May
23
Floyd Landis Plans Post-Hearing?
Filed Under Cycling, Interbike, Racing | 3 Comments
It’s been about five years since I raced my last race. The arrival of two great kids, a cross-country move, taking on a mortgage, long work hours all conspired and I’ve been taking an extended break. I never would have though I’d be away for so long since racing was such a big part of my life back then. Heck, my wife Julie and I met through racing and even honeymooned at the 2000 Tour de France with our bikes (which greatly confused our non-cycling friends and family – “why would you want to ride your bikes on your honeymoon?!”).
Well, I got the bug to race again, recently, and went to the USA Cycling website and entered my info. To my shock, they still had all my info in there. Even had the last four [pitiful - all double digit placings, while Julie was busy winning points for her upgrade to cat 2] results from my earlier career. I updated my info and signed up for email race alerts. You can even print out a temporary license on the spot and race the next day. You gotta love the web. I remember frequently paying for rush shipping to get my new license back in time to race the first Spring races.
A recent USAC (I still want to call it USCF, don’t you?) email of upcoming races in my area listed a race in Dana Point about a ten-minute ride from our office. I checked out the website for the Dana Point Grand Prix for info and saw an interesting tid-bit buried near the bottom of the race flyer. Sort of like the stealth Landis appearance at the National Bike Summit a few months back. Check out the flyer that I highlighted here. Will he still show given the twists and turns of his hearing over the last week-and-a-half?
Am I racing? I don’t know yet. I just got back from driving the course during lunch and there’s a scary narrow alley (“Dead-Man’s Alley” according to the flyer) with a mean-looking wheel-eating grate half way through it. The rest of the course is through a beautiful overlooking the Pacific in some spots since it’s up on a cliff on the coast. That alley could cause some serious stringing out of the field as people brake hard to enter the narrow space and accelerate out the other end. Could be ugly for someone with marginal to low race fitness coming back after being off for a while. I did register my daughter for the Shimano Youth Series Race.Could this be the first of many for her?
May
17
“I Commuted – By Bike” – Bike to Work Day e-Sticker
Filed Under Advocacy, Cycling, Interbike | 5 Comments
So here’s something I came up with riding in to work today.
I had been trying to think of ways to promote biking to work during the Bike to Work Week. I thought of making a small sign to hang off the back of my bag just to let drivers know that I’m commuting and not just out for a ride. The thought was to plant the seed, so to speak, in their minds that riding is an option if they had never considered it. Never got around to it and thought it might provoke and angry driver.
Then an idea I had this morning was related to those “I Voted” stickers they give out at the polls here in the US on election day. The idea, ostensibly, is to show your pride in having done your civic duty and to remind others that it is election day. I thought, “Why not have one of those for Bike to Work Day?” I don’t have a printing press, and it is the day-of, already, but maybe an e-sticker for the bloggers out there to post on their sites. Still sitting here in my lycra at my desk, I fired up Illustrator and came up with this little oval.
If you like it, feel free to copy it and post on your blog or website. And don’t stop just ’cause tomorrow is the last day of Bike To Work Week! Now that you know it’s doable, keep going!
May
7
Understandably, as the marketing manager for the industry’s big annual gathering, I get put on a lot of mailing lists. In most cases, this isn’t such a nice thing. I get a lot of ads for all sorts of trade-show related (and not so trade-show, if you know what I mean) services. As a digital-era marketer myself who sends out thousands of email communications a year to IB exhibitors and attendees, it always amazes me how many of the emails (even from the seemingly legitimate companies) lack the legally required opt-out wording. Advice for all you honest emailers out there: read up on your CAN-Spam act legislation and requirements to avoid any potential problems.
Some of the good email that I get regularly are updates and newsletters from various bike advocacy groups. Today I figured I would start trying to use this little soap-box of ours to do some good and promote some of these groups from time to time. First up is MassBike – based in Massachusetts, of course. I got on their mailing list somehow and get monthly (?) newsletters from them highlighting their accomplishments and events. I went to college just outside of Boston and lived in Bean-Town for two years right after. I learned a lot about riding and racing from the fine cyclists of Boston that I had the good fortune to ride with. Great bike town and area (in the Summer, that is…).
Here is MassBike’s mission as stated on their website:
The primary purposes of MassBike are:
- to serve and protect the interests of the bicycling public in Massachusetts,
- to promote the bicycle as a healthy, enjoyable, efficient, and environment-friendly means of transportation and recreation,
- to promote a physical geographic context and vehicular traffic environment that enhance these qualities and ensure the safety of transportation by bicycle, and
- to help more people adopt the bicycle for transportation and recreation.
Sounds like some good things to strive for. And finally, from the email I received today, if you are in the area:
Do you enjoy hanging out with fellow cyclists and eating gourmet pizza with a refreshing beverage? Then you won’t want to miss Volunteer Night from 5:00 – 8:00 p.m. It’s a chance to have some fun and help MassBike with some easy administrative tasks. The more help we get from volunteers, the more time MassBike staff can spend making bicycling better. Just let us know you’re coming so we know how much pizza to order! (617-542-2453 or nadav@massbike.org)
Our office is located at 171 Milk Street, Third Floor, in Boston’s Financial District. The closest T Station is Government Center, and you can bring your bike right up into the office if you don’t mind carrying it up the stairs!
If you make it there, let me know if the MassBikers are as nice as their emails make them out to be.
May
4
Why Rob Vandermark Loves His Blackberry
Filed Under Exhibitor News, Industry News, Interbike | 4 Comments
I’m a big fan of the tv show Heroes. It’s really the only show that I try to watch every week. Somehow, I managed to miss the last two episodes and was way behind in the story line. The show has had a couple of [frustratingly] long breaks during it’s first season run, and I had forgotten that it had started up again recently. I figured tonight that I would bite the bullet and try to buy the two episodes at iTunes for $1.99 each to catch up, but it turns out that you can watch them for free at nbc.com. Nice. And even the commercials are shortened online.
Online, each episode is sponsored by only one company. Fidelity Investments had the first one and Blackberry the second. Blackberry’s current campaign features notable users and fans of the multimedia devices. I half paid attention to the first one featuring the editor of Elle magazine that preceded the show, but the star of the second one during the first commercial break had a familiar name to me and the bike industry. Click the image below to see why Rob Vandermark, Founder and President of Seven Cycles, loves his Blackberry.
I love these forays into the non-endemic advertising world. I wonder if it’s having any positive impact on Seven’s sales or brand exposure. There don’t seem to be any links to Seven’s site anywhere at the Blackberry site.
Why do you love your Blackberry – or Seven?