Busy in Taiwan...

Sorry for the lack of posts and pics- it's been a very busy show this year and I've been unable to connect to the inter-web-net-thing I've been reading so much about (I hear it might catch on).

As soon as I get the chance to sit down and do a bit of writing and downloading of pics, I'll get you updated.

The new convention center here in Taipei is awesome. I have a few pics and will post them once I can. This show is the first in the building- the paint is still wet and it still smells of wet cement. The president of Taiwan was here to open the show and present the center to the press. It's pretty cool. If you dig modern architecture, Asia is the place to go. Lots of great design here.

Ok, back at it again.

Tim

Busier than a one-armed paper hanger...

As is somewhat customary of me to proclaim, I find myself "busier than a one-armed paper hanger"... as my father would say... but with a stronger Alabama accent than I have anymore.

I got back in to San Diego late afternoon Saturday, around 5:00PM, and was reasonably useless the rest of the day. Sunday I was up early, though still pretty worthless, and then got my daughter around 2:00PM and my son a few hours later. Since then, I have been running at pretty much full speed- and then some. We have a major set of meetings Monday and Tuesday of next week and I am now feverishly working on a PowerPoint presentation for those meetings (have I ever mentioned my desire to choke the creator of PowerPoint?). Thing is, Friday is also the first day of the Bicycle Leadership Conference (BLC) and I will be attending all three days of the BLC, along with Haro MTB Brand Manager Jill Hamilton. AND I have a meeting on Friday (that I may have to skip) with my good friend Kendall Young from Ritchey Components. Saturday and Sunday will be consumed by the conference and then Monday and Tuesday we have the important internal meetings. All the while, I still need to wrap up and finish the Spring '08 catalog copy. The icing on the cake is that this is my week with the kids and I am going to have to shuffle them off to family members for a few days. AND... I'm getting a slight cold!

I rode my trainer tonight for about 45-50 minutes, for my first ride since the 4th of this month. Not surprisingly, I felt stiff and sore and had no lung power. But, the legs themselves did not feel all that bad. IF I can manage to hold this cold at bay long enough, I might still make it to the 3-day stage race in Henderson, NV starting next Friday (1/25). I'm not holding my breath because I know how hard it is going to be to stay healthy with all this stress and the lack of training time is going to really put my fitness in question. However... I still really want to go to this race. I haven't done a stage race in years and I really enjoy them. Historically, by day 3, my legs usually feel fantastic. Since the road race is on day 3 and it is very hilly, that might save me from being dropped on the first climb. Day 2's crit might suffer, but I can pretty much do a crit with my eyes closed at this point in my life. The 20K TT on day 1 might be a challenge, but since it is nearly board flat and is almost a straight line, I have a good chance of not losing too much time. We'll see what happens. Fingers are crossed... but I might just take the time off from work and spend the 4 days I would be racing/ traveling just riding and getting some sleep!

Got a bunch of goodies over the past couple days that make it feel like a late Christmas. I will have more on that in the next few days, if my head doesn't explode. Maybe I'll even do a vidcast instead of a blog post- been awhile since I've done one. Stay tuned...

Ok kids, I'm going to bed before my feeble brain finally cracks.

Tim

Jetlag, schmetlag...

If it wasn't for caffeine, I think I would cease to exist this week. Thank God for Juan Valdez and his legion of coffee bean carrying mules. If it weren't for the brown brewed gold, I'd be a dead man this week. But I digress...

So I owe you all some more Taiwan follow-up and pictures. I'm also going to try and create a Flickr gallery of images as well. That may take me a little longer though because I want to get a few more podcasts done also and put up more video stuff. There's lots to talk about, so let's get going...

I have a soft spot for the machines that create bikes. Sure it may not be as romantic an idea as some sweaty person toiling away over each and every detail, but in some cases it's even better- thanks to the precision of the work. However, my fascination has always been with the machines that do some of the more mundane things. I always spend a little time around the wheelbuilding machines. They just fascinate me. There are many types and they range from very precise machines to less precise machines. This one is somewhere in the middle- it's truing up a hand laced BMX wheel that will go on to be hand checked;

It's pretty cool to me at least... but I'm kinda simple like that.

We took the high speed train back and forth between the airport in Taipei and the hotel in Taichung;

It was cool.

Here we have a very happy Brand Manager standing by a container filled with SoulVille bikes headed off to the Ohio warehouse (so go start placing your orders now if you're on the East coast).

I really was happier than I look... I promise. FYI- The SoulVille is currently the best selling bike in the entire Masi line for this season. I had faith in the bike, but never would have guessed sales would be this good. So, thank you for your support of the bike.

A beautiful sunrise...

A beautiful park in Taichung on the night of a beautiful dinner...

The long awaited and much anticipated SoulVille Mixte step-through frame...

Mood lighting in an incredibly beautiful restaurant on an incredible night...

Two very happy Product Managers soaking up the reward of their efforts...

Incredible beauty...

All mine! (And eventually yours...)


You'll have to wait for more... so keep on coming back.

Tim

What a week...

I'm glad tomorrow is Friday. It's been a long week- on lots of levels. I'm glad to get this one into the "done" pile, for sure.

Almost done picking the new colors for the Fall '08 bikes. Just a few more to go and I am done! All I'm gonna say is that if you like what the line looks like now, you're gonna love where it is headed... you can take that to the bank.

Heading to Los Angeles for the weekend. Gonna go spend the weekend with my best friend, the dreaded Blue Squirrel, riding and riding and riding and riding... and then riding. It's our super double secret training camp. It's only two days, but it's intense... I could tell you more, but then I'd have to track you down and kill you. No bags of blood and no syringes, just lots of riding (and lots of me whining about not being a climber) and "dude time". There might be a beer in there somewhere- after all, one of our team sponsors is Peroni.

I took the night off from going to the gym, but the previous two nights I put in very hard work with the weights and nearly hobbled myself, but managed to avoid injury. Today, though they felt a lot like the steel plates I was lifting the night before, my legs felt really good on the bike. They felt heavy, and stiff, and lacking any kind of "snap", but the power felt great. As much as I hate weightlifting, my legs have always responded well to weights. Hopefully this means that I can fight the negative effects of all the travel and loss of training time and still manage to find racing fitness for next season. I want to get some podium time this next season, so I'm trying my best to actually "train" this winter. Hopefully that means that I can get my former racing fitness back and get back to the front of the field.

So, since I'll be away from home for the weekend, there may not be any posting here for a few days... but don't worry, I'll be back... and I'll be thinking of you while I'm gone. I promise.

Tim

Yes, I'm still alive.

I know it's been a while since I've posted and the posts have been a little "light"... but it's still amazingly busy after Interbike. You may remember that I've talked for the past few years about working towards getting away from model years with our products. Well, we've done that, but we've also decided to go to two product releases a year as well. That means that the Fall '07 products you see in the new catalog (which you can download from the current company website) are not even on the ground yet and I am wrapping up design of the Spring '08 products. In fact, my esteemed colleague and Product Manager (Wayne- "Fuzzy"- Doran) is headed to Taiwan next week to work out a bunch of product details. Shortly afterwards, in early November, I'll be headed to Taiwan again and then on to Tokyo for the Japanese version of Interbike- called Cycle Mode. So, I think maybe, just maybe you can see why the posting has been light and why I'm slowly, but certainly, losing my mind. (Not that I'm complaining because I still feel like a lucky bastard to have this job... just in case the bosses are reading...)

Anyway, there has been plenty to talk about over this gap in my posting and I really don't even know where to begin. I never really finished posting about the Eurobike show and the products there, I didn't really talk about all the Initerbike stuff, I've skipped over lots of the cool things that have been going on with people, places and things... and the ongoing saga that is professional bike racing. BUT... I will do my best to get back on track and back to covering it all.

I have recently been riding my Speciale Fixed a lot and have been enjoying it immensely. I had been riding it for the past several months set up very close to my Kilo position, so that I could do the occasional Kilo workout on my lunch rides (thinking I was going to be racing a lot more than I did this year... once). I recently rebuilt it with a more traditional track/ road set up;

It's set up with a bunch of parts I've been holding on to for a while-

• SunTour Superbe Pro track cranks (167.5mm length) and NOS Superbe Pro bottom bracket- NJS stamped!
• Sugino Mighty Comp 46t chainring and Campagnolo 16t cog.
• TTT Mod Dazzan alloy track sprint bars- a whopping 39cm wide too!
• Deda Zero stem.
• Old Lorica bar tape that was on my first track bike from 1992/93- complete with all the scuffs from crashes.

The saddle is a sample, with a couple colors wrong, of what we will be using for the new artwork on our Masi-branded saddles. The "Masi" lettering is not going to be yellow, as it is shown, nor is the Masi "M". However, the rest is pretty close- though the off-center Masi headbadge artwork will be black. The cool thing is that the saddle sample is of our low-end saddle... but it rides really, really well. With some nice Ti rails, this thing would be on a few more of my bikes. With the shape, curved at the rear, it kinda reminds me of an old San Marco Concor (my second most favorite saddle ever- behind the Arione).All in all, it feels really good to be riding my bikes again. All the travel has made it very difficult to keep any kind of rhythm and I'm sure to lose it again with the travel on the horizon. Still, I'm enjoying each revolution of the cranks I am able to get.

I've also been spending a lot of time on my SoulVille. Yep, I'm cruising around in mega style on a 20" SoulVille from our demo fleet from Vegas. It's a pre-production bike, so the fender rubs the tire in the rear, the fork axle-to-crown height is short and the virtual top tube length is too short so I get toe overlap on the fender. Still, even though it is a little small for me, it is a dream to ride. Once the final version is done, it'll danged-near perfect. You folks will LOVE this bike when it finally arrives- most likely in late December or early January. I'm actually going to be playing around with this bike quite a bit. I'm planning to load it with a rack and baskets.. more on that later... and will be testing the platform for a true utility bike. More to follow on that, so stay tuned. I'll also have photos soon too. I may remove the fenders and do some other mods, so it won't likely look like the catalog bike... at all.

Ok, time to get ready for my nephew's christening. It's raining here today, so like a true SoCal resident, I'm not out riding. Hey, it only rains twice a year here... so why bother?

Tim
(Let's see if the BSNYC comes by to rip my bike apart... go easy- I'm delicate.)

Are we there yet?

Is it Vegas yet? Lord, merciful Jeebus... we finished building the booth for the show today. It got crated and put on a semi today, so it is officially out of our hair until we get to Sin City in a few days.

(Totally OSHA approved...)

Oh yeah, and this morning, before the sun came up- in all my spare time- I finally jumped back in on an episode of the Spokesmen Podcast. It was great to join the crew again... and also reminded me how I've been absent from the world of blogging and podcasting for far too long- not to mention actually riding a bike (it's been way more than a week since I've been on a bike). Anyway, it was a great show so go give it a listen.

Ok... good night... I'm beat to hell and need some sleep.

Tim

Another late night...

Still at work and will be for hours...

... for the record, I hate PowerPoint and Excel with the white hot intensity of a thousand burning suns!


Tim

Update- As Al points out... I'm a whiner. The two benefits to working late/ after hours; 1) no phones ringing and no emergencies and B) I get to drink a beer at my desk while I try to dislodge some creativity.

Thanks for the reminder Al!

What a day...

Today was one of those 12 hour days that just seemed to drag on forever. 8:00AM to 8:00PM in the office...

... and I'm really tired. I know, I know, I know... a) I'm doing what I love, 2) tons of people work long days too. I know. I'm a whiner.

In the end, it should be worth it. The new (newerest?) bikes are going to be sweet! Lots of cool new stuff happening with the products. Today, one of my many complicated tasks, I delivered 7 frames and forks to local bike painting gurus CyclArt (thank you Jim and Susan!). They are going to paint my pre-production samples so I can have them in time for our National Sales Meeting and for Interbike. Without their help, it might not be possible to pull of what I'm trying to pull off... not that I can tell you yet.

(Photo- Pete Demos; you can see this one since I've already shown it to you anyway.)

So, yeah... I'm cooked. Very, very cooked. AND... I still have a ton of work to do before the Sales Meeting and Interbike... and I have a week in Germany in the middle of the two. Yeah! (I know, I'm whining again...)

Tim

Yeah, I'm still here...

So the whole #1 thing was short lived, as I knew it would be. Technorati finally "fixed the glitch" and now I'm back to being about as big as a freckle on a gnat's ass. I'm now back to being ranked number 18, 285... but who's counting?

Things at Masi Global World Domination Headquarters are in full-blown warp factor 9 mode right now. Our National Sales Meeting is on our heels now... like just two weeks away. This means I have to get my act together, both figuratively and literally. Lots and lots of work goes into this meeting and it really does set the tone for the remainder of the year heading into the tradeshows and then into the rest of the year. It's kind of a big deal... ok, it's a huge deal. So, there's no pressure at all... nope, not even a little. CRAP!

The good news is that there are so many exciting and cool things to talk about this year that my usual excitement and passion is going to easily get kicked up a notch or two without even trying. I know that for as long as I've been blogging here, I've been saying that the new products coming out are going to be great... but those words feel like such an understatement now. Seriously folks, I've never been more excited (and even a little scared) about any other project I've worked on with a company. The new bikes, the new looks and new product categories are going to really impress. I know that I am way beyond the usual level of excited and anxious. I am confident though, that it will show in the products that all of you will get to see more of in the coming weeks and months.

It's an exciting time to be a Masi fan. My product manager that I work with, Waynebow- AKA Wayne Doran, and I have been busting some serious butt to make these new bikes happen. We've even enlisted the help of Pat "What's that Smell" Crosby for some frame drawing assistance. Pat works with Jill Hamilton, our MTB Brand Manager over on the Haro side of the building. All of this points to the massive amount of teamwork needed to make a bike line happen.

So with all that is cooking right now, well more like boiling, the posting here may get a little spotty again. Fear not, I will be back. Then I have to leave for Germany and Eurobike at the end of the month. Then I have to get ready for Interbike in Vegas at the end of September. Then I think I may be headed back to Taiwan. Then... a nap... I hope.

Tim

Back from The Otter...

I'm back from The Otter.

Unearthing myself from hundreds of emails, etc.

Will post lots of pictures and stories very soon- promise.


Tim

Some of the reasons why my head hurts.

The blogging has been taking a hit around here for a long time (too long really). Between health, travel and other issues, it has been really difficult to get back into a rhythm. It hasn't been a conscious decision, just a matter of division of labor.

There are a lot of different issues that have been consuming my time (some that I won't cover here), but one of the biggest right now is wrapping up all of the bikes for the next series of product. For the record- I am very, very excited about these bikes and the new models that will be coming out. Ooh, wait... did I say new models? Forget I said that. No... really. There are some really, really cool things on the horizon and I am really confident that you will be really happy with these bikes. I feel pretty confident about that statement, given the success of the new models introduced recently like the Speciale Fixed, Coltello, Coltello Aero and CXR. Things are only getting better... trust me on this.

The thing is, all of these new bikes (I didn't say that), require a lot of work to create. From the very mundane detail of selecting a color to the much more rigorous task of determining the target retail price and the needed parts/ features. It's such a difficult process, for a new product or product category, but it is also very rewarding. Let me tell you, working on the models listed above was a labor of love, but when the bikes showed up and they started selling... my heart skipped a few beats. The bikes I'm working on now are every bit as exciting to me and I am pretty sure that you will like them too. I'm pretty lucky to be working with my new Product Manager, Wayne Doran- you may remember Wayne as our former QC Manager. Now he's a full time nuts-n-bolts guy and works with me to make Masi the coolest road brand around.

Here you see Wayne inspecting the structural integrity of a Taiwan beer pyramid. He's very detail oriented.

The point is, it really is a huge process, even for a very small company like Masi, to bring a bike to market. Again though, it's worth every single moment spent sweating the details. Especially when the feedback starts rolling in and folks utter those first "wow" comments.

On top of all the product stuff, lots of travel is on the horizon. Just got back from Taiwan at the end of January and now I am heading to Washington DC for the National Bike Summit next week and then it is back to Taiwan for the Taipei Cycle Show and then Sea Otter in April... so it's a busy time. The travel is great fun, but also a lot of work. Sure, I get to do what I love doing for a living... but I also have to do the run around stuff and spend a lot of time away from home and the office. When I'm gone, especially when there is such a time difference, work gets done at a much slower pace. Since I have a lot of work to do... that kind of becomes an issue. However, I'm not complaining because I realize that I am lucky to have a job I enjoy so much. I know there are a lot of people waiting for me to get fired so they can take over when I am gone (give up already).

Ok, my eyes are crossing because I am really tired, so I'm going to bed.

Here are a few bonus items for this evening:
1) Finally got back in on the Spokesmen Podcast- episode #13 is now up for your listening pleasure. (I need to learn to shut up.)

2) My friend, Skinny, conducted a little informal interview with me. It's fun, so give it a read. Maybe it's scary... maybe it's not. I'll let you decide for yourselves. I'll be paying him back with a little interview over here soon too... that'll teach him a lesson.

Good night!

Tim