by Ton Tran, Peace Coffee Race Team Coordinator

2008 -- what an unbelievable year! I think I'll just call it crazy ol' 8. It seems that it had all of us living on the edge with lots to worry about; the high gas prices, the bursting of the housing bubble, and of course the uncertain change coming in the political world were just a few of the worries we had to face in crazy ol' 8. And that you can never change that, no matter how much you train.

On the lighter side of things, the Peace Coffee Racing Team went through some cool changes as well. The team had their uniform redesigned to all black with red and white racing stripes that makes you look fast even when you are standing next to your bike; plus it has a Miami Ink lettering style. We brought on new sponsors and changed supporting bike shops, which was why the team uniform was redesigned. The team tried something new this year by bringing on three bikes shops to support the team: One On One, Hub Bike Coop, and Dick's Trail and Cycle. The whole idea behind this was to give our team members various locations to shop and receive great mechanical expertise. The Peace Coffee Racing Team is also proud of our new sponsors; Focus Financial (Matt Nelson, CFP), Birchwood Cafe, and Cars-R-Coffins Cafe. Our long time team support sponsor Ekho, stepped up and became our co-title sponsor.

At the end of the 2008 racing season, Peace Coffee recognized individual team members that had an outstanding year racing for the team. This is just another fun way for Peace Coffee to show their support for our racing team. This year we decided to have team members nominate and vote for their picks in the different categories. The votes were close in all the 7 categories, but there was one particular category that ended up in a tie, which was "Most Improved." So instead of having a major recount and getting expensive lawyers involved, we decided that both recipients deserved the award.

Below are the 7 categories and the winners that were chosen by their fellow teammates.

Mountain Biker of the Year:  Matt Nelson -- for dominating in his age group in the Comp division (MN State Mountain Bike Series)

Tri/Duathlete of the Year:  
Mario Minelli -- Qualified & raced the World championship in Italy; 2 overall duathlon wins

Performace of the Year:
Michael McBurney -- For finishing 5th overall at the WI Chequamegon Short & Fat Mountain Bike Race

Most Improved:  
Jennifer Grant -- Ramped up her multi-sport races and finished a full distance (Iron distance) race.
Joe Moyer -- He went from not being able to swim well to completing the Wisconsin Ironman  (that includes a 2.4 mile swim)

Best Crash:
Bryan Rhody -- Caught a chain ring to the arm & flipping over his bike at the WI/MN Border Battle finish line (MTB Race).

Super Domestique:
Janet Atkinson -- Volunteered to pass out water bottles to PCR's through out the season.

Peace Coffee Rider of the Year:  
Andy Sieben -- In 2008, he raced MTB, Road, Off road Duathlon (even placing high), and on the side, he volunteered to help with trail building.

The one nice thing about racing is that you forget all about your worries, because your body is in so much pain that you can hardly think about anything else but finishing the damn bike race. And that you could never change, no matter how much you've trained. Bring it on 2009!



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