SOAR Blog

Nearly two months ago Bikes for Kids Utah hosted its first-ever omnium event with the University of Utah cycling team to raise money to get new bikes to kids and to support the U’s team. Both organizations did a ton to pull off the weekend-long event that included a criterium, hill climb time trial and road race. Bradlee Duncan, the U of U team race director, spearheaded and coordinated a good portion of the event, and helped make it a really successful fundraiser. Below are 10 of his tips for for race organizers, or, for racers 10 reasons to be nice to the race organizers and officials. It’s not as easy as it looks.

1. Sometimes people lose track of time and forget to do things, so build extra time into your plan.

2. Charge late registration fees, and make them expensive! Most of us are procrastinators and we need a little extra incentive to commit to a race in advance.

3. You can never have too many volunteers, so treat them nicely.

4. The officials are your best friends, the officials are your best friends, the officials are your best friends.

5. Government entities are slow and bureaucratic. You can’t start talking to them too early.

6. Have a specific registration game-plan, otherwise it’s chaos. Did you hear me? it. is. chaos.

7. People can be impatient, that’s why it’s so important to be patient.

8. Be patient.

9. Sometimes even Mother Nature loses track of time and gets things mixed up; be ready in case she sends warm, sunny weather in March and a few feet of light fluffy Utah powder in April.

10. Have fun!!!!!!!!! You’re doing something that fosters and grows the sport you love!

To read the press release about this event, click here.

Check out Bradlee’s blog too, TwoWheelPhotos.blogspot.com.

SOAR attended Utah’s first bike summit last weekend in Salt Lake City. It was a super encore to the first Salt Lake City Bike Summit in 2009, and an essential ingredient to helping our great state move up in the bike friendly rankings.

We met citizens, advocates, business owners, commuters and politicians passionate about making Utah a bike-friendly state. They gave insightful presentations with lots of important take-aways. Here are a few that stuck out to us:

Stop making excuses- Jeff Miller, the guest of honor and the president/CEO of the Alliance for Biking and Walking, summarized what he has learned about the evolution of bike culture around the world. It may seem like Europe has been bike friendly since the beginning of time, but it has taken generations of advocates and enthusiasts to put that culture into place. The United States can put the same system into place, but it’s going to take comparable effort.

Economic impact- Bike travel has a lot of economic implications for the states that support it. What a cool idea to ride your bike from city to city, stopping at campgrounds and communities that cater to cyclists. You think of the world in a whole new way when you consider exploring it by bike. I’m excited to see the day, as someone at the summit suggested, when we can leave our front doors in Salt Lake and tour the entire state of Utah, confident that there will be safe bike routes and bike-friendly cities along the way.

Addressing Salt Lake’s air quality doesn’t have to be a political matter- As Senator Wayne Niederhauser suggested at the summit, Salt Lake City has a horrendous air quality problem that needs to be addressed and fixed. Reducing carbon emissions has to become the non-partisan solution for improving Salt Lake’s air quality. On bad days, Salt Lake has some of the poorest air quality in the nation. One summit participant said the air quality is so bad that she is considering leaving Salt Lake after five years of bike commuting year round because the pollution has caused her asthma.

To read the Utah Bike Summit agenda, please click here.

Donate to the Utah Bicycle Coalition and donate to the cause of cycling.

There are 500 spots available for ambitious cyclists who want to take on the Ultimate Challenge, a course that the pro racers will ride just a few days later during the 2010 Larry H. Miller Tour of Utah.

The Ultimate Challenge, on August 14, 2010, is non-competitive ride, but to make it through you’ll need to start training hard. Thee course starts in Park City and ends at Snowbird, with technical climbs and descents. It’s no small feat for even the best cyclists. But a lot of aspiring pros cut their teeth on this course, knowing that it is comparable to many they’ll find abroad. If you’re looking for training goals, the Ultimate Challenge might be one for you to consider. Now seems like a great time to start too, with Utah snow melting away and consecutive days of temperatures higher than 60 degrees.

Recently the Tour of Utah president, Steve Miller, and executive director, Karen Weiss, appeared on Park City TV to talk about the upcoming Tour of Utah and the Ultimate Challenge. You can watch the YouTube clip here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CA3p8uxk-30

Registration is open for the Ultimate Challenge at tourofutah.com.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

SOAR Communications Announces Brand, Spankn’ New Hire

After nine months in the womb and kicking our co-worker, Crew Wesley Lansford joins the SOAR team

SALT LAKE CITY – March 11, 2010 – SOAR Communications is proud to announce that the newest member of its team, Crew Wesley Lansford, arrived Tuesday, March 9, 2010 at 3:30 p.m. He is the smallest among them, weighing in at 6 pounds 15 ounces, but brings to the group his the public relations skills he inherited from his mother, our Account Executive, Maura Lansford.

“We are so excited for the fresh perspective Crew will bring to our PR strategy,” said Chip Smith, SOAR Communications CEO. “We expect his cuteness will make it harder to focus during our staff meetings, but that he will become a kind of PR muse.”

SOAR will waste no time grooming Crew to become an account executive. His job includes daily “tweeting,” mostly at his mother, and being SOAR’s booth baby at the Outdoor Retailer and Interbike trade shows.

Crew comes to SOAR with three days of life experience and plans to develop “Cooing,” a social networking site for infants. His inherent love for competitive sports (Go Longhorns!), skiing and golf comes from his father, Cole, and makes him a true advocate for everything outdoors.

“I’ve sensed from the first kick that Crew was going to be an athletic guy, and I think life with SOAR will fit him perfectly,” said Maura Lansford, SOAR’s account executive and only mother. “Plus, after nine months, I think it’s time he start earning his keep.”

For more information about Crew and his PR qualifications, please e-mail Maura Lansford at mlansford@soarcomm.com.

# # #

MEDIA CONTACTS:

Chip Smith, SOAR Communications, 801.656.0472 x1 (work/) 801.597.7515 (mobile), csmith@soarcomm.com or

Elizabeth O. Hurst, 801.656.0472 x3 (work)/ 408.386.8168 (mobile) ehurst@soarcomm.com

The outdoor industry is abuzz on Twitter, contributing comments, queries and suggestions to all participating manufacturers, buyers, retailers, media and advocacy groups in the 2010 Outdoor Retailer Winter Market through the show’s aggregate feed, ORWinter. Since SOAR launched Outdoor Retailer into the Twittersphere for the 2009 Winter Market, the outdoor industry has channeled much of its conversation through the platforms the show has provided. Attendees and exhibitors getting ready to travel to Salt Lake are using #ORWinter in their Tweets about the show to create dialogues and relationships before they even step foot into the Salt Palace. They can also follow ORShowLive to keep up with OR-specific event announcements that will help them make the most of their time at the show.

The ORWinter conversation will continue throughout the show as attendees Tweet about the new products they’re seeing, the people they’re meeting and the industry events they’re enjoying. Outdoor Retailer sponsor Channel Signal will display these conversations, too, on four 50-inch screens strategically placed around the show.

They’ll toggle between the ORWinter Twitter feed and the top five mentioned exhibiting OR brands. Look for them while you’re there. It will be convincing visual evidence of how social media permeates even the outdoor industry and a reflection of how fast the conversation can shift, especially when there are thousands of people participating.

Next to the monitors will be a directory of 200 exhibitors on Twitter.

If you’re interested in attending the show, January 21-24, please register at outdoorretailer.com. See you there!

SOAR Communications is in no danger of being overtaken by a tsunami, with thousands of miles east and 4,000 feet above the California coast. Still, in this world of unpredictable weather patterns, knowing how to survive a tsunami could be an important life skill. Here are some tips I’ve summarized from Beverly Goodman, PhD., geoarchaeologist and National Geographic Emerging Explorer. Damon Tabor used her as one of his sources in his National Geographic Adventurer article on tsunami preparedness.

• If you live less than 25 feet above sea level or within one mile of the shore, map out an evacuation plan.
• Sign up for early alerts text messaging from the national Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s tsunami warning center.
• Make a “grab-n-go” survival kit readily available.
• Quickly make your way inland to high ground if you see the ocean water dramatically recede.
• Find shelter in a concrete building no less than 10 feet tall.
• If you get caught in the wave, swim hard, keep your legs up and get out of the water asap.

You can read Tabor’s article on tsunami preparedness in the August/September issue of National Geographic Adventurer or find it at adventurer.nationalgeographic.com.

I contributed an article about cycling in SLC to Momentum Magazine’s September issue. Interested in reading it? You can find it here:

http://www.momentumplanet.com/cities/cycling-salt-lake-city

Mayor Ralph Becker at the 2008 Bike Bonanza

Slovenian wears its MTB-friendliness on its flag of independence and on the Pohorje Mountains in Maribor, Slovenia, the host city of last-weekend’s MTB World Cup race.

You can check out footage of the Maribor event on YouTube. If you love Slovenia like I do, you won’t be able to help but cheer when you see the clip of the Slovenian flag.

A recent Mountain Bike Action article called Maribor “one of the friendliest and most intimate stops” for the Mountain Bike World Cup. The Cup’s two-year hiatus from Maribor didn’t stop passionate and rowdy Slovenes from turning out to cheer on the riders racing down “the sunny side of the Alps” June 20 and 21.

Slovenia and its people somewhat embody the hardcore spirit of mountain biking. Being a small country (population 2 million) at a geographical and cultural crossroads has made Slovenia susceptible foreign occupation multiple times in the past several centuries. Still, Slovenes are strong and proud people with a very distinct cultural heritage- a heritage worth fighting for. And they did fight for it, gaining their political independence from the Soviet Union 18 years ago tomorrow, June 25.

Vse Dan Državnosti, lepa Slovenija! Na Zdravje (Cheers)!

Goblin Valley with castle formation in the distance.

Standing in Goblin Valley is a bit eerie. If you get there before 9 a.m., it is easy to feel that you are the only non-petrified person around for a hundred miles. You feel even more alone at standing edge of the valley’s precipitous cliff staring into the flat desert land ahead that starkly contrasts the enormous and stout goblin formations surrounding you. I had a lot of fun maneuvering my way through the maze of goblins last weekend. I suggest you include it in your trip itinerary if you’re headed to Moab or Lake Powell.

“My bikes goes hard, don’t need no car” says the scraper bikers of the San Francisco Bay Area hyphy movement.

The scraper bike movement that originated in Oakland, Calif. is now sweeping the world. “Scrapers” in the hip-hop world are huge cars with rims so big they scrape the inside of the wheel well. According to a NRP story aired last year, Tyrone Stevenson Jr. (better known as “Scraper Bike King”) first thought to apply the aesthetic of the scraper car by fitting large wheels on small bike frames and painting the frames to match the rims, accenting them with colorful foil wrappers from food like Oreos, Doritos and Lemonhead. I saw several scraper bikes on display at the Oakland Airport on a recent trip to my hometown in the South Bay. They’re works of art as much as they are vehicles.

Stevenson made his first scraper bike because he couldn’t afford the car version. Now he makes a living designing them, while giving teenagers in his community creative and healthy ways to channel their energy.

Click here to watch the YouTube rap music video that started the now world-wide scraper bike phenomenon.