People call me Converse!

Ben Coates, one of our team liaisons who works with the Leopard Trek team is known as flip-flop.  That is because if there is no snow on the ground, he is wearing flip-flops.  I happen to love flip-flops.  I like the sound they make when you walk, I like the tan lines they leave, I like that it means it is summer etc...  I own lots of flip flops.  Maybe not as many as Ben does, but I own lots of them. 

That is a tan line!

But, alas I have had to concede that flip flops are not always perfect for my job.  Airplanes, walking around factories etc...  There is just a bit too much freedom in the flip flop.  (As my english friend Matt says, "America, taste the freedom!"  Not sure that is entirely appropriate in relation to footwear, but I said it nonetheless. 

Also, somewhere along the way I decided to be a little more grown up in relation to my job, so I have made the adjustment to reflect that in my footwear.  It's one of those little concessions that I have made along the way to being an adult. Along with not making motor sounds when I go down the hallway.  

The standard.

So, I fell back on what has been my 2nd favorite footwear in my life.  The Converse Chuck Taylor shoe.  What a fantastic shoe!  Comes in lots of colorways, so that I can decide what my mood is that day.  Black and brooding or sinister, grey as an accent, blue or red to show some passion, yellow if I need a pick me up, etc...  Yep, it goes like that.  Plus, they come in high tops, and low tops both.  It is a bit like a thermos bottle, the thermos bottle just knows if it is supposed to keep things hot or cold.  They are really versatile.  And, they are cheap.  The local Payless shoes always has them on sale for like $29US.  How can you go wrong?

They are a bit like what Steve Martin used to say about a trash bag, "Always, no never, no always carry a litter bag in the car.  It's not too big, doesn't take up too much space... and when it is full, you can just throw it out the window."  Of course I would not really do that, but I like it as humor.  On top of that, Steve Martin used to wear an arrow through his head in his stand up comedy.  That's funny.

You know, high top - low top - black - colors - not too expensive - wear them out and get some more.  Steve Martin could have said that.

This guy is a little more obsessed than I am, but not by much.

So I tend to wear Converse with just about anything.  Blue jeans, big baggy shorts, etc...  I am particularly fond of the long shorts and tall socks and high top Converse.  I know, your laughing right now.  Try it though, it just makes you feel good. 

I am on an airplane right now (low top grey - I'm dressed up).  There are lots of people around me with loafers.  I have never owned a pair of loafers.  I do not think they would look good with long shorts and tall socks though. 

I would say though, that neither flip flops or Converse make a very good bike shoe.

Surrender Dorothy!  Time for some oatmeal.

 

That is not a flip flop tan line.

Is the ringing in my ears bothering you?

Sometimes I feel my life is out of control.  It's not a normal thing, just sometimes it hits me that the record player is on 78speed when it should be on 33speed (I realize that I just lost most of the people that are reading this - trust me, it means that things are playing so fast that I cannot really understand the lyrics).

look familiar?

 

There are lots of factors that make me feel that way, my job is fast pace sometimes, my kids are adults spread all over the world, I have a new puppy at home that is terrorizing the house and already runs everything, I am not riding my bicycle enough, my motorcycle is dirty, the camper stands half remodeled in the driveway, there are 4 different house projects left half completed...  See what I mean? 

This blog entry is about a bunch of loosely (I mean really loosely) related topics.  Most of these are keeping me up at night.  No Caffeine necessary.

 

Steven Tyler is now a judge on American Idol

Here in the USA, there is a show called American Idol.  (I think it was actually stolen from the UK).  I know the show has been around for a while, but since I do not actually know where the remote is for the television at home, I have not ever watched the show. Reading the latest copy of Rolling Stone magazine via Zinio informed me of the depths that the Aerosmith front man has fallen to. 

I find myself daydreaming about what that must be like.  Steven Tyler, huge mouth nearly swallowing a microphone, scarves flowing off the microphone stand, snarling and telling the contestant they suck.  But I am reading that he is actually nice to the contestants.  I guess I need to give it a test ride.

This is how most of us think of Steven Tyler.

In addition to this heresy of Steven Tyler on American Idol, while at the dentist office the other day (wilting under the barrage of talk and questions from the hygienist while she has her hands in my mouth.  How stupid is that, btw...? - but I digress).  While sitting in the dentist chair, I heard a Motley Cru song playing on the Classic Rock station - followed directly by an Elton John song.  Jeez.  What has the world come to?

Yep, its pretty much like that.

 

People are buying/riding hardtails in USA

What is going on here?  For a long time, we have been convinced that the hardtail was dead in the USA.  Interestingly, the Europeans and Asians have never stopped buying them.  But in the US, the percentage of people buying hardtails has continued to drop.  For example, Trek offers quite a few more hardtails outside of the USA than it does inside the USA.  (Buy a plane ticket and take an empty bike bag if you are chasing a high end hardtail from a US zipcode).  But, amazingly, people are now buying hardtails in the USA.  Granted, they are all 29'ers, but they still have stiff rear ends.  Sometimes the future is not much different than the past. 

Is this dehydrated breakfast cereal hour, or is this Cleveland?

Or, this section could be called "If this is Tuesday, it must be Belgium."  This past week, I literally went to Belgium for a day.  It was not for a happy experience, but it was important.  John Burke and I went to the ceremony for Wouter Weylandt.  If you have read other stuff from me, then you know that the passing of Wouter was a tragedy that is hard to describe.  John put up a nice little blog entry about the day, so I will not try to repeat that. 

I will just say that the ceremony was excellent.  The ceremony was held in the huge church in the center of Gent, Belgium.  The church is one of those fantastic old churches in Europe that normally is the keystone of your tour through the city. There were easily 1000+ people there, and every single person was offered the opportunity to file through the church, pay their respects to Wouter and his family and take home a card to save and remember Wouter by.

Wouter had a lot of friends. 

 

I'm thinking of shaving my legs

I love bike racing.  If you haven't figured that out yet, I love it.  I watch it a lot, I listen to audio presentations, I read twitter feeds from racers, teams and races.  I spend a significant amount of money to support it, I am responsible for the race department etc...  Yet, I consider myself too old to be serious about doing it myself.  I ride a lot.  Almost every day, that I can.  On the weekends I ride with and get smoked by the racer groups.  I try and try, but I just am not as fast as them.  Maybe if I shaved my legs?

That would probably make me feel like a cutter.

Kinda makes you want to go and rent the movie again. eh?

 

I have a single speed Fuel EX

I have a bunch of friends that ride SS.  I have had them, but in general they are built on hardtails.  In spite of the renaissance of hardtails that I noted before, I just do not do hardtails.  God made FS bikes, so why should I avoid them?  So, I built a SS on a Fuel EX frame.  It is a compromise, but it works.  The suspension does what it is supposed to do, in the same way that it does when you have gears.  Nice.  But, I have to make note that there still are not any gears to use to help get up that hill.  Given the fitness and age point above, I find myself looking for a button on the right side.  I find myself in the middle of the hill wondering exactly what I was thinking when I bolted this all together without any shifters. 

So maybe in the end I bolt some shifters onto the bike.  At least one. 

Arnold Schwarzenager is in the news for a baby out of wedlock

I don't really have anything more to say about that.

 

Do you walk to work, or do you carry your lunch?

I know that sentence makes absolutely no sense.  Sometimes other things don't make sense to me either.  It is the spring of 2011 - Yesterday I was at a sales meeting about how things are going with a few 2011 markets, today we are showing international distributors the 2012 lineups, later in the week I will be at a meeting to finalize the 2013 product development plans, early next week I will be at a R+D meeting which is more about 2014 and beyond.  

I want tickets to the Pearl Jam show at Alpine Valley

Yep, favorite band, playing at the end of the summer at the outdoor festival Alpine Valley.  Sounds like beer, sunburn, bee stings, long bathroom lines and Eddie Vedder belting it out.  Cannot wait.

 

cheers.

Joe

This picture has nothing to do with much else in this post, but I like it nonetheless.

I’ve been to “Hell”, it’s pretty incredible!

I know you are thinking. What the..? Have the Trek guys gone bonkers? Do I really want to read this? Yes you do, that title is meant to catch your attention. Worked, eh?  Bear with me, it will all make sense.

In spit of the lack of oatmeal involved, this past week has to rank as one of the most amazing since I have had this job. There have been a lot of really great things that I have been allowed to do with this job, but of all of those - this story has to be at the very top. 

If you have been following along, you know that I have been building up to do the Paris Roubaix (Hell of the North) bike race. It has been something that I have wanted to do for a long time. The allure of the pave, cobbles buried in the ground at a million different non level angles, roads built centuries ago and left to deteriorate through wars and winters that cannot even be counted, the pain, the danger etc…  I was looking forward to all of it. 

I spent 62.5 hours this past month watching old footage of the race. (I know, my wife kept track.  I'm a little bit obsessive.) There were years when it was a slog though the mud, and years where it was a dust bowl. This year was to be fast, dry and warm. Our race was the day before the pro race. We would do 140k of the pro race and it would include 18 sections of cobbles. 

Friday was bib pick up day and sign up at the expo etc… After that, we went for a ride. Last year at the TDF, I ran across Liam and his dad Bill, as they were riding a bunch of the stages at the tour and documenting it all. They are big Livestrong supporters and have done an amazing job documenting their riding exploits while they are fortunate enough to live in France. You can check out their stories at www.fathersontour.com.

They were up in northern France for the Challenge as well, so we all went out for a little shake down ride in the fields of the St Quentin area. 

That is Liam in his trademark Livestrong jersey.  He is a madman.  (Michael from Trek stands in with him) 

After a nice little shakedown ride, we had some dinner and all retired to our rooms to try to get ready for the next day.  I was left to myself to struggle with trying to remember how to change a sew up if I flat (have not done that in a long time), how do you manage across the cobbles, how fast would it be, do I have enough miles yet…  It was not a good night of sleep. 

 

My steed for the ride.  Leopard Trek cobbles set up.

 

 

Huge phat tubular wheels and tires.

 

The team bikes all had these stickers on the top tube. Tells them when the pain is coming.

 

Getting some advice on the starting line from Nick our country manager in France.  (I am so out of my league there).

After a nearly sleepless and nervous night, I can tell you this much – the cobbles are indescribable. There is nothing like it, and I mean nothing. I cannot even begin to describe just how rough they are. It is not like riding a rough dirt road.  It is not like a piece of bad pavement that I think I have on one of my routes.  There really is no way to prepare yourself for just how rough it is. At kilometer marker 50, we entered on a fast left hand turn into the first cobbled section. Section 18 of 27 for the pro race.

Immediately, your whole body starts to rebel against the beating it is taking. Your head shakes, your arms convulse almost uncontrollably. The pain coming through your wrists, feet and but is felt immediately. The sound coming out of your bike is frightening. Your mind tells you that surely the bike is going to shatter at any moment. You find yourself terrified that your wheels are going to just crumble at any moment. When that pack entered that first section, there were bottles flying everywhere, bodies on the ground, riders careening off into the grass and fields - chaos.

All the advice that I had gotten, flashed through my head – stay on the tops, do not slow down, ride the crown in the middle of the road, stay loose, do not slow down… Of course, 25 meters in, I failed and went for a down shift. With the loss of just 2kph, the bike starts to buck and shake so violently there is no way to hold on. looked for the path on the side and became dejected and sucked the gutter.  We all learned to love the gutter in that first section. 

More than one person told me afterward, that they did not think they would be able to make it after that first section.  Then the advice began to come back to me.  “Rest during the smooth parts, go like hell during the rough". A funny thing happens during the race, you start to figure it out after the first few sections. By the 3rd or so section, you are able to ride the tops and stay loose and pedal like hell when your in it.

 

Here I am doing a much more credible job getting over the top.  You cannot imagine how rough that is at speed.  This is the only picture that I have that I do not look like I am in horrible pain.

Of course there is a big chunk of time in the middle where you actually start to enjoy the brutality and pure beauty of it all.  I can tell you right now that the guys that do this for a living are absolutely nails.  This is not for the faint of heart.  The penalty for getting it wrong is really really high, as in this years pro race there were alot of pro - some that had even won the day before - who did not finish the race due to crashes.  In our race, the ambulance was out on course a lot. 

Here is a really good description of all the cobble sections that I saw, from Podium Cafe.  

 

Our group all finished.  One busted up head from a crash, one broken wrist from a crash a few flats – it was the most incredible day any of us had ever had on a bike. 

 

Pro Race Day

The next day we watched the pro race.  We got up early, and made our way to Compiègne, north of Paris.  (I know, it is called Paris-Roubaix, not Compiègne-Roubaix, why doesn't it start there? Trust me, it is ok that it does not start any farther away.) There is the usual pro race circus at the start, and the race really doesn't officially start anyway until they get out of town. 

The pros go fast, really fast. They average more than 45kph for the first couple of hours, and then they hit the cobbles.  You cannot believe how violent a pack of riders is when they go across the cobbles together at nearly 50kph. The video below tries to show that, but only does a mediocre job of that.

 

This is the pack coming by on section 15.  Still all together, the race had not blown apart yet.

On another section of race, I watched a bottle bounce out of someone cage and then bounce along on the road in the middle of the pack.  It was basically a huge rock bouncing along, just waiting for someone to hit it and take the whole peleton down. Magically, no one did.  They are all pounding away in a pack like the video, they cannot see past the rider in front, there is dust everywhere, they are fatigued and yet no one went down.  Wow.

If you watched the race, you know the results.  It is hard for that result to tell the whole story.  Fabian Cancellara is the most amazing athlete ever to ride this race, or any other spring classic for that matter.  But, one of the great things about racing is the strongest man doesn’t always win.  There is more to racing than that.

Paris-Roubaix is such a spectacle. It is the most beautiful race ever.  I hope it never changes. After the race, I asked Ben King what he thought of it. His answer, “That is the most amazing thing ever. I cannot wait to do it again.”

That is why "Hell", is actually quite beautiful. I will definitely be back.

 

Ben King after the race.

 

I spent the day with Francesco Moser in the car chasing the race.  He is no longer a racer, but he is still a hero.  He does not speak much english, but his French is a bit better so we communicated that way.  He was one of my childhood heroes, so that was amazing all by itself.

 

I am not sure what these 2 thought the Leopard Trek truck was doing there, but I am pretty sure they did not think it was a bike race.

 

Joe

 

 

Just returned from the future - It's really cool there!

This past week was one of those weeks that remind me that I have one of the coolest jobs ever at a great place to work. Sorry to flaunt that if you really did not want to hear that Trek was not a great place. If that was the case, you probably would not be here reading my blog.

I have been lucky to be involved with a lot of great projects while I have been here. Some have been trailside experiments that have made a huge difference in our mountain bikes. Some have been more subtle. And some have been the kind of thing that makes you say later, "Wow, why did it take us so long to think of that?" 

Sometimes a new project is best done by one person and at other times it is best done with group. The group thing can be really cool when everyone in the room really gets it. There is a sort of group mind share thing that happens and it can be really exciting. Everyone sort of zigs and zags at the same time in unified directions. Do you remember the scene in Jurrassic Park, where the dinos were running and turning all together and what's-his-name (you know, the scientist guy) notices that they do not really communicate - they just do it - it's sort of like that.

Sort of like that!  Although trying to avoid the high pants.

We have divided our product development efforts along the lines of final users. Seems obvious, but we can all relate to mountain bikers being different than road riders and urban riders being different etc...  If you live in one of those worlds, it is hard to think like a member of the other worlds. Also pretty obvious, eh? I am pretty smart that way. 

Getting us back to this week and how good it was, we did a cool group excercise this week with the "Town Bike Group". We had all the designers, product managers, and marketing people together from that group and took things all the way back to square one and rebuilt it. Who the rider is, what they like to ride, where they like to ride, how they ride, what they want to ride in the future etc... Good stuff.

It never ceases to amaze me how a group can come together through these exercises. They all live the Town category of bikes and bike stuff every single day of their life. There probably are not a dozen people in the world that are closer to that cycling lifestyle in the world. They commute by bike, they shop by bike, they go out to dinner by bike... 

We did a group customer ethos excercise this past week. The results of which were super exciting. I cannot tell you all the details, you will just have to wait. Sorry to do that to you. I can tell you that the new products that will come from that group going forward will be beyond what anyone expects in that category of bikes. 

I have just returned from the future - they still have burritos there - and dang are the bikes they ride there really cool.

Out.

Joe

 

 

Spring is here - sort of!

We do a weird thing. "We" would be referring to us humanoids. We futz with our clocks and move them around based on how it makes us feel. We want daylight later in the day, after we are done with work, so we created daylight savings time. You might be thinking now, "so what, I adjust my clock because I can - I do have these opposing thumbs after all..." Still, that does not explain why.

Why do we do that? Someone must have the answer, so I have looked into it. There are a lot of theories about why we have daylight savings time, most of which are not valid. An early belief was that it saved energy costs, with lighting and heat, but most of the research on that has been inconclusive. There have been theories that it made people healthier or a bunch of other theories, but none of those really pan out. Almost all of the theories have proven to be vaguely accurate at best, and inaccurate at worst. (If you do not believe me check Wikipedia, after all we all know that is the source of all wisdom.)  

So what is the gig? I pulled this right from the Wikipedia entry on Daylight Savings Time "DST was first proposed by the New Zealand entomologist George Vernon Hudson, whose shift working job gave him leisure time to collect insects, and made him aware of the value of after-hours daylight." Mr. Hudson was from New Zealand, and he proposed this to the New Zealand government in 1898. And go back and reread that quote, he proposed this to allow himself more time to collect and study bugs.

Now I do not really care much about bugs. In fact, my favorite times of the year are those times when the bugs are dead and the weather is warm in the middle of the day. I mean, when you are sitting on the deck in the evening after a great MTB ride, with an after ride beverage, do you really have respect/fondness for the mossies that are attacking you? But, I can identify with Mr. Hudson and his desire to have daylight to pursue his passions after work. I have also never been to New Zealand, but the fact that Mr. Hudson was from New Zealand reaffirms for me that it must be a great place. Plus, that is where Frodo was from.

March 13 is Sunday, that is the day that the clocks will turn over to DST. That means that on Monday, at my home latitude, the sunset will be at approximately 18:56. For all of us that are challenged by clocks counting beyond 12, that is 6:56PM. 7PM! Just think about that. That is 3 hour more daylight than when we were at the very bottom of that pendulum swing! On December 21, the sun was setting here at about 4pm.

That will allow an after work two wheeler ride. A road bike ride, or a ride in the woods on a mountain bike or... That thought just gives me a glow today. (It's the little things). There is still snow on the ground, and it was dang cold riding to work this morning for me and the 20 odd other people here at Trek that I see also rode to work. But, in a small way, the time changing means spring is here - sort of.

(In all of this, I just thank that I do not live in Saskatoon. They do their own thing with time, that really doesn't line up with others around them and has them 67 minutes off always from Mean Solar Time. I do not even know what I would do with that whole thing.)

Now, if I just had a thicker pair of gloves to ride home with today.

Joe V.

Unfortunately, that is still the view out the window of the office. But, notice that it is melting!

 

 

I am a Lance fan

It is kind of a popular sentiment: When your heroes are larger than life, you might not really want to get to know them. When you get to know your heroes, there is a chance they may not live up to their public image. When you get to know them, you realize that they are human. They make mistakes, they have trouble with their relationships, they say awkward things, they crunch their car in the parking lot at the mall, they get a bad haircut…in other words; they become human when you get close to them. 

For a long time, Lance Armstrong has been one of my heroes. When he first came back from cancer, we all watched with amazement and hoped for the underdog. We all knew someone who had been touched by the disease, and we wanted him to conquer because not everyone else had. He was a hero and everyone was a fan in those early days of Comeback 1.0.

In 1999, I was at the Tour de France. Trek was doing a mountain bike intro nearby, and we decided to take the journalists to the race. Not because we somehow knew what was going to happen that day, but because those who say they are not really interested in the Tour de France, have just not yet been there. It is, of course, the single greatest sporting spectacle in the world. We were at the summit of the Galibier that day in 1999, when Lance came over with the front group and then went on to put the race away on the Sestriere. I was in awe of the display. I immediately called the road bike brand manager at Trek and told him, “I know this is crazy, but I think he can win this.”  How silly my shock sounds now, right?

People who follow cycling like to rooti for the underdog.  So, it was natural for everyone to root for Lance when he was the comeback kid. It was also in a lot of cycling fans' nature to turn against him when he became uber successful. Trust me, even people who say they are not fans now, were fans back then.

For me, he never fell from being one of my hero’s. When he won more, he just became more of a hero. I loved to see him ride at the front of the group all the time and wait for his competitors to wilt. I loved to see him attack. I loved to see him chase back after being knocked down. It was always exciting and fun.

I also know that during all of this, he was doing everything that he could to help kick the proverbial butt of cancer as fast as he could. Trying to help millions of people around the world. He was helping his foundation and seeing cancer victims in person around the world. He retired, and some people were glad. I was thankful that I got see him race, and I understood that it could not go on forever.

Then Comeback 2.0 came along. I was excited because I got to see the hero in action again. Sure, he fell down a lot more. Sure, he suffered injuries. Sure he had a run of bad luck that didn't strike before.  Sure it was not always graceful. But he was still badass and he still remains one of my cycling heroes. 

Tough guy!

There are a lot of people in the cycling world who now claim that he was never their hero. There are also people out there debating if Lance’s legacy changed cycling and the cycling world. I do not really care to get involved with that debate. I will leave that for others to spend too much time on.

I do know, that I have been lucky to get to know one of my heroes. Not as well as I would like to, but I am fortunate nonetheless to have gotten to know him the small amount that I do. 

At the beginning of this, I talked about the dangers of getting to know your heroes and having the veneer stripped away. For me, getting to know him and watching a rough Comeback 2.0 did not change anything. 

With Lance announcing his retirement for the final time, Comeback 2.0 comes to an end. I do not know what Lance will do next, but I know that whatever he does will involve helping as many cancer victims as he can. 

I am a fan.

Joe V. 

@ team camp

with some of my family

The new phone book is here!

Yeah I know, what is a phone book?  Got your attention at least.

You know how it is, you wait and wait for something to happen, and then when it does it seems like it blows right by.  It was that way when you were a kid with Christmas and your Birthday.  It is that way now with vacation plans and the cycling trip that you just cannot wait for.  You spend months preparing, sorting gear, planning each day and step.  Then, all too quickly it is done.

Unfortunately, it is never that way with winter.  Winter kinda blows in somewhere in November, settles into something that is not so bad for the month of December.  That makes you say something like, “this is not so bad.  I can handle this winter thing.”  But, if you live here in the upper Midwest, winter is just toying with you.  Somewhere along the way, winter slams you down to the ground and then drives right over you with the snowplow blade lowered.  January comes and the blizzard of the century smacks you in the face (again).  February comes and the weather just settles into a long grey period of cold.  March comes and you get taunted with a warm week and then winter laughs at you with a 10 inch snowstorm. It is just not fun.

You spend lots of time in the garage, cleaning your bicycles and motorcycles, marking the days off your calendar that you are still not riding.  You ride the stupid trainer, you go to the gym and do your workouts, you go back out to the garage and clean your bikes and motorcycles again.  You mark more days off the calendar.  You watch mountain bike videos, you analyze your training log from last year to find out where you went wrong, you go back out to the garage and clean your bike and motorcycles.  You ride the stupid trainer and go to the gym.  You put new cleats on your shoes, you go to the bike swap and sell your old clothing (that is another story in itself, people will actually buy old cycling clothing), you go back out to the garage again and clean your bikes and motorcycles.  It gets really long.

But, then Rays MTB park announces that it is opening in Milwaukee.  Winter mountain bike goodness is coming to your back yard.  Finally, you will not have to drive all the way to Cleveland.  Woohoo!  Then you start the long wait and marking the days off the calendar until it opens.  It is a bit like the Christmas and Birthday calendar from your childhood.

In my case, I started counting towards the opening of Rays all the way back in the summer.  Ray was over there in the old Menards building, throwing up ramps and skinnies and jumps and, yep.  You know, just making us all salivate.  Then, the wheels came off and we hit the skids and ran into problems getting all of our permits etc..., and we did not open.  Ugh…

But, I am proud to say, finally we did.  And wow, what a grand opening it was.  The place is incredible.

This past weekend was that grand opening.  I was there on Saturday.  I am super excited to say that there were about 375 other cyclists there.  375!  375 cyclists that normally have been sitting in their living room in January, waiting for spring.  Marking the days off their calendar, riding the trainer, sorting their old clothing and complaining about living in Wisconsin. 

Not any more though.  From now on, they are riding skinnies, jumping their bikes, ripping around on the XC loop and just enjoying being on their bicycle.  Eventually, we will have to build more new things to ride on, eventually there will be an expectation that things will change between your visits there.  But for now, it is just great to see that if we build it, they will ride it.  Thanks for the opportunity Ray.

We had a bunch of cycling media there.  We had pro athletes there.  Ray was there.  It was crazy amounts of fun.  I cannot wait to be back there next weekend.  See you there.

 

The new phone book is here!

 

 

That is the preview video that we posted before the park opened!

 

That is the park on opening weekend, but before the grand opening party!

 

That is my daughter Hanna with Heather Irmiger from the Trek Subaru team. (Yeah, they are not quite the same mountain biker)

That is Jimmy Mac from Mountain Bike Action enjoying enjoying the G's in the middle of the turn on the sweet pump track

 

Lest we forget... There is Cleveland, and it really is a fantastic place to ride.

 

It had to be built

The New Team Is Here!

Oi, this has been a long time coming. You do not know how long Trek has been working on this.

It all started at Rotterdam for the start of the TDF. Ben (our team liason) and I, along with John Burke (our president), had been talking about if we wanted to expand our team efforts and racing presence. We started with the same way a lot of things start in business; with a spreadsheet. We built a big sheet of all the Pro Tour licensed teams, showing who their roster contained, title sponsor and how long that was meant to last, when their license expired etc... From that, it appeared there were 3-4 teams we should meet with. We did that, and quickly ended up narrowing that down to just the Luxembourg Pro Cycling project - as it was known then (more on that later).

Racing is really important to Trek. We like to race. Helps us to understand the highest end of our product usage and keeps it about riding a bicycle at the highest level, instead of the many other things that it takes to run a bicycle company. The Trek brand has been associated with racing at the highest level for a long time. These days, those efforts are spent with the RadioShack team, the KSwiss Tri team, and with Trek World Racing etc...  We dig it. There really is something cool about being associated with racing and races like the World Championships or the Tour de France are truly a spectacle. It kinda makes you a fan, no matter how jaded you are.  But, the world is a big place and Trek has distribution all over the world. We wanted to have a bigger presence with a European road racing team.

Enter the Luxembourg Pro Cycling Project.

Ok, so I got a little off track. Back to Rotterdam and the start of the TDF. That was the first meeting between Trek and the management of the Lux team. July wore on, and I was back and forth to France and to Luxembourg 2 more times. I was back there again, twice in August, and then finally was able to sign it all up at the beginning of Sept. Wow, it was an experience to say the least. Someday, I will write all of that down and it will be a story in and of itself. But for the mean time, suffice it to say, it was an ordeal. Sometime, if you can get me to tell you the whole story over a beer or 3, I promise you it will be worth your time.

Along the way, I realized how that team was going to be filled with a bunch of really really great guys. Jens Voight, the life of the party, the hard man of the group, Jakob Fugelsang the youngster with a huge future ahead of him, Frank Schleck who is almost the elder statesman now and just a all-around great guy, Andy Schleck who might be the skinniest kid i have ever known (really, my forearms are about the same size as his calves - and of course i am just that bulky), than of course there is Fabian Cancellera. Yeah, what can you say there - makes me want to bow down and do my Waynes World imitation: "We're not worthy..." As Kim Anderson said to me, "He is a special boy". That is probably lost in translation - you have to know Kim.

Team presentation and dealer event in Luxembourg this week.

So here i am in Lux again, for our dealer event with the riders, the press conference with the media, and the evenings big team presentation. It is a huge huge deal. Andy talking about the team, Fabian looking like a superstar, Frank and everyone else. Wow. Then there is me. The bumpkin from Wisconsin.

 

(I’m not sure, but I think I look pretty good in a jacket – NOT!)

I have been referred to as "Converse", for a while now. That is for my usual shoe attire. Yeah, I own like 20 pair. What can I say, I don't really do dressed up. I do own a suit, it is the same one that I got married in. But aside from that, I really do not own anything dressy. I have a sweater or 2, but not much more. I arrived here in Lux with one collared shirt, a few tshirts and jeans. Imagine my surprise when I found out that the event was really dressy. In normal Joe terms, I wouldn't care. But, Frank Schleck and his wife Martine looking out for me insisted that I could not be up on stage in a tshirt. So Martine found me a jacket borrowed from one of the riders that wears the same size as me. Lucky I had the one collared shirt...

(Frank Schleck and I on stage at the dealer event.  Yes, I have to pinch myself.)

At our dealer event in the afternoon, we had 22 of the riders at a private cocktail party. Can you believe it? 22 riders came and shook hands with 50 European Trek retailers, signed autographs, stood around and chatted the crowd up. I have been around this stuff for all of my life. That is a long time, and I should be over all of this. But, I cannot tell you how nervous I am to be on stage with a rider like Fabian or Andy or Frank. I have gotten to know each of those guys, but still cannot believe it. I mean, Fabian can put out something like 1400 watts. Holy cow!

 

(Yep, that is 5000 people waiting for the start)

On the day of the presentation, we did a run-through in the afternoon. Brian Nygaard (the team's General Manager) decided he would like to have Ben and I come out at the same time as Fabian, Andy and Frank with the bikes. In rehearsal, that seemed like a good idea. We went out, answered a few questions about Trek and our involvement with the team etc... All good. No trepidation on my part, as speaking in front of groups really is not that big a deal for me. 

The royal family is here. Press from around the world. All the cycling press. Phill Ligget. (I feel like I am all the way here from Kansas. No offense if you are from Kansas. Surrender Dorothy and all.) And, there are about 5000 people in the audience. This is a really big deal here in Luxembourg.

Fabian, Andy, and Frank were meant to come out on stage at the end of the presentation. The crowd had been there for 2 hours waiting for the 3 of them. When they were announced as the next riders, the crowd went crazy. I kinda thought they were going to storm the stage, like they were rock stars. The music thumped, the whole crowd was on their feet screaming, camera's were flashing etc... At that moment, I decided that Ben and I were not going on stage. We just stayed out back. The on-stage MC's did not ask where we were, and they adjusted. It was the right move, as the next day that shot of the 3 greatest riders in the world on the stage with their new bikes, arms raised to the crowd, was perfect. It was in almost every newspaper across Europe. It would have looked stupid with Ben and I just standing behind them.

Team Name

At this point, you probably have heard that the team name is LEOPARD TREK! Can you believe it? I still have to pinch myself. Trek is right up there at top billing on the team name. 

I have been asked about 1000 times, "what is Leopard?" (pronounced "Lay-O-pard"). Leopard is the name of the company that owns the team. That company was set up to manage the team, so it doesn't have any other commercial offering. The team will be building that brand name with the team, and believes that the team name should be something to aspire to. The team name, is a brand of its own. Kind of a cool concept that is really new and fresh.

I for one, am pretty excited about the whole thing.

 
(New Bontrager team helmet – more info coming soon)

 
(a beautiful site)

(kinda inspiring, eh?)

(@trek_ben adjusting bikes all the way up to the last minute.  In the normal attire for a team Liaison)

This team is going to be all about racing. They will be presenting themselves as serious about racing and hope to let their racing speak for itself.  I, for one, am super excited about a return to the purity of racing.

For the time being, we start the season as the number one ranked team. That may not last, but we plan to win a bunch of races with this team.

It is really going to be fun. Really fun.

Cheers till next time.

Joe V.