Good Morning!
Duesseldorf main train station.
Markus Greiss is on his way to Minden to start the Bike Challenge.

How is the weather, Markus?

Fun training ride from CST Transportation

We are very glad to take part of this world wide event, This event has brought together all departments on CSTT, i.e. ( HR, Manuf, Finance, Maint,  QC, Marketing, Etc),

Now we know there's a lot of people that  like to ride  and are very glad to make the Bike team even bigger.

CST de Mexico is ready for the challenge!

CST de Mexico biking team!

34 CST de Mexico employees are scheduled to depart from the CST Otay plant to complete this year’s Bike Challenge.  The CST Transportation team will join them on Friday morning to ride together to the Otay border crossing to nearby San Diego.  More riders will join on the US side to continue representing Mexico up to the end of the first stage the challenge in Del Mar.

CST de Mexico team members are:

• Jose Luis Ortiz
• Sergio Heredia
• Roberto Dominguez
• Esteban Espinoza
• Carlos Garcia 
• Rogelio Castañeda
• Edgar Equihua
• Jesus Perea
• David Santibañes
• Annia Rios
• Ernelvy Bustillos
• Mariela Reynoso
• Jean-Marc THeolier
• Oscar Rivera
• Antonio Enriquez
• Bernardo Garcia Virgen
• David Covarrubias
• Oscar Fernandez
• Alejandro Silva
• Brian Vera
• Marco Monterrosas
• Gladys Escobedo
• Erick Morua
• Beatriz Garcia
• Leobardo Salgado
• Ismael Favela
• Erika Gutierrez
• Cesar Guadarrama
• Carlos Vargas
• Jorge Arzola
• Jorge Cohen
• Armando Peña
• Jose L. Cruz
• Felipe Muñoz

Prelminary contest for Team China

September 17 was the date for the preliminary contest of “Badminton Cup”, which was held in Huizhou after work. The match was adopted the latest <International Badminton Competition Rules>, single-elimination system win 2 out of 3 games, counting to 21' for each game.

It showed our youth and vigor, the unbeatable atmosphere and the hot competition brought forth a good team work to everyone and we spent a great and memorable time together.

Training for the Badminton Challenge in China

This week some players took part in the practice actively for the coming preliminary contest. Almost all the players went to do the practice with each other for about 2 hours. Each of them played quite well because they are interested in it and do practice very often. It’s really difficult to say who is best.

The first session of Asia Days happed to take place during this week in Huizhou as well. The business visitors also very actively joined to help our players to practice after meeting.

From the picture, I can see each of them were confident to be the champion!

Last Weekend of Training!

From John Fountain, North America CST Bike Challenge Team Member:

"Sunday training ride was nice and slow. I'm riding with a sprained ankle, bruised knee and elbow.  Rode 31 miles with very little climbing.  Looking forward to this coming weekend."

"Saturday training ride, rode 43 miles with 1,201 of elevation. Some pictures along the ride..."

Along the last segment of the TJ - Santa Barbara ride.

A coffee store we will pass by on the last segment of the TJ - Santa Barbara ride

Goleta Beach & the Santa Barbara Coast

Stearns Warf in Santa Barbara, CA

CST Moorpark Bikers

From left to right: Thad Moody, Julio Villa, Jose Ramos, Mark Urban, Phil Roessler; missing from photo: Andrew Mansmann

Say hello to the CST Bikers from Moorpark, CA! They will be riding on Saturday from Redondo Beach to Port Hueneme, and on Sunday from Port Hueneme to Goleta.

CST Moorpark is supporting the Moopark Boys & Girls Club as well as Casa Pacifica.

The crew is very excited to join the CSR Bike Challenge this year and are looking forward to riding together with the Goleta and Mexico teams!

Training and More Training

This past weekend a few members of the North America team did some training to prep for the challenge. They did 20 miles mountain biking through Sycamore Canyon on Friday, and rode a total of 96 miles with 4000 feet worth of climbing!

We are all looking forward to the North America crew to get together and ride!

Sycamore Canyon, California

Sycamore Canyon, California

The CST Bike Ride 2013 is ready to go !

Building on last year's event, the CST Bike Challenge has become a truely worldwide action with over 100 participants in Mexico, USA, India, China, UK, Germany and France, all riding bikes, and amazingly, some playing badminton.

Our initial objective was to cover the 6000 miles (9500 km) that separate the CST sites of Strasbourg, France and Tijuana, Mexico.

However, the number of participants is much higher than we ever expected and so our best estimation is now  around 14,000 km.  Working on the same principles as last year, we invite everyone to play the CSR guessing game and try to guess the total cumulated distance that will be covered by bikers and badminton players (the Chinese team are using the latest technology to measure the distance they run!).  The 2 best guesses will both receive an iPAD MINI.

Your local CSR volunteer is available to help collect your guesses and donations.  And don't forget, all funds collected will be matched by CST and donated to your locally chosen charity.

We will be blogging everyday so that you can follow the event live!

Good luck to everyone and thank you for your precious support!

Dean Whittaker

Meet Team Minden !

The team from Minden consists of 16 bikers and 3 helpers that will drive the support vehicles. The start at our facility in Minden will be on Thursday, September 26, in the afternoon. Our goal is to reach Strasbourg on Saturday late afternoon to meet the Valence team there.

We are split up into three groups. The first group will go the whole distance, while the others two groups will share the daily route. Therefor there is a fitting group for everyone who takes part in the Bike Challenge. All groups will meet at the end of every day to spend the evening together.

Everyone is busy with training right now and looks forward to the tour. The only missing things are our shirts. They are still on their way and we hope they will make it in time. So keep your fingers crossed for them to arrive before the start!

China has chosen Huizhou Charity Federation for their donation

"Huizhou Charity Federation" was funded in 2005. The principle of the federation is "personal oriented, help the poor, support the disable or alone, assist the old or emergent, relieve and rescue the people in the disaster, support education & social public service", which aligns with our CSR principle well. In Huizhou, CST holds the strategic manufacturing plant site there. We'd like to support local Huizhou community to promote CST's corporate social responsibility.

Please visit their website for more information : http://cszh.huizhou.cn/pages/cms/hzcs/html/index.html

The badminton challenge in China

The badminton challenge in China will be held in Huizhou on Sep 26 from 18:00 to 21:00. Totally 16 employees will gather together and attend the match.

The match is going to adopt the latest international competition rules, which is single-elimination system that win 2 out 3 games, and counting 21 points for each play. Among those ladies and gentlemen, 8 gentlemen will take part in the Single competition group, 12 of them will take part in the Double competition group and 8 of them will take part in the Mixed Double competition. So totally 33 games will be played and all their running miles will be added into all other Bike challenges together for guess.

Look, they are smiling and ready to play with each other on that exciting day. I really cannot wait to cheer for them!