Feb
29
Article: Year of the Bike in 2008?
Filed Under Advocacy, Cycling, Industry News, Interbike | 1 Comment
I hate to re-hash something that another site has already covered (very nicely, btw), but in this case I think the topic merits another mention in case anyone missed it – especially with the National Bike Summit taking over the Capitol next week.
The article that Jonathan Maus of the awesome bikeportland.org blog discovered recently was written with the Summit in mind by columnist James Peirce of the Washington Post Writer’s Group. Mr. Peirce goes through a list of issues that have been in the headlines recently that all point to a very favorable atmosphere for the growth of the use and acceptability of the bicycle as a legitimate form of transportation and dynamic solution to many of these problems. (That last point also eloquently brought up by Interbike show director, Lance Camisasca, back in 2006, btw.)
Jonathan does a great job of describing the article and has some nice pull-quotes, so I’ll avoid echoing here. Of course, you should read the whole article itself, but one snippet at the end where he describes the significance of Portland’s Bike Boulevards seems an important point, so I’ll excerpt it again here:
“But perhaps most importantly, they’ve marked a major shift from meeting needs of expert and intermediate cyclists. The focus, instead, is on making cycling welcoming for everyone — kids, families and novices included.”
We “expert and intermediate” cyclists in the industry can tend to forget the needs of the masses of non-riders (the 161 million, as I’ve often heard quoted as their number) that we are trying to encourage to leave their cars in the garage. It may be tough to paceline in a bike way or path, but that’s not really the point, is it?
Have fun at the Summit – and go do some good!
Feb
27
OutDoor Demo East Blast From the Past
Filed Under Industry News, Interbike, OutDoor Demo East | Comments Off
So here’s something interesting: Poking around the Bike Europe (the Euro bike trade magazine) website, we found this news piece from back in 2000 announcing the postponement of the Interbike Open Air Trade Fair following its first year. As you are probably aware, we’ve announced the first OutDoor Demo East event for this coming October in Providence, RI. The way Lance is quoted in the article, it’s almost as if ODDE is the “refined and re-tooled” OATF he’s talking about.
Lance describes the OATF as a great event that was a bit before its time. From the strong response we’ve gotten from the industry and East Coast retailers so far, the inaugural ODD East should be a great event.
Interbike Postpones East Coast Open Air Trade Fair for 2000
LAGUNA BEACH, CA/USA (9 March 2000)–Interbike officials have postponed the Open Air Trade Fair, citing timing and market conditions as key factors in the decision. Unveiled last September, the Fair provided, according to Interbike, a business oriented hands-on riding experience in an outdoor festival setting. The event drew more than 1,300 retailers representing nearly 600 retail stores to the two-day event in Vernon, New Jersey. “The Open Air Trade Fair was a great event, but its value wasn’t realized by all the attendees,” said Lance Camisasca, Interbike
Show Director. “The postponement gives us an opportunity to discuss future possibilities on a more intimate basis with Eastern retailers as well as with show exhibitors.” Despite the postponement, the Interbike staff will reach out to Eastern retailers by sponsoring a retailer-only
day at the start of the 6th Annual Pedro’s Mountain Bike Festival, held in Lanesboro, Mass., from 17 to 20 August. The retailer-only day is slated for Thursday, Aug. 17, 2000. “We’re very excited to initiate some conversations with East Coast retailers at the Pedro’s Fest, but we’re also eager to refine and retool the Open Air Trade Fair for the future, if the industry feels it is needed,” said Camisasca. (JW)
Published @ 09-03-2000
We’ll be back…
Feb
25
Let Alberto Ride
Filed Under Attendee News, Deep Thoughts, Racing, humor | 3 Comments
Was up at the Tour of California on Saturday and noticed t-shirts with “Let Levi Ride” on them for the first time. Also saw them on display at my local bike shop on Sunday. Now, all issues of right or wrong, guilt or innocence aside, I love BikeSnobNYC’s observation (as always, tongue in cheek) that the Let Levi Ride campaign ought actually be for Levi’s teammate, Alberto Contador – the guy that actually won the Tour de France. I’ve got nothing against the guy, but why focus on the third place finisher, right?
If an online petition can actually have an effect on the ASO’s decision, isn’t the real injustice leaving the winner out?
(If you’ve never checked out the BikeSnob blog before, it’s definitely worth a visit. And with upwards of 100(!) comments to each of his almost daily posts, I’m not the only one who feels that way. Bring your sense of humor.)
Feb
20
Duke’s Cycle of Toronto Fire
Filed Under Attendee News, Industry News | Comments Off
Just heard the unfortunate news from someone on the rec.bicycles.tech newsgroup that Duke’s Cycle of Toronto was one of several businesses whose buildings were left gutted by a large fire that broke out early this morning. This is truly a great loss for the Toronto cyclists as Duke’s was a fixture in the community since 1914 under the same family ownership. I believe they were recently listed in Bicycle Retailer as one of the oldest bike shops in North America.
Duke’s was – and hopefully will return as – a premier bicycle shop. They are good people and I fondly remember dealing with them when I worked for a previous employer of mine. I missed an opportunity to visit the shop the last time I was in Toronto for business a few years ago.
Duke’s bike lines include Cannondale, Cervelo, Trek, Specialized and Kona.
I’m sure there will be some difficult times ahead for the owners and employees of Duke’s and we wish them nothing but the best at this challenging moment for this member of the industry family.
Feb
14
“What Word in ‘Bike Lane’ Don’t Drivers Understand?”
Front cover of the Outdoors section of the Orange County (California) Register this morning is this article by columnist David Whiting. My boss, Jim, saw it this morning and brought it in since I don’t live in the OC. But I sure do work here. And ride my bike here.
While the subject is unfortunate, the fact that article takes the cyclists’ point of view is refreshing. You can read the entire article in the link, but a few nice features of the story include:
- The black text box quotes from the California Vehicle Code on bike lanes. It clearly removes any doubt as to the legality of driving in a bike lane from this discussion.
- The ’sub-headline’ reads: “Vehicles illegally in bike lanes kill, maim, and terrify cyclists.”
- The OCR allows comments to its articles posted online so be sure to weigh in on the subject.
Got to run to a meeting now so I can’t expound more, but wanted to get this out.
Feb
11
Sheldon Obituary in the Boston Globe
Filed Under Attendee News, Industry News | 1 Comment
Ross Kerber, a journalist for the Boston Globe and fellow cyclist, wrote a nice obituary for Sheldon Brown that ran on Friday the 8th. I provides a good brief biography of the man and has a some fun tid-bits from Sheldon such as the one where he claimed that “Maoists” had purged him from the The Bicycle Repair Collective in Cambridge that he co-founded back in the 70’s.
It’s definitely worth the read and it is very satisfying that a big city paper like the Globe would dedicate the space to this “spine of the industry,” as Richard Fries is quoted as calling him in the piece. A lot of credit goes to Ross for this. I had the pleasure of riding the Tour of Lake Mead with him and a few others at the ‘07 Interbike and he truly is a friend of the industry and just as much of a bike nut as we are.
The article is titled “Homespun Wisdom.”
Feb
4
Sheldon Brown
Filed Under Attendee News, Industry News, Interbike | 9 Comments
Just heard the sad news that bike community treasure Sheldon Brown passed away last night. He will be missed by scores of bikers, but he leaves quite a legacy behind online that will continue to inform and entertain cyclists everywhere.
Sheldon and me at Interbike 2007 after his interview.
I had the pleasure of meeting Sheldon at the 2007 Interbike for the first time. I had spoken to him before on the phone a few times over the years when I had a technical bike question and he was always very nice. Opinionated, to be sure, but nice. We both had a connection to Harris Cyclery: he famously worked there and they were my local bike shop and sponsored the team that I began bike racing with back in the early 90’s.
Leading up to Interbike 2007, one of my many responsibilities was lining up guests for our “Good Morning Interbike” show filmed in the Media Center and broadcast live over at the main Interbike website. GMI was fashioned after your typical morning news/talk show and had some recaps/previews of Interbike events and happenings and interviews with interesting industry folks.
I came up with the idea to have Sheldon on when I was doing some shop visits in the Boston area last Summer after Pedro’s Fest. Since I hadn’t been back to Harris since the mid-90’s, I made a point of stopping by. Sheldon would make the perfect guest, I thought to myself. He’s interesting, opinionated, loved by thousands of cyclists, and not too many people had had a chance to meet the man or hear him talk. An interview would be a great opportunity for people to get to know what the man himself – the man behind Sheldonbrown.com – was like.
The interview was great. Richard Fries, the host of GMI, knew Sheldon well, being a fellow New Englander, and had some fun with him. Richard had come up with the idea of playing a game with the last guest each morning called “Dead or Alive” where he would throw out ten bike-related topics and ask them to rate them dead or alive. Stuff like fixed-gear bikes, 29″ mountain bikes, road bikes, pro road racing, etc. As you can imagine, Sheldon was quick to opine on each. The photo below was his reaction to one such topic that he felt especially passionate about.
“3-speed internal hubs? Alive!!”
So where’s the video of this great segment, you ask? Well, I’m embarrassed to say that we had some challenges with some of the footage we shot at IB including, unfortunately, the GMI segment with Sheldon. Other priorities came up in the meantime, and getting it finished got pushed down the to-do list. Of course, now I will try to get that piece finished and get it posted as soon as possible. Stay tuned.. I’ll post when it’s ready. (To see the Day 2 episode of GMI which includes a Dead or Alive segment with with Sky Yeager and Tim Parr of Swobo, click here.)
Our thoughts here at Interbike go out to Sheldon and his family today. Thanks for sharing him with the rest of us!
Feb
1
National Bike Summit – Be There!
Filed Under Advocacy, Cycling, Industry News, Interbike | Comments Off
Mark your calendars, this is the big one: the National Bike Summit in Washington, DC, March 4-6, 2008.
The League of American Bicyclists organizes this amazing bicycle advocacy event that seeks to “present a comprehensive, actionable, national bicycling agenda to Congress.” On a personal level, it’s also an awesome civics lesson as you roam the halls of Congress and meet with your elected officials and their staffers and learn the finer points of lobbying and the legislative process through workshops and speaker sessions.
According to the NBS website:
The National Bike Summit provides us with a unique opportunity to inform our members of Congress of the importance of bicycling, and to educate them on specific bicycling issues.
They need delegates from each and every congressional district in the United States at the National Bike Summit this year.
Interbike strongly believes in this event and we are sponsoring it again this year. We also encourage all members of the bike industry on both the manufacturer and retailer side of the business to attend this important gathering in Washington.
Feb
1
Vacuums, Zipper Hospitals and Bike Shops
Filed Under Deep Thoughts, Interbike | 1 Comment
I broke our fifteen-year-old vacuum cleaner’s carpet cleaning attachment over the holidays when I tried to repack the bearings on the roller brush with fresh bike grease (my favorite lime green Shimano Dura-Ace grease, by the way). As a bike geek, I was pleasantly surprised when I discovered that the vacuum’s roller brush spun on tiny cartridge bearings. “Hey, I’ll just clean them out and inject some fresh grease in them!” They were pretty much were shot, though, and as I tried to clean them out, one of them just felt apart and there was no way it was going to go back together.
As is now the norm, my first reaction was to Google “Eureka vacuum spare parts” to see if I could just order up some new bearings or something online. No such luck since our vac is a bit old for the online sellers. I knew there was a vacuum store in the next town over so I brought the attachment over to my LVS (local vacuum shop) to see if there was any hope for it.
Where am I going with this story? Well, it dawned on me as I was being helped by the man at the vacuum store that I was taking part in an increasingly rare activity: having something repaired rather than throwing it out and buying a new one. It also occurred to me that bikes and bike shops continue to part of this great legacy of non-disposable machines and their service centers.
What got me thinking this way was the way the gentleman at the store looked. He must have been in his seventies with white hair and a cardigan sweater and he walked a bit slow. He also had on one of those Navy baseball hats with “U.S.S. Midway” embroidered on it in gold. He wore it as if it meant something to him – as if he had served on it much earlier in his life but remembered it as if it were yesterday. Standing there telling him my name and phone number and describing the problem I was having with my vacuum, I found myself wondering whether there would there be anyone to take over and continue the vacuum cleaner repair shop when this man decided to finally retire.
I can’t imagine that the shop would continue. When was the last time you saw an appliance or electronics repair shop? Or even a shoe repair shop? We used to be able to take our VCR down to the local electronics repairman to get it back up and running if it stopped working back when I was a kid. I remember I had a nice Patagonia jacket back in college that I kept breaking the zipper on. I used to hang it behind my dorm room’s door, and every now an then, someone would throw open the door, and the zipper would get crushed against the wall. Luckily, just down the street from school there was a “zipper hospital.” It was mainly a tailor shop, but they had a sign out front that looked like an emergency room sign with the red cross and text on a white background. I could bring in my jacket and 5 minutes and a few bucks later the zipper would be as good as new
Regardless of whether you have a repair shop close by, I understand the realities of modern technology and the fact that it’s usually much less expensive to buy a new iPod or blender than it is to have it repaired. There is something very satisfying, though, about avoiding sending something else to the landfill, or as is often the case, having it sit in a drawer unusable, by having it fixed.
Now, while you could argue that bikes today are slightly less repairable, to a degree, than in the past with all the cartridge-style bearings and parts like bottom brackets, I think it’s great that they are still easily serviced, maintained and repaired by any one of several thousand great local bike shops around the country or by its mechanically-inclined owner. I think that this is a great legacy to keep alive and one that we should be proud of as an industry.
The man at the store called me up two days later saying that the vacuum was ready to be picked up. He had replaced the roller brush and checked out the motor, too. He also noticed that the drive belt was old and replaced it. Since the belts come in two-packs, he gave me the second one to keep as a spare. $30 in parts and labor. What a bargain. I hope he’s still around the next time the Eureka needs some work, but I’m not holding my breath.
Just a thought that occurred to me this week…