Cruiser Season!

One of my absolute favorite bikes that Trek makes is the one that a lot of people don't talk about. It's got 0 grams of carbon fiber. It's wind tunnel numbers are absolutely horrible. It's the aboslute most fun you can have on two wheels. Our cruiser line represents everything that i love about summer. When you live in Wisco, trust me, you earn your summer. When the mercury starts to creep on up to above 55 on a consistant basis, you know it's time to break out the bermudas and Ray Bans. Lemonade. Fresh cut grass. Dippin' low and slow. Sandals. Can I preach on sandals for a second? Most versatile footwear available. I'm like the Carrie Bradshaw of sandals. I've got formal flips and casual flops. That's why I was stoked to see the Trek Calypso (Women's Ecru Pearl) grace the most recent Havaiana's ad in this month's Vogue. Get yourself a pair of Havaianas. They will make you smile. If you don't believe me, take our Cruiser Classic for a spin in your new kicks. If you're still not smiling, well, there's not much else I can do for you.

Yeah, I read Vogue and know who Carrie Bradshaw is. Deal with it.

Bike Lane Blog's favorite summer songs:
"Summertime" - Will Smith
"Vivrant Thing" - Q Tip
"Jeremiah Was A Bullfrog - Three Dog Night (Thanks Scoop!)
"Steal My Sunshine" - LEN
"Hold on! I'm Comin'" - Sam and Dave
"SpottieOttieDopaliscious" - Outkast
"In The Summertime" - Mungo Jerry
"Good Life" - Kanye West

Got a favorite summer song that you want included in the mix? Holla at the comments section. I'm working on my Summer 09 playlist right now and my ipod needs your help!

Hot or Not?

Do you ride our bikes? Want to tell us how great you think our products are? Great, we'd love to hear what a great job we're doing too. We've got a spot for you to let us know how much you enjoy the stuff we make. Bear with me for a quick plug for one of our coolest and most under-utilized web features.

If you'd like to speak up and let people know about your experience, what you're doing with the bike, or any tips for tricking out your ride, hit up our reviews section on each bike page. You can even upload pictures and video! Seriously, who else gives you such a voice? Just go to whatever bike page you'd like to preach about and click the word "Reviews" below the bike picture. Click the words "Write your own review" and you open the line to let us know anything you want to speak up about our product. And believe me, we read these and not just the interns.

It's all about offering you, the consumer, the industry's most robust interactive experience. Or at least that's what Casey, our web marketing guy, tells me.

Bonty Bamboozle

  

Recipe for a great practical joke:
1. A Willing Audience
- Often referred to as "The Mark". The target has to be willing to listen to your message and willing to believe what you tell them. News about Lance in the bike industry is like Grey's Anatomy to middle-aged housewives. They crave it like oxygen.
2. Realism
- The farce has to have some meat on the bones that make you stop and think about whether it could be real or not.
3. The Pay Off
- The overall premise has to be ridiculous. The Onion has made its entire living on this fact.

All these ingredients went into Bontrager's April Fools joke. We fancy ourselves quality pranksters here in the Loo and when late March rolls around the wheels start to turn. Beef bouillon cubes placed under the shower caps in the womens bathroom was one idea but that seemed.....smelly. Then Lance falls off his bike and presents us with the perfect opportunity to tie-in Bontrager inForm technology.

Industrial Designer, Hans, was tasked with creating the replacement clavicle and went right to work. After a little research on the design of the clavicle bone and a little measuring tape action, he was ready to prototype. Some may argue that using our super-expensive prototyping machine to produce a fake bone for practical joking purposes is a misuse of resources but I'd argue that when you're about to get somebody good, no expense can be spared. Especially when that "somebody" is the "world".
After the bone was finished it was time to shoot it in a believable setting so we hit the carbon room with some rubber gloves in on our on-site factory to get the shot. After borrowing an x-ray of a broken right clavicle from the world-wide interweb we hit up the Photoshopping skills of our photo studio to take the giggle fest to the next level. The "implant" was added to the x-ray and a carbon weave was added to the picture of the actual piece. For the finishing touch, our copywriter put some words to paper with some "credible" sources lending quotations and we were ready to roll.

Consider yourself bamboozled! Big props to all of the Trek peeps who brought this together. If anybody asks, this was all done on personal time.