobody can speak for all motorists), I can tell you when we head out as a team we always try and stay as much "out of the way" as we can for vehicle traffic so that we continue to put forth a good impression for our sport and our valued sponsors.

We are all very interested in sharing the road and working together so that we can continue to enjoy the sport we love AND make sure that motorists are able to drive safely and get where they need to go in a timely fashion. Hopefully many of you reading this article will come out to Fort Custer this weekend and attend what may be your very first bike race/event. Who knows, we may just see you on our next group ride and welcome you to the "team"!

Eric Cook, Team Manager
Team Active Racing
http://www.TeamActiveRacing.com

In the News!

Check out the recent article in the Battle Creek Enquirer promoting Team Active Racing. Don't forget to stop out to Fort Custer this weekend and cheer on the Team in the 2008 Fort Custer Stampede.