So my neighbor introduced me to, and subsequently got me hooked on geocaching; the ultimate game of hide and seek. Being the gadget guy that I am, I just love these little GPS units. My neighbor has a Magellan eXplorist 210 and that thing will tell you how fast you’re moving, sunrise & sunset, moonrise & moonset, phase of the moon, in short, it tells you everything! For $10 more it will tell you your fortune — kidding!
So as a new geocacher I set out on an adventure (well, we were close to home and went in the car so maybe not much of an adventure, more of an outing) with my buddy, wilsontribe, and my son, little beldog. The great thing, for us men, is that with a GPS unit I don’t need to ask directions, just give me the coordinates and I can call in an airstrike anywhere in the world. Now, given we were staying local in Midvale, getting lost wasn’t a real concern. So after downloading some cache locations (hidden stashes are recorded on geocaching.com where one can download them and then sync the coordinates into the GPS unit to go out and find them), we set out to find our first cache.
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Tuesday on BicycleRetailer.com I read that Dick Burke, founder of Trek Bicycles, died Monday night, March 10, due to complications from heart surgery. It was sad to hear the news. It made me think about what Dick and Trek have accomplished and about what bicycles have done for me.
When I was in high school, my brother Steve was an Italian fanatic who had an Alfa Romeo Spider and a Pogliaghi road bike. I wanted to ride road bikes like him, so I bought a Japanese made Centurion (I couldn’t afford a nice Italian bike). I didn’t ride the Centurion too much. Riding bikes wasn’t the cool thing to do in high school. Continue Reading »
Wow. It’s been a busy few months since my last post on September 20. I need to learn how to juggle blogging, while at the same time serving our clients.
I have a lot of things I’d like to blog about since my last post, for example, working with the media at Interbike, meeting my cycling hero Greg LeMond in the Media Center at the show, and taking a road trip vacation to Colorado – mountain biking and hiking along the way, etc. I’ll write about those later.
This week was a busy week, but a good one. Monday, November 12, we were in New York City for the PepCom Digital Focus media reception. We took our new client, Delta 7 Sports. They make a $12,000 carbon fiber/Kevlar reinforced Arantix mountain bike using a unique tube design called IsoTruss. Before the evening event, we met with “Popular Science” and “The Wall Street Journal.” The staff at both publications were very interested in the Arantix and its IsoTruss technology for possible stories.
Following those meetings we went to PepCom. Even though PepCom was predominately a “digital” high-tech event, we knew the media outlets slated to attend would also be interested in the IsoTruss, because of its highly engineered, science-based, well thought out design.
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I’ve been putting off writing something for our blog for a couple of reasons. One, life here at SOAR has been incredibly busy. Our biggest client, Interbike, is having their annual bicycle tradeshow in Las Vegas in 4 days and we have spent the last couple of months ramping up for that. The other reason is, I’m new to blogging, and I wasn’t sure I had anything interesting or significant to post. Now I do.
I’m bummed. The U.S. Anti-Doping Agency found Landis guilty of doping (see AP story here). I haven’t ridden regularly in a while, but I’m still an avid fan of cycling and racing. My wife and I cheered loudly at the TV during Stage 17 of the 2006 Tour, only to stare silently again later while learning that Landis was accused of doping.
I’m not even going to pretend to understand the facts surrounding the case and spout my opinion here in this post. I’m just bummed for Landis, racers in general and for recreational cyclists and potential recreational cyclists who might think twice about participating in a tainted activity.
The news about Landis will make for an interesting next few weeks, especially with the industry’s largest trade show, Interbike, and the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) World Championships taking place at the same time. I’m sure everyone will be talking about the verdict and will have an opinion.
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