Home Finally

As I spent most of yesterday stuck in the gleaming jewel of our civilization known as Newark, I had some time to reflect on the happenings of this last weekend at Frostbike. A whirlwind trip for sure, I was very flattered to have been invitied to this dealer only event. I took in some very valuable info at the seminars, saw some cool new products, but most importantly, got to put some faces to names.

The most anticipated meeting was with Guitar Ted. After many years of lurking on each other's blogs, and several failed attempts to connect at Interbike, we finally meet. I had a great time catching up with you man! After our conversations, it looks like we may see each other again this year, with bikes even.

I had dinner with Brent from Twin Six with Tim Grahl and Arleigh from Crooked Cog at a cool little Minneapolis neighborhood restraunt called Chatterbox. I felt right at home there, good food, good vibes, and a Scooby Doo mural on the bathroom wall.

I also spent some time catching up with Jason from Salsa as well. Despite missing Jason's presentation, I know there are some cool things ahead...

My return flight was later inthe day on Sunday, but stormy clouds were in the forcast for the north east. I tried to get out of dodge early, only to be thwarted in New Jersey. You'd think with the amount of time I've had robbed from my life from that place, I'd know better, but I always have that hope that things will work out. Well, they didn't. I did get home though, for which I am very greatful. Big thanks to Aaron for the opportunity to sneak in to the President's Club. They have beer and TV in there!

More news on the horizon from Bike 29 shortly...

Fly on the Wall

How fun it is...
I'm in the beautiful but chilly Twin Cities region, attending Frostbike.
Thrown by QBP, or the "Q" as they are sometimes known, Frostbike is a dealer only event, filled with vendors, seminars and the opportunity to meet some pretty cool folks. A junkett if you will.

I will admit, that while the hardware end of things is always cool (I love new stuff), it's the people that really make the difference. I met my new inside person at the Q. I met a couple of other dealers and had cool conversations about 29ers and the like.
I spoke with the infamous Guitar Ted for the first time over the phone. After two years, we may actually get to meet. He'll be here sometime today.

I also overheard some shop guys ratcheting on about stuff at the bar. These were the the kind of guys that "know more than anyone else" about everything to do with bikes, and look down upon stuff or customers that fail to measure up. It's always amusing to me that guys like this are able to make a living.

Also amusing to me, was the mentality of some of the shop owners. There is no question that we are in for some tough times, and it is going to be a tough slog for some. Most of the seminars I've attended were geared for ways to prepare for this sort of thing, and boy oh boy, did I learn some stuff. I'm not calling out any shops in particular, but it's the small, more adaptable businesses that are going to come out shining from this crunch. It's the way of things. It's why there aren't any dinosaurs anymore.

Also very funny, is the impression I get from a large Burlington shop that seems irked by my presence at this event. Yeah, I'm here too! Suckers...

Tonight, I'll be having some cocktails with the Salsa crew, and then rolling out of the hotel to visit with Twin Six for a while.

Holy Crap!

Boy did we ever manage to squeeze a lot into 2 1/2 days.

Friday afternoon, I headed up to Newport VT to check out the "ice crit" portion of the Jay Winter Challenge. Newport, is practically on the other end of the universe from us. I started my day in Burlington, and drove 2 hours in the afternoon to reach the crit in time. I'll have a detailed post on the event in the next day or so, there is simply too much to talk about in one post! I spent Saturday morning at the big race.


And speaking of events, we had our first annual Big 2.9 sale this weekend. We did a lot of work on the front end of this, as we knew we wouldn't be able to physically manage the sale, as we were double booked. Luckily, everything went smoothly. The website did what it was supposed to do, and we'll just say that I'll be busy over the next couple of days shipping everything out.
Having only a few free hours this morning, it was spent on the mountian, where an overcast morning turned into a serious blow down storm. In our last 2 runs, our tracks were quickly being covered up by the pounding snow. I estimate that it was coming down about 2" an hour, maybe more.


At the end of this week, I head to Minneapolis for Frostbike. It's a trade show put on by Quality Bicycle Products (QBP, or The Q as it may be known to shop folks). It's a distributor that pretty much has it all, and every year, they have their own mini trade show. I hope to actually meet up with the infamous Guitar Ted this time around! I'm also hoping to spend some time with our friends at Twin Six.

Well, back to the grind for me...