Off The Rack!

Readers of "The Lane" know that this blog fully supports America's Hip-Hop efforts. Ever since the puzzled looks my parents gave me when I bought my first LL Cool J album have I stood up for Hippity-Hop culture. Listening to rap music while growing up in Wisconsin is not as weird as it sounds. Problem is with the music becoming so pervasive in American society, there is a whole lot more garbage to sift through. Way too many open mic nights, karaoke bars, and reality television have given people the impression that anybody can pick up the mic and throw down. This is, unfortunately, not true. However, some people are given the gift of gab and can spit it about any random topic. Like bike racks on the front of buses.

This video is courtey of Louisville's (I have the Cardinals losing to Memphis in the Final 4) Transit Authority (TARC). I gotta hand it to the 'Ville. The hook is catchy and the rhyming and production quality are pretty decent. Louisville is actually becoming one of the more bike friendly cities in the US. Stay tuned for more on that later.

"Bring it down, pull the bar, put it on..." That'll be rolling around the melon for a few days.

Favorite parts: The handlebar dance at :16 and the Lil' Jon-esque background chant, "Use a bike rack, YEAH!" at :14.

Guard Your Grill!

Despite what you may believe or somebody may have told you, helmets are not for dorks. They save lives and not just Storm Trooper lives, real lives. The war on helmets has been waged since their inception and is really just a war on common sense. Why wouldn't you wear a helmet? Maybe you don't know how important that which your skull is protecting. I'll lay it out for you, your brain controls literally everything that you do. If it's damaged, you're in trouble. Last semester my fiancee scored an A in Neuroanatomy that can be totally attributed to the flash cards I helped make, so yeah, I totally know what I'm talking about.

Peep this letter that our consumer inbox received today. This is an unsolicited letter from a Trek consumer and, unlike the rest of this blog, you do need to read this:

"Yesterday, as I was completing a 60 mile training ride in preparation for an MS fund raiser later this spring, I was hit from behind by a woman driver, traveling at an estimated speed of 35-35 MPH. The force of the collision decoupled me from my Speedplay pedals, and hurled me, headfirst into an 18" diameter tree. I remember, in the split second before impact, seeing the words "Fractured Skull," "Spinal Chord", and "Dead" flash through my mind. Then came the impact, which I was certain would kill or, at best, leave me crippled for life. The impact of my head crashing into the tree was extreme, bouncing me back a foot or so ... but I am here to write to you today because of the TREK helmet that I was wearing The helmet took the full brunt of my body, evidently absorbing and dissipating the energy from the collision, and was deeply destroyed. I, however, was not!! Thanks to your incredible product, I was able to "walk" away from what should have been a life-threatening or life-ending event with neither fractured skull nor brain damage nor spinal chord injury of any type .. only a fractured left wrist and several contusions and lacerations. I owe my life, quite literally, to the TREK helmet that I was wearing. What further testament can I offer than this, the greatest gift of all. From the bottom of heart and soul, thank you."

Helmets have been refined over the years and given a style and feel that can go with really any look you're trying to achieve. You're worried about your hair? Carry a comb. They weigh like, nothing. Don't  want to carry it? Strap it to your bag. Too heavy? The Trek Sonic weighs less than a full waterbottle. Worried about looking like a dork? Check the Trek Zone. It's fly and will guard your dome like Fort Knox.

Wear your helmet. Remember, nobody's ever looked into a casket and thought, "Man that guy looks cool."

A Christmas Story

The first thing I usually do after arriving at HQ in the mornings is to check the Google Media report for any mentions that Trek may have received in the worldwide news. It's typically a ritual of sifting through various police reports bearing mentions of somebody's Trek was stolen somewhere and that local authorities appreciate any information leading to its safe return knowing full well that maybe 1% of all stolen bikes are returned to their original owner. It's not that Trek doesn't care about its products being stolen, there's just not much we can do about it besides make a decent lock and encourage people to use it. That, coupled with the fact that stolen bikes are close to number 9,000 on a police department's already crowded priority list, it's no wonder that thousands of bikes year-round just evaporate into the ether. 

Today was different though. I turned on "the Google" and began to scroll through various articles regarding people's Treks as verbs instead of nouns and came across another sentence that read "...stolen his Trek bicycle..." and was just about to dismiss it as another of man's continuous wrongs against fellow being and then stopped. The sentences following featured words like "community", "outcry", and "banded together". Well, that kind of lead would at least warrant a few minutes of investigation so for the first time in a year or so, I clicked on a story about a stolen Trek.

Apparently, a boy from Salem, OR had his Trek 820 stolen from his family's garage. A tragedy as the young man had earned his bike through his school's reading program. After the story was reported there was an uproar among Salemites and donations from across the town poured into the boy's school and our local dealer, Scott's Cycle and Fitness. In fact, the town not only raised enough money to replace the bicycle but a fund has now been started to ensure that other children will be able to receive bikes as a reward for their reading. 

At this time of year, stories of charitable pursuit are not uncommon. There's something about the season that begs our attention to those who are in need. While I'm sure my next post will question why this is the only time of year that the music from the Peanuts cartoons sounds appropriate, I wanted to take the time to recognize the efforts of the people of Salem and say how deeply touching it is that they would take the time to recognize the importance of replacing something that might seem as trivial as a stolen bicycle.

Project M Chapter 6: Let's Roll

August 16th 1000 bikes built

Forecast: Mostly Sunny, High of 80^o

^{You didn't think I would take off for Thanksgiving without giving you the conclusion did you? That just wouldn't be right. I now humbly submit to you the final chapter of the Project M series.} 

^{I woke up this morning feeling good. That's not necessarily a good thing; I've felt great on mornings that turned into horrible days. Mornings are great for their simple ignorance as to the nature of the outcome of the events of the day. I knew that I wouldn't be able to truly gauge how the day was until I got to the Terrace and started moving the metal. After a bowl of Frosted Mini-Wheats (bite size because my fiancee won't let me buy the regulation size), a cup of coffee, and a couple "you can do this'" to my reflection in the bathroom mirror, it was go time.}

^{The good sign was that the parking lot I was using as a staging area was completely devoid of cars. I was sure that several Monona Terrace employees hated me for commandeering their spots but those eggs would have to go broken if this omelet was going to rock. The first truck rolled in right as scheduled and I thought to myself "I'm going to open this thing and it's going to be empty". Nope.  103 new Limes looked back at me as if to say "there's 897 left of us, if you want this to happen you better find some help." Help arrived in the form of several fellow blurry-eyed Trekkies who seemed as stunned as I was that this might actually go off.} 

^{The Big Guys came out around noon to check on the progress and declared that the bikes were too in the open. Didn't want people catching on too early that there was 1000 bikes waiting for them outside. When we couldn't find a big enough tarp to throw over them we decided to surround the parking lot with the empty semi trailers in the greatest game of oversized Tetris I have ever competed in. Nothing could have stopped me, not even when you really need that "L" shaped piece but all you're getting is the stupid square ones and they're falling really fast and the music is fast and all "doot doot be doop".  That's why I like Minesweeper, no added musical pressure.  It took the better part of the day and the better halves of some of my fellow Trek homies but we got the bikes set and as JB released the crowd from his environmental presentation, we moved the semis and were off.} 

^{It took about an hour for every last person to get to the venue but it could not have been more worth it. The cops were less than thrilled with the amount of time we screwed with traffic but could not have been cooler. We staged the bikes in a field across the street from kickball and armed the interns with sniper rifles with night vision to guard the product. The best part of the whole night (besides the Lemond Lions taking the Trek Kickball Championship) was the return ride as 1000 people turned the lights that had caused me to lose feeling in three of the five fingers on my right hand on the bikes and took off into the Madison night.  Lights blinking, people laughing, horns blaring, local residents shouting encouragement, dogs barking. It was the most satisfyingly magnficicent chaos I have ever been a part of.}

^{Final Statistics: 1000 bikes ridden, 971 recovered, 5 found at the Essen Haus, 2 found outside the Great Dane Pub, 1 broken finger (next time don't ride down an up ramp in a parking structure), 0 arrests.  Overall, a total success.  The second night when we repeated the whole charade it rained buckets and myself along with a few people that I will forever hold most dear in the truest part of my heart dug Limes out of the mud for a full day. I won't get into it suffice to say it was not pleasant. The video is a time-lapse of the actual set-up from day 1 shot from the roof of the Monona Terrace. Hope you enjoyed this tale of triumph and tribulation. If you hated it, I promise I will move onto something else very soon.}

Project M Chapter 5: Draft 22

Chapter 5: Draft 22

August 5th 3:14 pm 672 bikes built

To Avoid the Shriners, dangerous rush-hour traffic, and appease the constables we finally decided that we would utilize the major investment the city of Madison has made and utilize their bike trail system. Only took 22 drafts of the route to arrive at that conclusion but at least we got there. This route will also take us under the highway through a tunnel so no worries of bodily harm there. There is something I'm still a little concerned about. The powers that be want the dealers to ride back from the event to the Terrace where all the bikes will be staged. My concern with this is that some of our dealers like to hit the town after the events. I can't really blame them. As a UW alumnus I frequently took (could also be read as "take") full advantage of Madison's great bar to buildings-with-no-booze ratio. This is a town where liquor licences are handed out like "Obama in 08" flyers. I had horrific visions of broken Limes and even worse, broken bike shop employees scattered throughout the downtown. I was assured that things would be ok but I was still skeptical.

With the route mapped out I decided it was time to secure some trucks to transport these bad boys. I estimated it would take about six 53' trailers to haul all of the bikes from Waterloo to Madison. It turned out to be ten. So ten trucks with ten drivers. Nope, with summer being a particularly busy time of year here I could have the ten trucks but I could only have two drivers. Sweet.

If you're keeping score at home, that's 1000 bikes, 1000 lights, 1000 helmets, 10 53' trailers, 5 whiskey sours, 2 drivers, 2 weeks left, and 1 stressed out Trek employee. Looking at the numbers, this is going to be tenuous. Sorry about the clipart for the post. Sometimes, it's all ya got!

Project M Chapter 4: These Little 1000 Lights of Mine

Chapter 4: These Little 1000 Lights of Mine

July 12th noonish 191 bikes built

We're really starting to pick up the pace on the bike builds. Almost 200 done but we're going to have to average 160 bikes a week from here on out to make it. I've been reassured that this will not be a problem. Today's bombshell is that JB wants all of the bikes to be installed with Trek's new light set. A great idea as we're introducing a new bracket and our return rides from the kickball tournament will be at night. The thing about that is that all of these lights need to be installed with batteries and then affixed to a bike.

Don't get me wrong, these lights are stellar! The universal bracket that allows you to place other Trek lights depending on the rider's preference is killer. If you were to put it on one bike, or even a few, no problem. Putting batteries into 1000 light sets (mind you, "sets" means front AND rear) and then installing them on 1000 bikes? That's a bit of what we call a "bottleneck". Sitting in a dank warehouse installing batteries for two full days? Well, that sounds like a perfect project for the interns.

I was only able to wrangle one intern as the others proved too swift or hid behind the mountains of stickers we had beset them on mailing out for a promotion we were running. I decided to roll up the sleeves with intern Bryan and get to work. It took us a full Sunday and Monday to do but Bryan (the slowest of the four interns) and I managed to work out the lights. That was the day I was able to impart my wisdom upon my young protegee: You don't have to be the strongest, just the fastest. Had I heeded my own advice, I may not be responsible for this whole project in the first place.

Project M Chapter 3: Laying Down the Course

Chapter 3:  Laying down the course

June 27th 11 am 36 bikes built

Madison, Wisconsin is a beautiful town.  Home to the state’s capital as well as its major university, Madison has a culture and vibe all its own.  The capital building is the crown jewel of the downtown which sits on an isthmus between two large bodies of water.  For all of its aesthetic pleasantries, the downtown is one of the greatest traffic conundrums of all time.   Two-ways become one-ways without warning, traffic flows in a continuous circle and construction and re-construction plods along endlessly.  Located a couple of blocks south of this nonsense is the Monona Terrace, where we will be starting our ride.

Naturally we want to ride around the capital building, being the center of government and thus driving home the political implications of our environmental message.  The thing about that is we would have to spill out onto a US highway to get to where we’re holding the kickball tournament that we’re commuting to.  The cops were clear from the get-go that this was no-go so we decided to head down a different street.  That’s how I met the Shriners.

It turns out the Shriners have a regional meeting scheduled in Madison the same time as Trek World and have scheduled a parade at the same time as my ride.  Visions the PR fallout that would result from camels, mini-cars, and bicycles piling up in front of the state capital flashed in my head so I hit the phones to appeal to the more charitable side of the Shriners (being a charitable organization I figured this would be cake).  After a couple of conversations we settled on several donated bikes in exchange for free passage for the 1000 bikes before their parade kicked off.  Kind of felt like a ransom payment but no time for that, I had to get crackin’ on getting our parade permit from the city.  If Trek had this many squeaky wheels that needed greasing we’d be out of business. Hey, at least it’s not Chicago.

Project M Chapter 2: Dream Team ASSEMBLE!!!!!

The M Diaries

Chapter 2:  Dream Team ASSEMBLE!!!!

June 21 8:30 am 0 bikes built

My first move was to give this project a sweet name.  Every great covert op in the history of covertly operating has had some kind of smooth code name.  I wanted something cool, something you could say to somebody and they’d say “that sounds awesome”.  Something like “Operation Cobra Strike” or “Project Car-Chase-Scene-from-Ronin”.  After I learned that a lot of people hadn’t seen Ronin (Robert Deniro and Jean Reno, you’ll love it.  I promise) I went back to the drawing board and settled on “Project M” (M being the roman numeral for 1000).  I think it had a nice secret-agent style ring to it. 

Second move was to assemble the team that was going to help me pull this off.  After I rounded up the worker bees (the interns) to start laying down logistics I went looking for my big stick.  I found my stick in the form of Midwest Regional Sales Manager, Dan Titus.  Dan is the ringmaster of our annual corporate circus and dealer show, Trek World.  Since Project M would be sprung at this year’s Trek World, he was the guy who could answer just about every question I had. 

Now to find somebody(s) to build the bikes.  For those of you not aware, bikes are shipped in pieces and have to be assembled by a trained hand.  This problem was actually solved for me as two of my colleagues heard about the seemingly secret project and approached me for a deal to handle all bike logistics.  One of these gentlemen is an engineer here at Trek and works very closely with our pro cycling and triathlon teams.  Now he would be building lime after lime in a dingy warehouse.  Not exactly the best use of resources but hey, he volunteered.  Now all I had to find was somebody with enough valium to get me through the rest of this.

Project M Chapter 1: JB's Big Idea

The M Diaries          

Chapter 1:  JB’s Big Idea    

June 20^th 11:43am 0 bikes built 

I should know better than to make eye contact with somebody who has just thrown a crazy idea onto a table in a room full of people.  I should especially know better when this person is the president of the company you work for.  We were trying to come up with an event that would draw attention to our new environmental initiative, “1 World 2 Wheels,” and our president, John Burke (here forth referred to as “JB”), had an idea.

I guess it sounded like fun.  Build 1000 bikes in 8 weeks to transport 1000 bike dealers to a kickball tournament?  Keep it a secret from everybody?  Sure, why not?  It kind of incited the minor league baseball team promotions director in me that I lived in a life previous to Trek.  1000 bikes.  Say it out loud right now.  Go on, I’ll wait.  Doesn’t sound too difficult, right?  Hey, when you’re trying to make a statement on the potential environmental impact of increasing bike trips in this country, you need to do something to stand out.  1000 bikes are going to stand out.

The bike we decided on was the Trek Lime Lite.  Simple in its design, the Lime also comes with a great consumer-research based back-story and touts a serious altruistic lineage.  The Lime was designed to lower the barrier of entry to all people to ride their bike.  Equipped with Shimano’s Coasting technology, the bike shifts automatically and features other comfortable options like an upright riding stance and coaster brakes.  Perfect for a group of people who may sell bikes but not necessarily ride them. 

JB closed that meeting with words that I will never forget as long as I live.  “This’ll make you a legend or you won’t work here anymore.”  He said it with a smile but I wasn’t sure if he was kidding.  I didn’t have the spine to find out.  This thing better rock. 

Project M: An Introduction

This past summer Trek hosted more than 2000 dealers over a week in Madison, Wisconsin for our annual "Trek World" show. Trek World is where we unveil our product line for the next year, entertain our customers, group hugs, kumbaya, spike the kool-aid, amongst other business related things. This year's theme for the show was the bicycle's potential impact on environmental improvement. Typically, we have a night reserved as our "Fun Night" where we find somewhere in Madison that will look the other way (for a nominal fee) as our employees and dealers revel in the spirit that only a kickball tournament or something of that nature can bring. Moving 1000 people each night typically requires the use of more than a few buses which, as we all know, are not the most fuel efficient machines around. In keeping with our renewed committment to the planet, we decided that our dealers should ride their bikes the 2 miles between our show and the location of Fun Night. 1000 bike shop owners and employees riding bicycles through the capital city of Wisconsin. Sound easy? The following posts are the story of how this unfolded.

This is the story of the night when Madison belonged to the bicycle.