Highlights of the day...

Highlights of my day;

1) I ate an enormously gigantic burrito for lunch today. I mean, this thing needed two hands to be lifted and was made with two tortillas. I think I may have scared my coworkers and the two fine folks from our Canadian distributor by eating the entire thing. I haven't eaten dinner because of this thing... it's a gamechanger.


2) I put the baby's bassinet together tonight. Nothing really drives home the fact you are about to have a child in your home quite like the stacks of baby stuff and a bassinet. Well, maybe the fact that my poor 5' tall wife looks like she swallowed a VW Beetle. But outside of that...


I rode for 4 days in a row and now have not ridden for 2. Tomorrow I will ride at lunch again and I am hoping that I will be back on the road to riding as much as time and family will allow.

The ticking baby bomb that is my wife is doing great- she's still swimming and still very active, but she's really getting tired of being pregnant. Can't say I blame her- looking at her HUGE belly, I can totally understand.


It's been almost 9 hours since I ate that burrito log and I am still suffering from a food coma, so I'm calling it quits for today.

Tim
(Try to make beter food choices than I did today... ugh...)

It's hard to find a title for this.

I feel like a real blogging jerk lately- I've been all but invisible as of late. Things have remained so spastic and furiously busy with work that I have so very little mental operating capacity left for updating the blog regularly. Twitter has truly been my "outlet" for months now, it seems. I swear upon my steel track bike that I am going to get back into the swing of this blogging thing... promise.

Last week was a real stink bomb in many ways. Lots of stress and endless crap just kept rolling in, not the least of which being another series of car issues. A long time acquaintance passed away and I heard the news mid-week and it really struck home. The week finished a little better than it started, but I was pretty much on empty by the time Saturday finally arrived.

Saturday morning, I rode the 40 miles to work (since the car is once again in the shop) so that I could present the new line of bikes to two of our Texas sales reps- Jeremy Meulman and Tyler Russell. The sub-2hr ride was broken up with a 1hr 45min presentation of the bikes and then another 2 hr ride directly to the velodrome for the memorial services for Randy Clark.

The ride was great, both ways, and my legs and body held up to the 80 miles a lot better than I thought they would- though I did have some significant cramping in my right calf on the trip back. Aside from the cramping and the overall stiffness that comes from not riding big miles regularly enough anymore, I was very happy with how I rode and how the bike performed (3VC carbon with new 6700 Ultegra and full Ritchey parts package... details, review and pics to follow soon). It felt good to be in the saddle that long- even with a break- and not feel totally destroyed.

I got to the track for the memorial and was so happy to see so many people there to celebrate in the life of Randy Clark and share their very moving memories of the man. Like I said before, Randy and I knew a lot of the same people and spent a lot of time in the same circles, but we didn't know each other that well and weren't "best friends". But we bumped into each other a good bit and I always thought he was a good guy. Little did I know what an exceptional man he was until the memorial services. I was touched beyond words by the show of emotion and the amazing recollections of his unselfish giving and kindness. I am now quite sure that I missed out getting to know an amazing man with a passion for life and cycling. I know I feel cheated now by his cancer, though not nearly as much as his true friends and family. Seeing so many tears and so many hugs among friends truly showcased what a great man he was and what a legacy he leaves behind in the memories of all who loved him.

Today, my wife and daughter and I all walked to Balboa Park to see the finish of today's America's Finest City half marathon- my step-father and brother-in-law both ran it. For the record, they are both better men than me because I could maybe run a block before falling to my knees to vomit. Both of them finished the challenging course in less than 2 hours. Needless to say, we were all proud of them. My mother, sister and nephew were all there as well to offer support. The walk itself was a nice way to start the morning and we enjoyed some time playing at the park along the way home as well.

My daughter left early this evening to be with her mother this week, so my goofy little ray of light and love is gone for a bit. So now it's just me and "the wife"... which ain't so bad. Tonight I made crawdads and jambalaya for a nice Southern meal for my Taiwanese wife. She liked it and I think she might keep me a little longer now... I hope. Afterwards, spurred on by the nostalgia of my Southern home, we looked at a bunch of pictures of my life growing up in Alabama and I shared stories of fishing trips and eating my way through "Nawlins". It's actually made for a nicely pleasant evening.

Sometimes life throws countless curve balls at us. I admit that batting was never my specialty. I had a great arm as a kid playing baseball- I could throw to home with either 1 or no bounce from deep center and when I held my control I had a great pitching arm (but that control thing was never good for long). But I was never a great hitter. Life sometimes gets those curve balls across the plate while I'm still trying to catch my breath and concentrate on the ball. Randy's memorial yesterday was another one of those reminders that sometimes a base hit is as good as a home run. Randy was a good man who gave to others without expectations of receiving anything in return- he gave because he liked to help and he liked to give. He was richer for giving, as much as the receiver was richer for the gift. I want to remember to enjoy more and worry less.

Monday morning brings the return of work and stress and being busy. Somewhere in between, I plan to remember to breathe, relax and enjoy something... I hope you all do too.

Tim

A bit of randomness...

There are so many things crammed in my head these days as we do a lot of strategic planning for the new year and huddle to assess the economy and the possible impacts of it- good and bad. It's also time to start that catalog process again, as well as begin thinking about the Taipei trade show in March- on my birthday this year. We've also been looking at planning of the timed release of the new 2010 bikes- which will be awesome- before we've even gotten the bulk of the currently new 2009 bikes! It's insanity at its finest.

But... today, for the first time in nearly 3 months, I went for a ride during my lunch break. I've been on my road bike about 5 times in the past 3 months! Work and travel, and being daddy, have kept me off of my bike for a very long time. It's sad to say that I am well enough to ride and have not had any time or energy to actually do it. Needless to say, my fat, outta shape arse was suffering just to do a short 45 minute ride. I was breathing hard and standing to get slowly over short rises I normally spin seated over. It was humbling, but energizing. The day was beautiful and it only took a few seconds to remember why it is that I love to ride bikes. I'm SOOOOO far from being in any other kind of shape than "round", but the short, simple ride had me itching to get back into real shape so I can race again. It's just in my blood- which is no longer full of thinners, by the way- and is something I sincerely love to do. So hopefully a slower schedule will allow me the chance to get on the bike enough to be able to consider racing again by the end of the summer. It's a longshot, but it's my new goal... that and losing at least 20 pounds!

Some friends of mine and I were having a little discussion recently about messy desks, so here is my submission for review;

It's been much worse in the past, but this is pretty bad just the same. Now that the new year is upon us, it's time to roll a dumpster over to my desk and start getting rid of things. Painfully sad, but true.

One of the cooler things about my job is the people I have gotten to meet and get to know. Yesterday I got a little package from my friend Nick in San Francisco (formerly of San Diego);

I already know that I look like I swallowed a whale...

Nick is now a full-blown cross junky living in the Bay Area and racing for the cool Crossniacs team. Nick knows that I like cool t-shirts. Nick knows a cool t-shirt when he sees one. Now I have that cool t-shirt. That's cool! (Thanks Nick!)

Tomorrow is another day of trying to consolidate my power so that I can take over the free world... I mean... so we can better develop and provide you with the best bikes ever made!

Now it is time to sleep.

Tim

Little things...

I'm thankful for lots of things, but my kids are the biggest thing I am thankful for.


My dinner date tonight... they made my day, for sure.


My co-pilot on my drive to work yesterday; meet Li-li (pronounced "lie-lie"). I don't know about you, but I felt safer.

I guess I'm actually pretty thankful for potato chips too, especially ones with my name on the bag.

Tim

That was good...

Today was the catalog photoshoot to get some good lifestyle/ image photos with a new bike in the line. The model was one of my very good friends and it went really well. I am very happy with how the photos came out and look forward to seeing one in the catalog... which is due to the printer ASAP.

Pete Demos and I headed out of the office and into downtown a little early, around 3:00, so we could get to our spot and scope out a few places and use the good daylight. Paul joined us downtown and we set up and shot in a couple different spots and got some really great pictures. It was put together, as always, at the last second, but the end result was really great. Somehow, Pete always manages to get "the" shot. Never fails.

Once I am able to get the pitcures off the camera and uploaded (I am at folks house for the week), I will share a few of my "behind the scenes" shots.

Tomorrow is my visit to the ortho. I am praying I get the pin out of my thumb and that the x-rays of my knee and elbow look good. I have to get x-rays of my neck done as well, for the neurologist, so I'll be glowing in the dark when I'm done. But hopefully glowing without a pin. Think I'm gonna save the pin- maye make a necklace pendant out of it or something else cool... dunno yet. More than anything- hoping to get the ok to remove the knee brace and begin riding my trainer to start rehab'ing the knee... a boy can dream, right?

More soon... including some Tour prognostications.

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

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

Ramblin' man...

Here are some of the many (many) random thoughts passing through my bike nerd brain this evening-

1. The past two nights I've ridden my trainer in the driveway. I have my daughter this week, so I have a shorter day at work (due to drop-off and pick-up duties)- which means I don't have time to ride at lunch. So once the Princess is sound asleep, I slip into my lycra silly suit and hop onto the trainer. I didn't ride at all on Monday, since I allowed my legs an extra day to recover from racing on Sunday. Last night and tonight though, I've logged quality time on the trainer and the legs are actually feeling really phenomenal. Now, that doesn't mean I'm race ready, it just means that they are coming around. I've been finishing the workouts with some small gear spinning and my legs are flying and my upper body is nice and smooth. I can't remember the last time my legs have felt this supple. It has to be the bike! (BUY A MASI!)
2. I finished building Frankenbike today. This is the one with the new SRAM Double Tap flat bar road shifters. So far, in the stand and riding around our parking lot, the shifters feel buttery smooth and light. I brought the bike home so I can use it as one of my run around bikes. I'll have pictures and more of a report as soon as I have the chance to get a couple rides on it... but so far it's LOADS of fun.
   
3. Speaking of run around bikes... I've been playing with my SoulVille prototype. As I've mentioned before, I'm looking to do some cool things with the SoulVille frame platform and I've been having fun with the one I have. More pictures of that to follow too... I promise.
4. The whole T-Mobile thing... can't say I didn't see that one coming. Bob Stapleton is a quality guy, but even he couldn't save the team from losing major sponsors with all of the controversies that rocked the team this year.
5. Bruyneel with Astana, along with Trek? Well, I guess it makes sense. Looks like Discovery part Deux to me. Should be interesting to see which Astana riders stay and which ones go. Can't imagine that Kloden will stay. Looks like Leipheimer and Contador will be the center of the team with Bruyneel simply changing team uniforms. Wonder if Lance will be at the training camp this year...
   
6. Slipstream/ Chipotle is going to be a lot of fun to watch. I rode in a cab from my hotel in Vegas to the Criterium Championships with the sponsor honcho of the team. I've got his card somewhere, so I apologize for not remembering his name. Anyway, he was a very nice guy and we had a very cool conversation on the way to the race. The team is going to be a force to deal with and I applaud Vaughters for his dedication to his drug-free program and very transparent testing procedures. I really hope the team does well.
7. Speaking of teams... MY team is going to kick arse again next year. I can't say anything before it is time, but the team is looking really, really good for next year. Expect to see more of them on podiums all over the place. I'm practically giddy. Hopefully, I'll make it back to the team's training camp in February in Macon, GA. I heard that the camp last year, although rainy, was really great. I was at camp two years ago and it was really great to see the team come together, so I hope to get in the mix again. Besides, Chad and I have to finally resolve this debate over who is the better sprinter. (Deep down inside, I know he knows the answer...)
8. I haven't even received some of my Fall '07 products yet and I am in the midst of preparing to write my Spring '08 catalog. The Spring '08 products are done being developed and we're now just waiting to pull the trigger on them. Now I have to come up with the colors and model names and final spec for the Fall '08 bikes. My Product Manager, Wayne Doran, and I are both going slightly insane with the process. The twice a year product release is a process I believe in, but it creates two condensed product cycles in one year... and two catalogs. This first year of doing this will be the most difficult. After this it gets easier... we all hope.
   
9. January 5th I head back to Taiwan. Again. I'm thinking maybe it's time to get an apartment there and start a second family...
   
10. We recently got the new and upgraded version of Microsoft Office and Outlook at the office. But for some reason, I think because of the built in spam filter, I am not receiving comments from here on the blog. I apologize if there is a delay in getting back to your inquiries. I'm trying to figure it out... I promise.
    

Ok, that's all the news that's fit to report for one night.

Tim

Random is me...

Warning; Whine about to begin...

So, yes, I've been "hella" busy for as long as I can remember. I was trying to do more posting with substance and whatnot, but it's been damned hard. Things in the office are so busy that posting from work has become totally impossible. For about a year now, it seems, I've been saying "things are really busy"... well, I guess "busy" now has a new definition.

The good news to all of this, is that there are a lot of really cool things happening. The future of Masi and the product is really exciting. I won't give everything away right now, but there are cool products coming that I am more than a little confident you will dig... a lot... and some stuff that you wouldn't exactly expect from Masi (in a good way). Suffice it to say, I'm damned weary, but also damned excited.

Here are a couple things I can share with you right now... the Speciale Fixed;

Now there will be two colors of the bike that has been a runaway hit this year- Orange (like the current model, but with the decal colors reversed) and the all-new Shamrock green (a gorgeous green that has a gold metal flake base coat). Both bikes will now come with a new steel fork that uses a lugged flat crown and lugged dropouts. It's a really beautiful fork. Please keep in mind that images are just for color and decal approval, so this isn't the exact bike you'll see on the floor... but it's darned close. For example, the Shamrock Green has a beige/ creme colored fill in the large panels and the bar tape is a really cool marbled brown that looks like a cross between wood grain and cork... it's really nice looking. The actual bikes, like the current version, will not have a sloping top tube like these images. Other than that... man are they gonna be pretty...

Since I'm in a giving mood, I'll share one more with you, to keep you salivating...

Here's the next version of the Coltello track racing frameset. This sideview does NO justice to the actual paint- trust me, I got the tube sample today... this is going to be another truly beautiful frame (yes, Squirrel, I know you want one when they come in). On the framset front... the CXR cross bike will actually be available as a frameset and the 3VC carbon frame will be available in a super cool Team Issue version with special graphics... so sexy it'll make you cry. I promise.

Speaking of the team... I've been a terrible cheerleader. On May 25th, Rich Harper of the A&F team rode a stellar race at the Raleigh Downtown Crit.

Stolen from CyclingNews.com- photo by Robert Harvey (the team bought the rights to this... I hope...)

This was another NRC event packed with all-star US pro riders. Rich worked his ass off and got into the winning break that lapped the field and held on for third place (his first podium appearance in an NRC event) in front of his friends and family in his hometown. "Harpoon" is a certifiable nut... I mean, he's got papers to prove it, I'm sure. That said, he's one of my favorite riders on the team, even if he is a time trialist trying to pass himself off as a real sprinter (HA!).

Much to my disappointment, he got rid of the hair...

Not only did Rich rock the team kit, but at the podium interview, he even gave a big thanks to Masi. He also managed to lay down the law; the interviewer made a comment roughly to the effect that the team was the dominant amateur team of the year and he quickly corrected him with, "who you callin' amateur?" I love this wacko.

On top of that, Mark Hekman, winner of Athens Twilight and the Southeast Crit Series overall, has continued to ride strongly and still occupies the #1 bib number in the NRC series. Mark is riding strong with the excellent support of the team and they are truly proving their worth in the races along with all of the "pro" teams. These guys are riding with such amazing heart, it makes me proud to be associated with racing again. With all the dope in the peloton, it's great to see these guys racing clean and winning with heart, passion and straight up determination. Keep an eye on these guys as they keep racking up the wins and continue to be dominant.

Nice work guys!

Ok, now I have to get back to staring at spreadsheets and writing a new catalog. Joy of joys...

Tim