Believe & Achieve, First-Ever All-Juniors Cycling Team, Finish the World's Toughest Bike Race, Race Across America, All for Organ Donation and Transplantation

Market wire


ANNAPOLIS, MD--(Marketwire - Jun 22, 2012) - Connor Ellison, 14 years old, will likely require a liver transplant at some time in the future. He battles a liver disease, congenital hepatic fibrosis, which results in scarring of the liver tissue distorting blood flow through the liver and compromising its function. But it hasn't stopped him from doing what he loves most, which his riding his bike. In 2010, Connor was the youngest person in history to cross the finish line with an all-adult team of the grueling Race Across America (RAAM), a 3,000-mile non-stop, single-stage bicycle race.

This year, Connor was up for a bigger challenge! He pulled together seven of his friends and his older sister to form the first-ever all-juniors cycling team, Believe & Achieve, to compete in RAAM. Members are between the ages of 13 and 17 and consist of Mike Hahn, Adam Sevy, Scot Benton, Connor Ellison, Savannah Ellison, Troy Knox, Alex Benton, Colin Cook, and Jasper Hodgson. Connor also talked his dad, Jared Ellison, who has completed RAAM three times, into coaching the team. All reside in Folsom, California. They have been training for the past 8 months in all types of weather, day and night, and in various mountainous terrain in order to prepare them for crossing over the Rockies and Appalachian mountains.

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