Apr
2
SoCal high school gets velodrome & track racing program?
Filed Under Cycling, Industry News, Racing, humor | 1 Comment
How cool is this? Even in the midst of the economic crisis, a high school is investing in cycling. And not just a cycling program, but a whole velodrome!
Update: Too cool apparently. Even though I received the news in my inbox today when my hoax threat level was back down to green from yesterday’s red, I just noticed the release is dated April 1. Sorry. Shame since it would have made for a great record setting venue up in the mountains.
Read the press release below:
SOCAL HIGH SCHOOL GETS VELODROME AND TRACK RACING PROGRAM
Contact: Matt Fritzinger, fritz@socaldirt.org, (510) 653-2453, www.socaldirt.org
Cedar Glen, CA – Last night, with a 7-2 vote, the school board of Mountain Top High School approved the construction of the first ever high school velodrome and scholastic track program in America. The decision serves as a historic milestone in the main-streaming of competitive cycling in secondary schools across the state of California. While high school mountain biking has been picking up steam since 2001 with the formation of the NorCal High School Mountain Bike Racing League, track racing looks to be the next alternative for high schoolers eager for sports that suit their short attention spans.
“Mountain biking is an endurance sport and except for the occasional sprint finish, it favors athletes with slow-twitch muscles leaving young cyclists with the genetic gift of more fast-twitch muscles feeling devalued. I’m very pleased to see this new discipline brought into the schools,” commented Matt Fritzinger, director of the Northern California mountain biking program.
In what may draw some criticism, the velodrome will replace the astro-turf field and football program. MTHS’s Head football Coach, Don Boggs commented “I’m keeping an open mind here. After two losing seasons, I don’t get much say around here anyway. I’m also very impressed with the way cycling is addressing the problem of performance enhancing drugs.” Unlike professional football, which penalizes wealthy players with meager fines and has led to a vast abuse of steroids at the high school level, professional and amateur bike racers face 2-4 year bans from the sport.
School Superintendant, Jim Swift, said “I advocated for this as soon as I saw the cost-benefit analysis. A velodrome is going to cost $1.8 trillion whereas a stadium retrofit and new astroturf was going to cost us $1.9 trillion. That may seem like a small difference, but that’s actually $100 billion dollars. We can buy quite a few books and computers for that much money.”
Additionally, it appears that track racing will become a natural complement to the recently inaugurated Socal Interscholastic Cycling League that only includes mountain biking currently. Board president Quintin Easton commented, “I’m stoked -– we put the generic term ‘cycling’ in the League name because we planned to incorporate various disciplines into the League. This velodrome is a dream come true!”
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Mar
27
Courtesy of our friend Mike Geraci of Base Camp Communications is this video from Alex Bogusky of advertising agency titans Crispin, Porter + Bogusky. Good stuff. It’s short. Watch it.
Mar
31
GM Buys Specialized?
Filed Under Exhibitor News, humor | 2 Comments
Elaborate April Fools hoax with BikeBiz.com, the San Jose Business Journal and Specialized all in on it? See BikeBiz’s news flash on the historic announcement on the Northern California bike company here.
The dead giveaway is the quote from supposed GM VP, “Flora Lopi” – an anagram of the words April fool.
Carlton at BikeBiz sent his news flash out just after midnight in the UK, so he’s safe, but what about the SJBJ sending there’s out on the 31st? Did they jump the gun or did they fall for it (like I was for a bit I’ll admit)?
If it were true, that would be quite the little family of brands: GMC, Buick, Pontiac, Hummer, Specialized…
At least we got an Interbike mention circulating out there.
Update: Looks like the hoax is more elaborate: the url given for the SJBC is fake. A certain bike blogger has been pretty sneaky. Nice job…
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.)