More Video from Sales Meeting.

Here's a snippet of a discussion on fixed gear bikes. (This is a lower quality version of the file- so let me know what the image quality is like... and yes, I know the sound quality is not all that stupendous.)



Tim

Fall Sales Meeting- SoulVille Introduction

A little video fun for you from our National Sales Meeting. Here I am speaking a little about our SoulVille series of bikes.



Tim

Yes, I'm that busy...

Yes, with all that has been going into preparing for our sales meeting this week, I've been floored with work that has left it nearly impossible for me to blog very much. It sucks too because the tour has been pretty cool the past few days.

Sastre wins today and CSC has the Schleck brothers flogging Evans as well. I sure wish that Cadel would've tried some aggression this year. If he loses this Tour it will be for two reasons alone; 1) Silence-Lotto does not have the team to support a GC contender and B) he has gifted the race to Sastre, or whoever wins, by riding too conservatively. Christain Vande Velde is one of my new favorite riders too. He's exceeded ALL of my expectations of him and has surprised many by how well he has done. Garmin-Chipotle has to be applauded for the performance of the team. They've done a stellar job- nobody can doubt their legitimacy.

Sales Meeting begins officially tomorrow night with the opening ceremonies and dinner. It'll be great to get started and move on to the part of the job I really love the most- talking about the bikes! We run through Saturday and then I get Sunday off to relax and HOPEFULLY try to ride a bike again. The PowerPoint presentation is done and I am stopping myself from making any more changes to it... I have to stop!

I had the punkin until this morning when I took her to Y-Camp. I already miss her.


As I've said before- she's my buddy.

Posting may or may not happen over the next few days. I have been trying to set up my camera phone to work with Blogger, but so far it is not working. I'll keep trying because it would be great to be able to do quick posts from the meetings. I am also going to try to get video of my presentation/s... so keep an eye out for that too.

Ok... tomorrow is a LONG day, so it's time for bed.

Tim

Busy...

Super busy...

Tim

Tour de France- It's a race

Suddenly the Tour is looking like a race. It would be unfair to say that Evans cracked as he lost the yellow to CSC's Frank Schleck, but he did at least have that dreaded "bad day" in the mountains that tend to define most Tours.

Simon Gerrans, the young Aussie on Credit Agricole, won the stage today after spending nearly the entire day in a small four-man break that also had Garmin-Chipotle's Danny Pate. Pate rode an incredible Giro as well, so his Tour performance is even more impressive for a rider who had never ridden a Grand Tour before. He finished the day in third place behind the impressive and deserving Gerrans and made the sponsors proud- I hope. Christian Vande Velde also rode very well today, slipping a few spots down to 5th overall (:39 down overall) and 10th on the stage- 3 spots ahead of Evans.

The climbs into Italy today were impressive and the break rode valiantly to stay away to the finish line as the GC battle raged on the slopes below them. Evans was isolated and surrounded by 3 CSC riders- all punishing Evans at every chance. Silence-Lotto left their leader vulnerable and in trouble today, proving the concerns that many have had for Evans. Not being a dominating rider himself, he needs a strong team to support him and Silence-Lotto proved today to not be that team. I'm sure the conversations on the team bus were less than joyous. However, now the pressure to defend yellow is on the shoulders of CSC and maybe now Evans can enjoy the view from behind their train for a bit. None of the three CSC riders can really TT very well and Evans has beaten each of the three handily in TT's before. This is far from a done deal and Evans can still think of yellow in Paris. But he's got competition and will certainly have to fight for it. Conveniently, Garmin-Chipotle is looking very good for a podium at least with Vande Velde, if he stays strong in the coming mountains. He is the superior TT rider of the main contenders at this point and looks very good so far. Could he even be a possible yellow jersey wearer by Paris?

Tomorrow is the 2nd and last rest day for the riders and I am sure there are some tired and thankful legs. Tuesday is another day of big climbs with two huge Haute Categorie climbs to deal with. Thankfully, for the GC contenders, the finish is after a 24km descent that should allow for some regrouping of the favorites... but those high speed descents have "put paid" to many a Tour. If it is once again wet and slippery, the real drama of the day could come on the treacherous descents- just ask Oscar Pereiro who crashed out of the race today after going over a guard rail and down the embankment to the road below.

Here's to an exciting (and drug free) day tomorrow!

Tim

Stuff and whatnot and etcera...

"What a week!" How many times have you read those words here? Countless times, I know.

Last night I had my MRI of my right knee, so hopefully in a few days I'll get good news from my orthopedist. The knee is still pretty swollen and I can not straighten the leg fully yet. It still hurts too, but then again- I have a double fracture... so, ya know. Getting the pin out of my thumb on Monday was a highlight for sure. Dr. Perlman was awesome and I am lucky that I have been able to work with some great doctors- even if the process and system has left me feeling gutted at times by the unending red tape and setbacks. The doctors and nurses have been fantastic though and I DO feel lucky to work with them. My new physical therapist for my thumb/ elbow is awesome too. Throughout this whole dreadful process, I've tried to hold onto and remember my blessings.

Yesterday, was an accidentally monumental day for me; I walked into the R&D area of our workshop/ warehouse and walked past the new personal fixed gear "creation" of our creative director, Pete Demos. As I walked by, out of morbid curiosity, I pulled the bike from the rack, tossed a leg over the top tube and rode it around the work area for a couple minutes to get a feel for his concept. I rode it! I rode a bike for the first time since April 29th when I crashed. It felt heavenly when I realized what I had just done. It was honestly about a minute or two after I got rolling before I realized what I was doing- I was feeling so "normal" that I simply followed my usual ingrained instincts and hopped on the bike. Sincerely, after I had the realization, I nearly cried. It sounds so stupid, but it was overpowering to be ON a bike. I rode for only 2-3 minutes, but it didn't hurt at all. I could grip the bars, I could stand up and I could fully pedal without pain. It was a momentarily euphoric event. People- let me reinforce the belief that little things in life really do matter. It was a far cry from a training ride, but it was a ride on a bike... and I hadn't had one in a long time.

Speaking of Pete's bike...

For obvious reasons, it's called The Skittles Bike. It hurts my eyes to look at it... but I admit that "there's an ass for every seat" in this world. Pete is asking for comments and thoughts about his bike... so let him have it!

Oscar Freire won today's Tour stage. Oscar is one of my favorite riders (God I hope he's clean) and it makes me happy to see him win in the green jersey. He's always shown great class as a rider and sprinter. I surely wouldn't mind seeing him finish the Tour in green. Tomorrow's stage will be a real test for the remaining GC riders. Finishing on a climb into Italy, it should make for a very interesting day. Should make for great racing drama.

Next week is our National Sales Meeting again. Posting will be hit-n-miss, but I'm going to try to post as much as possible... amybe even from the sales meeting itself. You just NEVER know with me...

Tim

Tour de France

I love the sport of cycling and I love the Tour de France. Mark Cavendish is one helluva sprinter- even McEwen says, he's "just too strong." That's saying a lot, considering the source. He's dominating the sprints in the way Cippolini once did.

But, the real dominator of this Tour is once again the drug scandals. It really sucks too. I am not so naive that I believed nobody would be doping at this Tour, but I hoped that it wouldn't be this bad and that it would only be riders that were clinging on for hope- the domestiques who slave away on the roads all day for their team leaders. Those drug cases seem to fade away from the press quicker since they are less sensational. But deep in my heart, I hoped nobody was doping... knowing that was foolish all along. It is a pathetic situation at the Tour, again. I still love the racing and I'm still reading the results and catching little bits of the coverage on TV... but it feels a lot like last year all over again. A little too much so. I'm not giving up, but I'm admittedly a little jaded.

The Tour rolls on towards Paris with Cadel still in yellow. Plenty of excitement still lies ahead. Maybe Evans will go down in the history books as the first Australian winner of the Tour. One thing is sure though- the peloton has gotten a little thinner because of riders taking stupid risks or just not caring about their fellow riders (or their teams) and the sport.

I'll be watching to see who gets crowned as winner this year and I'll be hoping (against hope) that nobody else is dumb enough to try and cheat. But even if they do and they (hopefully) get caught, I'm still in love with the sport. Kinda like me, it's battered and bruised but not broken.

Tim

Random bits and Tour stuff...

Sorry I've been gone the past few days, but I've had lots of decent excuses. It's been a busy week... even busier than all the other busy weeks I've been complaining about.

Monday was a big day for me; the PIN came out of the right thumb! It's out and the bone looks good and like it is healing well. Today I had my first session of physical therapy specifically for the thumb and the elbow. Things are looking better, little by little. I am now 100% hardware free and it feels pretty good. I was supposed to have an MRI on the right knee tonight as well, but somebody apparently didn't tell the MRI office and I ended up wasting my time waiting for an appointment that wasn't.

The tools of medieval torture... and pin removal.

Nervousness kicking in...

UGH... that's an ugly image, but the bone looks good.

Pin free- yep, that's a hole in the end of my thumb!

That's a big pin!

The Tour de France continues. Another rider has been tossed out of the race for a "non-negative" test result. The teams of the ProTour have decided to leave the ProTour and will not be renewing their ProTour licenses with the UCI next year. ASO is now worked up in a lather over their self-importance. The doping lab behind the tests this year is the same lab (AFLD) that mishandled the Floyd Landis tests and was chastised by the CAS for their shoddy procedural record. L'Equippe has been instantly leaked the results of the failed tests seconds after the tests are done and before the teams even know. The power-brokers of the sport continue to make cycling look like a minor three-ring circus- the kind that drives around in a beat-up old van with fake wood panel sides and 4 bald tires. It's a farce. Maybe the teams pulling out of the ProTour will for the UCI to try to work better with all the other parties involved. ASO needs to grow up as well before they help to kill the sport for good. The dopes in the sport need to be driven out on a rail and never allowed to return. I really like guys like David Millar and others who have seamlessly returned to racing, but being able to return to the sport means there is less strength behind enforcement of the rules- which ever rules we end up trying to defend and enforce. This has been a great race so far and I am really excited to Evans in yellow, as he is a great bloke by all accounts, even if he doesn't like the press very much. All of the drama surrounding the race is sucking the joy out of the experience for me. Once again, it is the circus and the dopers that are grabbing headlines and not the riders on their bikes. It's another year of having to defend cycling to my non-cycling friends and family. To say it makes me angry is an understatement. I look forward to the day when we simply talk about the riders and their bikes... that'll be a great moment.

An old friend and former co-worker of mine, John Holderness, is the man behind a cool new cycling social media site called CyclingNutz.com. I'm a cyclist and a social media geek... so I took a look through the site and it's pretty damned cool, so I suggest you give it a look. Adding to the Six Degrees of Masiguy, the photos scrolling through the header are by one of my former Excel Sports Boulder teammates- Mark Johnson/ Ironstring. Join me in welcoming John's site to the family (and in singing a verse of "It's a Small World After All..."). Seriously, go check it out... it's cool... I promise.

Speaking of cool and speaking of speaking... the latest Spokesmen Podcast is up and ready for your listening enthrallment.

The new Masi Fall 08/09 catalog is now done! All the hard work has paid off the create what I can unequivocally say is our best catalog to date. It's a beautiful catalog, the bikes look great, the photography is excellent... the only weak link is the copy I wrote. But the bikes are pretty.

Next week is out National Sales Meeting, so I'll be in and out of the online world again/ as usual. Posting might be sparse again... ok... WILL be sparse again. But I promise I'll get pictures and I'll do my best to post and get more Tour coverage for you too.

Ok... my eyes are crossing, so I'm heading to bed.

Tim

Non-Tour post

Lots more than the Tour has been happening lately, but the Tour posts have been eating up the little blogging time I can find.

So, as a little recap...

I am now off the crutches, out of the knee brace and out of the neck brace. The pin is coming out of my thumb on Monday. I am having an MRI on the knee on Wednesday, as well as starting hand physical therapy. My blood levels have been good with the Coumadin too. Basically... I'm making progress. I didn't get the chance today, but tomorrow I hope to finally go back to the gym and test my knee on a stationary trainer and see how much it can handle before I begin riding my trainer here at home. I can not begin to tell you how good it feels to get a little of my life back. I also have to thank all of you for your support and well wishes- it is no exaggeration to say that it has been a part of my recovery.

This afternoon, Masidaughter and I walked together to get lunch for the first time since the crash. I walked... without crutches or a knee brace. It was heavenly! It is amazing how great something so small can feel.


On this past Tuesday, she and I also went down to the velodrome and said thanks to MANY people who had been so fantastic when I crashed, and since then as well. It was hard, I admit, to keep from losing it. More than once I was told how frightened people were for me and how scared people had been by my crash. Even people in the stands watching the racing seemed to know who I was- "that's the guy who crashed really hard". I left a mark on the track too- bending a steel post and cracking a sheet of plywood. BUT... aside from a dent in the top tube from the handlebars and slight hop in the rear wheel, the bike looks straight and still rideable. WOO-HOO! I love that frameset, so I'm happy to be able to keep it around. One friend suggested I get a band-aid painted over the dent with the date of the crash (4/29) and I have to admit that I love that idea. Oh yeah... the Deda steel sprint bars are pretty bent on the right side too- they're a little wider and have a little "flare" to them now. Masidaughter was happy to be at the track and did not want to leave- she was getting lots of attention and praise for her bravery the night of the crash. She also found a few other children to play with, so she was on a cloud! All in all, it was a really great night. A few people I really wanted to see were not there, so I will be trying to get to the track this coming Tuesday so I can complete my thank you tour.

On Friday, minus some last little tweaks still to be done, we wrapped up the new fall catalog. I can honestly say that it is the best one we've done yet. I am very proud of the work that has gone into the catalog (outside of the copy I wrote- worst writer's block of my life). Pete Demos, Rick Ortiz and Wayne Doran did some incredible work to make the catalog happen. It's a great one... and I'm already fired up for the next one.

Earlier in the week, the VeloNews with my "At the Back" contribution came out. I can not tell you how proud I am to have something printed in VeloNews. I always dreamed as a rider that I would one day be on the cover of VeloNews, but life was cruel and I found out that being a pro was not going to happen. Later, as a writer and cycling enthusiast, I wanted to write for VeloNews. To get the chance to be a contributor is something else. If you haven't seen the mag, here's the David Brinton illustration;
That might just be my next tattoo!

Needless to say, though the Tour has been dominating the space here... there's been a lot more going on lately. It's good to be alive- that much I can tell you for sure.

Tim

Tour de France- Stage 8

Well, today was about what I expected to see; a break rolled off during the first half of the transitional stage through the mountains and then was caught just before the line, as the sprinter's teams wanted another shot at a sprint win.

To that end, Mark Cavendish notched win number two of this Tour and was followed directly by his teammate Gerard (Gerald?) Ciolek. Team Boring Kit is proving to be one helluva team this Tour. Cavendish is easily the best sprinter so far and Columbia has shown great depth and strength. They are riding like a sprinter's team, so I am curious to see how they expect to protect the jersey in the mountains... and they are coming tomorrow. Third was Jimmy Casper- the French sprinter who just seems to keep on going year after year. Sadly, McEwen was in 17th and is just not showing his old form... and one has to wonder now if it just is not to be for him this year.

4th was Oscar Freire and 6th was Erik Zabel; it makes my heart glad to see the "old sprinters" still in the thick of things. As one friend has said- maybe the lack of dope is keeping them in the hunt this time. (I'm not going into the whole Beltran fiasco...)

One significant turn of events was a bad crash towards the end of the day, in a roundabout, with Riccardo Ricco. Ricco was slow to get up and spent some time with the race doctors, but managed to make it back to the field and finished on same time as the winner. However, any crash like that means soreness the next day and tomorrow would normally be a day perfect for Ricco. Will he be in too much pain to go on the expected attack?

Stage 9 is going to be very hard, with 7 categorized climbs, including two Category 1 climbs; the fabled Peyresourde and Col d'Aspin. These are epic climbs with great history and I can't wait to see what happens. Will the contenders simply sit on and mark each other? Will somebody attack and stamp their name on this race? Will Cadel Evans answer his critics who say he is too conservative and go on the attack himself? Will Cunego and/ or Ricco be recovered from their recent falls and try to make an impression on this race? Can Kirchen defend on real climbs? It should be very interesting to watch. Sylvain Chavanel had the KOM jersey, so I'd expect him to be on the attack early so he can get it back from David de la Fuente (Saunier-Duval). The one saving grace for some riders is that there is a 26km descent to the finish line and a regrouping is likely... but will it be enough for riders dropped off the back on the final climb?

Tomorrow should be a very interesting stage, indeed.

Tim