May
8
If you are a bicycle industry retailer, registration for Interbike 2008 is now open! Follow the link in the right hand column (attendees) or right here to register. (Exhibitor and media reg coming soon)
Remember, Interbike is still a trade-only event and is not open to the public. Sorry guys…
And don’t forget about your hotel and travel needs. There are still rooms available at special Interbike attendee rates here.
Blatant sales pitch over…
Apr
23
Guess the Gas Price…
Filed Under Deep Thoughts, Interbike | 3 Comments
If you guessed “obscene”, you win! (I know, Carlton, it’s still a pittance compared to UK and Euro prices…) And we’re all riding our bikes to work and store so it should be irrelevant, right?
The station around the corner from our office in San Juan Capistrano, California, had these prices posted this week as I walked to lunch. We’re well on our way to $5/gallon and there still seems to be no major shift in driving habits. Minor adjustments and more hybrid car sales, yes. But no major impacts that I can see on true alternatives to car use at this point.
Speaking of shifts in driving habits, at Sea Otter I overheard someone commenting on how places with poor weather seem to have more utilitarian bike use than those places with more agreeable weather. Think Portland, Seattle, New York, Boston… Now think L.A., Miami, Phoenix. Which ones come to mind when you think “city with lots of bike commuters”?
Apr
22
Sea Otter Video - Trek’s Women Who Ride Club
Filed Under Advocacy, Blogging, Exhibitor News, Interbike, Video | Leave a Comment
More video from Sea Otter. This time I had the pleasure of sitting with Krista Rettig of Trek Bicycles. Krista is the brand manager for their women’s division and Sea Otter was her first duty back on the job following maternity leave. The tent we were sitting under was for their new “Women Who Ride” club program that they were launching in a few days time. From the jackets we’re wearing, you can see that the weather was turning a bit more Sea Otter-like on day two. Day three would bring a high of 52F.
The new club is designed to encourage women to overcome real or perceived challenges to riding by being a part of an online community of fellow women cyclists. Members can share stories and successes and follow the blogs of 5 women selected from a writing contest to describe their journeys in cycling.
Programs to encourage greater women’s participation in cycling are important to me not only as the father of a girl, but as the husband of a Cat 2 racer (semi-retired) who credits a women-only, season-long race series as getting her started in racing. If it weren’t for her racing, we never would have met on that Tuesday night training ride.
Along with their “One World, Two Wheels” advocacy program (which I called “Two Wheels, One Planet” in the interview), this new effort shows Trek’s continuing commitment to getting more people riding.
You can read more about the club here: www.trekbikes.com/women
Apr
21
Sea Otter Video - Tim Blumenthal of Bikes Belong
Filed Under Advocacy, Deep Thoughts, Interbike, Video | 1 Comment
In light of my recent introduction into local bicycle advocacy, I thought I’d go to the source for some expert advice. As I mention in my intro in the video, I have some experience with some pretty big advocacy efforts like the National Bike Summit, but when it came to actually effecting some advocacy close to home, I really had no idea where to start. I guess the nitty gritty of the work had been left to the professionals at the League of American Bicyclists, Bikes Belong or IMBA, to name a few, in the advocacy that I had been a part of.
Tim Blumenthal, executive director of Bikes Belong, kindly accepted my request for an interview during his busy schedule at the Sea Otter Classic when I called him a few days prior to the event. Tim is always a pleasure to speak with and I’ve been lucky to be able to spend time with him at the last two Sea Otter events now. He’s a great advocate and representative for the industry. And he tells a great story.
The theme of this interview is advice for cyclists wanting to effect bicycle advocacy on a local level. Good stuff.
Technical note: I need to figure out how to turn my left channel only sound (from my mono microphone plugged into the stereo input on the camera) into left and right mono. Not so bad through speakers, but very noticeable with headphones. Maybe I just need to invest in some better video editing software.
Mar
4
SRAM: “We Are Porsche” in Business Week
Filed Under Exhibitor News, Gear, Industry News, Interbike | 5 Comments
In another of my non-original posts here, I’m going to reference and plug another’s work again here in scooping this story. This article is right up our alley here at Interbike since it’s a great bike industry B2B story that is playing in the national non-endemic media. If there’s any way we can help promote or facilitate more of that for our industry members, we’re all over it. This is a little late - I was hoping to get this out last Friday when I first heard about it, but well, sometimes life just gets in the way of blogging. Still worth mentioning, though, in case our little site reaches some corner of the world that Bike Biz UK’s does not…
The article that appears on Business Week’s website is titled: “SRAM - A Bike Parts Tour de Force.” Stan Day, the co-founder of SRAM along with his brother and a friend, is the focus of the piece. Obviously written from a non-endemic point of view, there is still plenty of interesting background information about the company (I finally know where the name SRAM came from).
Not to call anyone out here, but there is an intriguing quote from a product manager at one of the major bike manufacturers about SRAM’s place in the OEM market:
“They are not really credible yet.”
While I understand that, from a sales standpoint, Shimano still dwarfs them, I don’t see how SRAM could not be considered a credible player at this point. Now I’m just a marketing guy and have no experience wearing a product manager’s shoes, but I’ve seen plenty of great brands spec’d by people I know and have great respect for with SRAM OEM componentry. [Shimano: I still love my Dura Ace pedals and shoes 
] Plus, they’ve got a beer vending machine in the office! Instant cred right there.
By the way, we’re big fans of BikeBiz UK here. Carlton Reid - a great friend of the industry, and burgeoning internet cycling media mogul - got wind of this Business Week article about SRAM’s emergence as a player in the bicycle components game. Definitely worth the read. Check it out here.
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 | Leave a Comment
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
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 | Leave a Comment
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…