Silent Sports Shorts - March 2008 Mad City 100K Relay: a race for the ages Madison's Lake Monona 20K run turns 30 on May 3 Friends of High Cliff State Park to hold fundraising banquet April 12 Rails-To-Trails Conservancy helping Midwest communities create bike/ped plans and get funding Land donated for Twin Cities wildlife management area Minnesota skiers buy passes to enjoy the trails Collect CLIF Bar wrappers for reuse and fundraising Get a free GU Energy Gel for 10 empty packets Ripon College to give bikes to new students who say no to cars Milwaukee mountain biking alliance forming Riders getting involved in Milwaukee River corridor planning

Mad City 100K Relay: a race for the ages

The second annual Mad City 100K on April 12 in Madison, Wisconsin, will serve as a national championship and include unique relay team options.

Relay awards will be based on the combined age of the team members: 0-299 years, 300-399, 400-499 and 500 and over.

The relay race venue will be the same as in 2007: 10 laps of the 10K loop around Lake Wingra with the start and finish lines at Vilas Park.

Registration is now open at  www.madcity100k.com.
Direct relay questions to Doug at DErickson@madison.com.

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Madisonâ's Lake Monona 20K run turns 30 on May 3

This year's Lake Monona 20K Run (LM20K)in Madison, Wisconsin, will be the 30th annual "running" of the event.

This will be the second LM20K under the management of Race Day Events, LLC. An average of nearly 400 runners took part in the event over the 12 years Peter Wadsack directed the event. In 2007, that number surged to 458.  Even more are expected to run on May 3.

The anniversary celebration will include free beer at the finish line and a live band. Standard age group awards will be provided, as well as awards to the top 30 age and gender graded finishers.

Age/gender graded results even the playing field for all runners. A multiplier is put on your finish time based on your age and sex adjusting finishing time by a percentage. This means of equalizing the field is based on World Association of Veteran Athletes (WAVA) tables that gives everyone in the race a chance to "finish first overall" based on their graded performance.

More information can be found at www.lakemonona20k.com or at www .racedayeventsllc.com.

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Friends of High Cliff State Park to hold fundraising banquet April 12

The nonprofit Friends of High Cliff State Park, located on the northeast corner of Lake Winnebago, Wisconsin's largest lake, will host their first ever Spring Banquet on Friday, April 18, at the High Cliff Restaurant located just outside the park in Sherwood. The fundraising event will begin at 6 p.m. and include a fish fry, live music, door prizes, a silent auction and raffles.

Tickets are available at High Cliff State Park and cost $30 for an adult and $55 for couples. Or take advantage of the Table Captain Special: Buy seven tickets and get one free.

Proceeds from the fundraiser will go toward a $500,000 capital campaign to  1) pay off a loan for the purchase of 40 acres of additional park land, 2) restore the 150-year-old General Store Museum and 3) establish an endowment for the park naturalist position.

For more information about the Friends of High Cliff or the fundraising event, contact the High Cliff Park Office at 920/989-1106 or e-mail Debra.Nowak @wisconsin.gov.

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Rails-To-Trails Conservancy helping Midwest communities create bike/ped plans and get funding

This past December, Rails-to-Trails Conservancy (RTC) helped coordinate the fourth Mid America Trails and Greenways Conference (MATAG) in Chicago. More than 300 trails stakeholders participated, 30 of whom stayed an extra day to attend RTC's special workshop for the 2010 Campaign for Active Transportation.

The focus of the workshop, according to Rhonda Border-Boose, director of RTC's Midwest Regional Office, was to help local communities develop bicycling and pedestrian plans. RTC first conducted meetings in eight communities, then representatives from those communities attended TrailLink 2007, RTC's biennial conference. MATAG aimed to solidify how local governments and organizations would develop their transportation infrastructure if trail funding were doubled in the 2010 reauthorization of SAFETEA-LU.

Border-Boose said the next phase will be scheduling follow-up meetings at each attending community by mid-March to assess their on-the-ground projects and bike/ped work plans.

To learn more about the 2010 Campaign for Active Transportation in the Midwest, please contact Rhonda Border-Boose at rhonda@railstotrails.org, or call 614/837-6782.

Land donated for Twin Cities wildlife management area

Nearly 200 acres of prime wildlife habitat half an hour from Minneapolis will be preserved as public open space thanks to the legacy of a Twin Cities leader who died more than three years ago.

Located between the cities of Delano and Independence on U.S. Highway 12 in western Hennepin County, the new Robina Wildlife Management Area (WMA) is a picturesque mix of wetlands and wooded uplands with old maples, oaks and basswood. WMA includes more than one mile of undisturbed shoreline on Robina Lake. It will be open to the public for hunting, wildlife viewing, hiking, birding and cross-country skiing.

The property, valued at more than $4 million, was donated to the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) by the Robina Foundation, which was founded by the late James H. Binger. A well-known philanthropist, former Honeywell chairman and theater entrepreneur, Binger died in 2004.

"This is a gift of enormous value to the people of Minnesota," said DNR regional wildlife manager Tim Bremicker. "With the state's population increasingly concentrated in the growing metro region, protecting wildlife habitat and outdoor recreational opportunities close to where people live is vital to the future of conservation."

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Minnesota skiers buy passes to enjoy the trails

Good snow in Minnesota means more than 1,800 miles of grant-in-aid and state-operated cross-country ski trails are in great condition.

"We've seen an increase over last year in ski trail use as a result of good snow and trail conditions," said Andrew Korsberg, trails program coordinator for the Minnesota DNR.

State law requires skiers 16 years of age and older to purchase and possess a daily, annual or three-year pass before using grant-in-aid and state-operated cross-country ski trails. All money raised from the sale of cross-country ski passes support designated cross-country ski trails throughout Minnesota. "Purchasing a ski pass is an investment in the sport of skiing," Korsberg said.

Ski passes cost $5 a day, $15 annually and $40 for three-year passes. The Minnesota Legislature established the ski pass in 1983.

Ski trail information, locations, maps, grooming and conditions and snow depths are available on the DNR website at www.mndnr.gov/skiing/index.html.

Skiers may purchase passes at any one of nearly 1,800 electronic licensing agents throughout Minnesota and at most state parks that have ski trails. Annual and three-year passes may also be bought online at www.wildlifelicense.com/mn, by calling 888/665-4236, or by mail from DNR License Center, 500 Lafayette Road, St. Paul, MN 55155-4026.

Passes ordered by mail require approximately two weeks for delivery. A $3.50 convenience fee is added to the sale of passes sold over the Internet or by phone.

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Collect CLIF Bar wrappers for reuse and fundraising

If you eat CLIF Bars - those organic snack bars popular among outdoor recreationists â€" you can now recycle the wrappers and benefit your favorite causes at the same time.

Last month, CLIF Bar announced Wrapper Brigade, a program to reduce the amount of energy bar wrappers going into landfills and educate people about the benefits of reusing waste materials.

The collected wrappers will be used to make backpacks, gym totes and other products available at major retailers by early next year. And for every CLIF Bar wrapper returned, 2 cents will be donated to the organizations, be they nonprofits or schools, of the sender's choosing.

CLIF Bar is sponsoring the program and TerraCycle of Trenton, New Jersey, is providing product collection and reuse expertise.

Anyone can sign up for the Wrapper Brigade program by visiting www.terra cycle.net/brigades. There is no cost to participate. Within one to two weeks after signing up, four collection bags are sent out that hold 200 energy bar wrappers each. You simply mail the collection bags back to TerraCycle and designate a charity. All shipping fees are covered by the program to encourage people to collect as many wrappers as possible.

"We are mindful of the importance of trying to reduce our footprint on the planet," CLIF Bar brand manager Carly Lutz said. "Like our consumers, we're passionate about the outdoors and want to protect and preserve the places we play in."

The program is part of TerraCycle's sponsored waste movement in which socially and environmentally responsible companies and brands provide funding for TerraCycle to collect and reuse their packaging, including bottles, yogurt containers, drink pouches and now bar wrappers.

Based in Berkeley, Calif., Clif Bar & Co. (www.clifbar.com) is a leading maker of all-natural and organic energy and nutrition foods and drinks, including the organic certified CLIF and LUNA energy bars.

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Get a free GU Energy Gel for 10 empty packets

GU Energy Gel consumers can also recycle their empty packets rather than litter the roads and trail with them.

Since 1997, Gu Sports (a division of Sports Street Marketing in Berkeley, Calif.) has promoted a "Stash Your Trash" redemption program. The company rewards individuals with one free GU packet for every 10 empty packets sent in.

The minimum is 50 empty packets per redemption. An online coupon offers a T-shirt or pair of socks for 200 or more empty packets. For more information, go to www .GUsports.com.

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Ripon College to give bikes to new students who say no to cars

Among the many choices Ripon College's class of 2012 will face is whether or not to bring a car to campus this fall. Those who pledge not to do so will receive a big incentive: a brand-new mountain bike to keep. Dubbed the "Ripon Velorution Program" (RVP), it is the first of its kind in the nation.

Students starting their first college semester at Ripon will have the option to sign an RVP pledge this spring saying that they will not bring a car to campus for the duration of the upcoming academic year. Those who participate will be given a brand-new Trek 820 mountain bike, a Trek Vapor helmet and a lock.

Dealing with student vehicles is not a problem only on big campuses. The 1,000-student liberal arts college 70 miles northwest of Milwaukee discovered last fall that demand for student parking was about to outstrip its capacity. Proposed solutions focused on where additional lots could go, but Ripon College President David C. Joyce, an avid cyclist, was dead-set against it.

"We're a residential college with a beautiful historic campus in the middle of a small town," Joyce said. "Paving it over was not an option I was willing to consider."

When an opportunity came to purchase a quantity of Trek mountain bikes from a nearby bike shop, Joyce had his solution: Trade four wheels for two. To flesh out program details, he worked closely with Ric Damm, coach of Ripon's nascent cycling team and an accomplished racer.

"Parking in this case is a distant third to the health and fitness of our students, and responsible energy practices. For students, it's a lifestyle choice. For Ripon College, it's choosing sustainability over ease and convenience," Joyce said.

"Velorution" in the program's name is a deliberate anagram of "revolution" using "vélo" (French for bicycle) as its root. It refers to mass acceptance of bicycles, thereby reducing a society's dependence on automobiles. Cities such as Amsterdam, Portland and nearby Madison run successful community bike programs that rent or loan bikes.

By giving students bikes, Ripon's program takes the idea one step further.

Initial funding will come from friends of the college, trustees and alumni, whose support of cycling became evident last fall when the college agreed to sponsor a mountain biking team - one of only a handful in the entire state.

It remains to be seen how students will react to the program. For the roughly one-third who weren't going to bring a car to campus in the first place, a free bike is a no-brainer. Another third or so won't give up their cars no matter what, leaving a group of undecided students to determine the program's success. Until administrators know how many students are willing to take the pledge, they won't know how  much winter storage space and extra bike racks to provide.

While Joyce is confident they'll find a rider for every bike, he acknowledges that the car habit may be hard to break.

"We obviously live in a car culture," he said. "That's not about to change, but if a significant number of students learn that a car isn't a necessity at this stage of their lives, that's good enough for us."
For more information visit www.ripon .edu/velorution.

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Milwaukee mountain biking alliance forming
Riders getting involved in Milwaukee River corridor planning

An alliance of Milwaukee-area mountain bikers is taking shape with coordination by the Bicycle Federation of Wisconsin and Hayes Bicycle Group. The effort is bringing together the Wisconsin Off Road Biking Association, Wisconsin Off-Road Series, Wisconsin Cycling Association, as well as area clubs, shops and dedicated individuals.

The goal of the group is substantial: to ultimately provide a unified voice on behalf of mountain biking while demonstrating mountain bikers as responsible trail users and environmental stewards.

This spring the forming mountain biking alliance will host a forum to educate and involve more people and will coordinate volunteer participation for the Milwaukee River cleanup on April 19. Emphasis is being placed on the Milwaukee River corridor at this time due to a series of workshops held by the Milwaukee River Work Group (MRWG) about land-use restrictions concerning the Milwaukee River corridor just north of downtown Milwaukee.

The area on either side of the Milwaukee River in this area currently contains miles of informal trail and green space that is used daily by people walking, running, bird-watching, snowshoeing and biking but is comprised of both public and private lands, making its use a topic of controversy.

MRWG is currently working to get overlay zoning enacted that would set building guidelines for developers along the corridor, and plans to eventually create a Central Park Plan that hopefully would be adopted by the city/county of Milwaukee. This comprehensive plan would include public policy, zoning, preservation guidelines and a stewardship plan for the future of the corridor. It is presumed the plan will permit mountain biking along the river corridor. To become involved or to keep up to date with the alliance's actions, e-mail Shea Schachameyer at shea@bfw.org.

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