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Here’s a brief video we filmed back at Sea Otter earlier this year with Interbike show director, Andy Tompkins, and New England race promoter and announcer extraordinaire, Richard Fries. As we’ve announced, our OutDoor Demo East event in Providence, Rhode Island, will have two days open to the general public (Oct 10 & 11) following the trade-only days (Oct 8 & 9). We’re partnering with Richard’s company, GSD Promotions, to hold the public expo in conjuction with their Providence Cyclocross Festival. Lots of bike gear and cross racing – what could be better?

Public day registration isn’t open just yet, but if you’re a retailer, you can go ahead and register to attend here. Retailer badges allow access to all four days of the event – both trade-only and public. Find info about OutDoor Demo East here at the main Interbike website.

While at the recent Sea Otter Classic event in Monterey, CA, I was really pleased to be able to run into Maurice Tierney, publisher of the new Bicycle Times magazine and the venerable Dirt Rag, in the media center. He was kind enough to step outside into the unseasonably sunny Monterey weather for a quick interview.

The inaugural issue of BT had just been published and I was very excited to finally lay eyes on it since it further extends the reach of urban and transportation cycling in the media. I’ve really enjoyed the passion for cycling and the personality that the Dirt Rag team has always put into that magazine and have great expectations for what they can do with BT. Best of luck, guys!

TALES FROM SEA OTTER 2009 – Bicycle Times from CYCLEFILM on Vimeo.

Funny story about this video. So I start interviewing Maurice and notice that he’s got a clear plastic disposable fork sticking out of the right side of his cap. Now as a straight-laced native New Englander, who am I to question Maurice on his sense of style? Maybe all the cool kids are sporting plastic fork head gear these days. So I say nothing and continue the interview. After we’re done and just chatting a bit, he leans his head over and out falls the fork with a plunk on the concrete. He says, “Hey, was this fork sicking out of my hat the whole time?” Turns out he was camping out while at SOC and had just left his camping fork in his cap by accident. So don’t go getting any strange ideas about Maurice from his, um, accessorizing.

Bicycle Times on the web: www.bicycletimesmag.com
Follow Bicycle Times on Twitter: @bicycletimes
Video produced by Cyclefilm

At the Bicycle Leadership Conference that took place in Monterey, California, just before Sea Otter this year, I gave a presentation to the attendees on the topic of social media marketing. It was an interesting opportunity given the make up of the audience at the BLC: primarily the executive leadership of all the major brands in the bike industry. That’s an interesting group to speak to on the topic because at most other seminars, talks and panel sessions on the subject, the audience is typically made up of people in marketing that already “get it” about SM for the most part. What many of these marketing professionals and SM evangelists are looking for are tools to use when trying to explain the value of SM to upper management at their companies – exactly who I would be speaking directly to.

In framing the “why” of SM to executives, I believe that it’s imperative to address the value proposition that SM can bring to their companies. What is it that CEO’s and presidents need to hear to be convinced? It’s not just the fact that conversations are happening online (yawn…) – it’s how engaging these people through SM can add value to their companies and empower and excite employees and customers. I hope that we – I asked Chris Matthews of Specialized’s marketing department to co-present with me – were able to do that. (I’m still planning a full post on this as soon as I can finish writing it up.)

With that said, one of the examples we gave in our presentation (along with the photo above from fisherbikes.com) when describing the importance of *authenticity* and *personality* when engaging in social media, was Mr. Gary Fisher. If you’re at all familiar with the bike industry, you know what we mean about Gary. I was really hoping to run into Gary in the expo area of Sea Otter to ask him a few questions about his use of SM since he’s become a very active – and interesting – user of Twitter over the last few months. As you can see below, I did and was able to get some great insight into his use of the tool and what it means to his mom, of all people. Again, with the great video skills of Markus from Cyclefilm.

TALES FROM SEA OTTER 2009 – Gary Fisher from CYCLEFILM on Vimeo.

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You meet all kinds of people walking the aisles at the Sea Otter Classic. One of the good ones I ran into – literally, into the arms of a big hug from her – was Mia Kohout, publisher of Momentum Magazine. Mia was visiting Sea Otter for the first time with her coworker Laura Brennan and the two of them were enlightening the racing masses about the self-propelled lifestyle. On the way (through San Jose) to Monterey, they managed to entice Gary Fisher to share a campsite with them at Laguna Seca, and the three were seemingly inseparable the whole event. Read Laura’s take on the event here.

If you’ve been living under a rock, Momentum is the “Magazine for self-propelled people.” They celebrate urban, transportation and utility cycling and generally promote a fun and practical cycling lifestyle. Partnering with Momentum, we were able to put on the awesome Urban Legend Fashion and Art Show at last year’s Interbike.

Since we happened to be standing next to a pair of purple comfortable and stylishly fuzzy chairs in the Cannondale team tent, I thought this was a perfect spot to capture Mia and Laura’s thoughts on the magazine, Sea Otter and whatever cycling thoughts were passing through their minds at the time. Good stuff. Enjoy and read the magazine.

TALES FROM SEA OTTER 2009 – Momentum from CYCLEFILM on Vimeo.

For the first time ever, the annual Bicycle Leadership Conference was held in Monterey, California, from April 15-17 to coincide with another big industry gathering, the Sea Otter Classic. Typically, the BLC has been held in February in warm weather locales such as San Diego or Phoenix with the goal of getting people out of their businesses so that they can work on them, sharing notes with their peers in the industry on topics of mutual importance and finding better ways of working together. Monterey cooperated by playing the part of warm weather locale very nicely this year. Attendees also played nicely with a great spirit of openness.

The BLC is run by the BPSA (Bicycle Products Suppliers Association) and as such is primarily focused on supplier-related issues. In the past, it has varied in format and has been more equally weighted between supplier and retailer topics. Regardless, retailers are still welcome at the event and are encouraged to attend. It’s a great conference with a true “who’s who” of the bicycle industry present.

As you’ll see in our highlight video below, that was produced by Markus Neuert of Cyclefilm for us, this year’s event was notable for the refreshing openness among the attendees in sharing information about their businesses – especially given the economic climate we’re all operating under. Attendance is primarily executives from all of the major bike, component and accessory manufacturers and, understandably, some have been hesitant to share sales figures in the past while the president of their major competitor was sitting in the third row listening. What did we learn as a result of this openness? Well, I learned that despite the serious drop-off in sales in the last quarter following the economic drop-off that occurred a few weeks after the last Interbike, things aren’t all gloom and doom. Most retailers seem to be holding there own and still benefiting from the continued popularity of hybrid and pavement bike categories and labor in maintaining older bikes – a great indicator of the sustainability of the transportation and utility bike segments that were strengthened by the high gas prices of last year. With that said, there may be a looming factory inventory level issue ready to rear its head later this year depending on how sales go this Spring and Summer. Chris Speyer, of Raleigh, used a great analogy in describing the challenges that inventory can be during his industry statistics presentation (paraphrased): “Inventory is like fish: great when it’s fresh, but starts to stink if you don’t use it quickly.”

BICYCLE LEADERSHIP CONFERENCE 2009 from CYCLEFILM & Interbike on Vimeo.

Notes: John Nedeau is VP of Global Sales for SRAM in addition to being head of the BPSA as he is listed in the video, and Al Budris was the conference director for the 2009 BLC.

Just back from the Sea Otter Classic. If you’ve ever been but missed it this year, you really missed some unbelievable Monterey weather – absolutely gorgeous. Felt a little like we were at Bootleg Canyon in September.

I was up there for two reasons, one was to attend and present at the annual Bicycle Leadership Conference on the topic of social media marketing. I’ll be posting about that soon. The other reason was to meet with members of the industry to see how things are going and to try to capture some interesting video interviews with my new good friend, videographer/producer Markus Neuert of Cyclefilm.

So in the first of many videos we’ll be posting up, here’s one that ties both reasons together as we checked in with Levi Leipheimer about his use of Twitter.

Follow us on Twitter:
Levi: @levi_leipheimer
Me: @interbike
Cyclefilm: @cyclefilm

Catching up here on a few videos that I shot at the Sea Otter Classic this April. I know I’ve said this before, but I gotta tell you, video takes a lot more time to edit than just writing a blog post. What makes it harder is when your art department (who own the MacBook Pro I do my video work on) took back their machine. My PC desktop just doesn’t cut it for anything other than Excel and Word and I was left high and dry until I was able to get the Mac back yesterday and start plugging away at the remaining clips I filmed. 

The first one up is an interview with Mark Ritz of Kinetic Koffee. Actually, it’s more of a demo of his latest offering, the AeroPress traveling coffee maker. I was doubtful that you could make a better cup of coffee than what I had already tasted using KK’s beans, but Mark showed me otherwise. And you can take your Kinetic Koffee with you now when you travel!

Mark is a great guy, a passionate cyclist (20 bikes in the garage you said?) and roasts a mean bag of coffee beans. Remember, caffeine is a cyclist’s best friend…

Update: Mark just emailed to tell me that I used the wrong url in the end credits for this video. To visit their website, go to www.kinetic-koffee.com (note the dash). Sorry, Mark!

 

Ran into Guitar Ted of twentynineinches.com fame at a press event at Sea Otter and thought I’d tap his passion for 29′ers for IBTimes. Here he is with a brief roundup of the latest and greatest in big wheels. 

 

Ge t more of Ted at:

www.twentynineinches.com

www.g-tedproductions.blogspot.com

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

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.

• About Interbike Times

  InterbikeTimes is the official blog of the Interbike International Bicycle Expo - the largest annual tradeshow and gathering of the bike industry in North America.
  
  2012 Dates:
  OutDoor Demo: Sept 17-18
  Interbike Expo: Sept 19-21
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