Too much time on your hands??

by Eric Anastasia, Eastern Regional Manager


I was exploring the internet the other night and came across a couple of things that I thought some of you may find interesting.

This first one is strange but thought provoking. Have a look.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9q9pIxZWhA

And this is great if you have an old beater bike and want to make a tandem with it.
http://www.instructables.com/id/brilliantly-simple-tandem-bike/

Enjoy!

Midnight Madness

by Eric Anastasia, Eastern Regional Manager

I thought some of you would be interested in where I was recently. I got to go out to Denver to help support the Moonlight Classic charity ride benefiting Seniors Inc.

It is aptly named because the first wave of bikes starts around the 10:30p and is routed through the streets of Denver. There are stops along the way with refreshment and when you finish, around 1:00 or 2:00 in the morning, they have breakfast waiting for you.

I love things that are structured around food. So in addition to the ride many people like to get dressed up for this event. Not like dress up for a night out on the town (well it could have been for some), but all kinds of costumes.
Then they have two contests, the first is for the first wave of riders which mostly was the families. The second is for the second wave of riders, which is a little bit more interesting. They award the top three in each wave and then a best lit catargory (as in lights since it is a night ride) with all kinds of cool prizes, for example Kryptonite Evolution Series 4 Ulocks.
I missed the first contest because the Kryptonite tent was so busy. But yours truly was part of the panel of judges for the second contest.

The Moonlight Classic site has some great pics of the contest. Check out

http://www.moonlight-classic.com/costume.html
Unfortunatly I don’t have a great picture of the best lit winner, but I will have to say it was cool. Blue lights everywhere on the bike, and for the icing on the cake, when you spun the front wheel inside the spoke read “Moonlight Classic 08’ ”.

And even better then the pictures there is a movie.
http://www.brightcove.tv/title.jsp?title=1676369450&channel=5977439

New Spokesmen Podcast Ready

I'm still a proud member of The Spokesmen Cycling Podcast even though I've missed a couple of episodes this year. But, I was able to join the guys this morning for a bit of cycling chat.

Episode #33 is up and ready for your listening pleasure. We talked about commuting to work, the Tour Day France, Tyler's win, the UCI, "WADA World" and even wee-wee shorts. I'm not kidding...

We also mentioned that we're all on Twitter now. Links to each on the post for the podcast.

Give it a listen. You'll be glad you did.

This you gotta see!

Just discovered a GREAT advert for Kryptonite from the UK....check out "Kryptonite Clown" on YouTube...its a a hoot. Thanks, Tom Sillars!

Bobke on the Tour Day France

by Bob Roll, Team Kryptonite


The 2008 Tour has been an absolutely fantastic race so far. There were a few speed bumps initially. The first was Manuel Beltran being positive for EPO from Stage 1. The second was Moises Duenas, also positive for EPO and in possession of doping products. But the big speed bump so far was the expulsion of Riccardo Ricco, whose two stage wins have been taken away, and his team mate Leonardo Piepoli and the withdrawal of the whole Saunier Duval team. Ricco looked fantastic in the Pyrenees, but now we know that looks can be deceiving.

Ricco was arrested and thrown in jail as part of the French authorities zero tolerance policy in the ongoing fight against doping in cycling.

Cycling, more than any other sport, has to present a clean and real and authentic spectacle for the fans. It’s not a sport that is fought in a stadium where the fans are far from the action. It’s a sport that courses its way through the neighborhoods and towns where people live. Because of that slight distinction cycling must be clean or it will die. It’s important for us to be critical but not allow our criticisms to disintegrate into cynicism.

Conversely, once the dopers were kicked out of the race, the actual competitive component came to life. Cadel Evans showed himself to be a very gifted cyclist but perhaps possessing a very fragile psyche. The pressure of the yellow jersey weighed heavy on Evans and he lashed out when it was completely unnecessary.

The Tour is mostly about the prudent expenditure and management of energy whether it is physical or emotional. And Evans proved to be vulnerable in managing his emotional energies. Schleck proved to be a bit more calm and a bit more steady and took the yellow jersey. But only to give it up to his own team mate Carlos Sastre on the stage to Alpe d’Huez.

Sastre’s main rival now is probably Cadel Evans. Even though he has a significant advantage of 1:34 he’s not the world’s greatest time trialist. All of which gives us a race which one of five men can still win this late in the Tour. Everyone still believes Evans to be the hot favorite but every pedal stroke that Sastre stays in yellow he gets a little bit stronger.

Stay tuned to Saturday’s stage! Never has so much been on the line for so many cyclists this late in the Tour.

A Word From The Ladies

OK, so you already heard from Jody Perewitz about the great time had at Scuderia in San Francisco recently. Well, Nicole Roesch also had a few things to say about the event, most specifically that she was really impressed by the enthusiasm and knowledge that the women who joined them for the evening already had about motorcycles - not the least of which was the fact that the fashion trends really do start on the West Coast ladies....there was no question about the strength of the bonds these women shared with their bikes! The ladies gave her some great websites that Nicole has already bookmarked for her own reading pleasure and thought you may want to know about them too...so here they are, enjoy!

www.carlaking.com -- a book of Carla's riding adventures on a Russian sidecar across the US. Thanks, Carla for donating the book for the raffle!
http://www.nebcom.com/noemi/moto/sbl.sbl.html -- a list of motorcycles that accommodate the 'vertically challenged' rider!
http://www.bestbeginnermotorcycles.com/ -- Web site resource for finding a perfect 1st motorcycle
http://www.dangerouscurvesm-c.com/ -- organization of family-oriented, female motorcycle riders

Tyler Hamilton & Rock Racing Win!

Although I haven't been here writing much about cyling lately, I have been following what's been going on. Again, after all the shenanigans of the Tour Day France riders, I've decided I'm not going to follow it any more. I stopped when Ricco was taken out of th the Tour.

I thought I was just done with pro cycling. Done. And I was for a couple of days...until I saw a bright spot. As I mentioned the other day, the Rock Stars (Rock Racing) have been kicking butt at Tour of Qinghai Lake. And I'm so happy for them.

Well, today, my friend Tyler Hamilton took the overall win!!!! I'm beyond psyched for him. This is his first win since 2004. It's been a long, awful haul for him, but he's back where he belongs.

Seeing this is priceless.

"It is a special win," admitted Hamilton. "It has been a long time. I think that there are a lot of people that didn’t think that I could reach a level like this. The goal coming in was to win the race, whether it was myself, Oscar Sevilla or Michael Creed," Hamilton explained. "A victory for a team-mate is a victory for me and I am pretty sure it goes the other way too. It is nice to repay my team-mates, the staff and especially Michael Ball."

Rock on Tyler!

Locking in San Francisco

by Jody Perewitz

Nicole Roesch and I were in San Francisco last week for an event at a Kryptonite Dealer. Before
we went to the dealership Nicole and I decided to take a walk around Union Square. Immediately I noticed a bike cabled and locked to a pole with a Kryptonite lock!

Within the next few blocks we saw many more bikes and almost all of them had Kryptonite locks! Wahoooo!

There was some old ratty bikes locked that looked like the lock cost more than the bike but hey in an economy where gas is $5 a gallon 2-wheels, no matter how they look will have to do.

I did find it funny to see so many bikes in San Fran. The hills in the city are hard to walk up
never mind bike up! I give those people a lot of credit; they must have some strong calves!

Later in the day we found out that things seem to disappear in San Fran if it isn't locked
properly. Well as we know if you want something to still be there when you return, use a
Kryptonite!

A Win for Tyler and Rock Racing!!!

It's been no secret to anyone who knows me or reads this blog that I'm a fan of Tyler Hamilton. Now I know a lot of you have other opinions of Tyler, but as his friend seeing him win again brings a big ole smile to my face!

Yes, Tyler won the stage of the Tour of Qinghai Lake today! Tour de France it's not, but with the way the Tour is going, I'm glad he's where he is.

And any of you who are going to poo-poo this win because of him "being a doper", look at it this way...he did his time out of racing (just like Mr. Loud, David Millar), he has a license to race and he's being tested. He won this race fair and square and I'm THRILLED!

And now he's in the Yellow Jersey!

Congratulations, Tyler!!!!!!!

You are a ROCK STAR!

7/19 - Update: According to Rock Racing's Twitter feed today, Tyler finished in the main field today. He retains the yellow jersey. More from Rock Racing's Twitter feed:
"Only Sunday's circuit race stands between Hamilton scoring his first overall victory in a stage race since the Tour de Romandie in 2004"

OH YEA.....

Perewitz Bike Night Tonight

So, this is an email I got from Jody...


Just a reminder tonight is Perewitz Bike Night from 6-9pm. We will be having Steve Leahy doing airbrush tattoos, Dante on the grill with burgers, dogs, and stuffed quahogs, DJ Lou playing some tunes, the Kris Holmes Ride will be selling tickets to their event, the Debut of the Perewitz "Ghetto Taxi", Roof Raffles, cool bikes, burnouts and much more.

I wish I wasn't in New Jersey, because I so want to know what the Ghetto Taxi is!

This is the first Perewitz Bike Night I've missed in 3 years :( BUT, Tim will be there with Jody, Dave, Susan, Kory and the gang. It's a GREAT night for a ride. Go on and see them all.

Your Favorite Bobke-isms?

Ok, it's a rest day at Le Tour....all of you cycling fans are wondering what to do with your mornings and/or evenings or both! Right?

Well, I know you are catching up on some sleep and that's ok. You want to be ready for the next stage tomorrow. Seriously, how great was Hautacam yesterday?

Since I'm at work when the Tour Day France is going on during the day, I try to stay away from results and friend's emails and Facebook messages until I can watch the coverage at night. With that coverage comes our friend Bob Roll's commentary.

Bob's great and he comes out with some funny/interesting sayings. My favorite so far? Last night while describing a rider heading up the Col du Tourmalet..."He's as cool as the other side of the pillow." Classic!

What's your favorite Bobke-ism from this Tour Day France so far??

Announcing THE Bike to Work Book

I've been keeping this a secret for a couple of weeks now, but the official announcement has been made....my fellow Spokesmen and general cycling gurus, Carlton Reid and Tim Grahl are collaborating on a book that most people should get as soon as it is available - The Bike to Work Book.

The print version of the book will be out in November and will be American in spelling and such. However, there will be a downloadable version, too. And...get this, you will have the ability to have it localized with specifics to your region. How cool is that? I wouldn't expect anything less from Carlton and Tim, though.

You can check out podcasts from the guys as the book is being written, too. They are going to be busy, busy guys for the next couple of months. But, this will be an amazing reference book to have if you are going to bike to work or even are thinking of biking to work. There will be something in there for everyone - beginner to those who already ride to work. There's always more you can learn, extra tips that make the ride better. All of that will be included.

Congrats to Carlton and Tim! This is a great, great project!

Bobke on Beltran and Le Tour!

by Bob Roll


Tour '08 Report #1

After a great opening week of racing where the yellow jersey changed hands between 4 riders in only 6 stages, and sprint finishes were won by Valverde, Hushovd and Cavendish, and generally speaking a fantastic opening week of this year’s Tour….some rather disturbing news has come to us this evening.

A Spanish rider, on the Italian team, named Manuel Beltran has tested positive for EPO during the first stage. This is a stage where Mr. Beltran did not finish in the top 100 riders and is not a rider that anyone has picked to win a stage or finish well in the overall standings. As is often times the case, it’s the bad news that grabs all the headlines. And justifiably so or not, this Tour will not be free from the infamy that cycling has gone through recently.

To imagine any rider could be so conceited and have such total disregard for his teammates, his sponsors, the fans, the Tour itself and, most importantly, for himself is another sad chapter in the continuing degradation of a beautiful sport.

One would presume that all of the riders are under such intense scrutiny that their transgressions would be exposed before they came to the Tour and would never be allowed to compete. But, in the ongoing battle between the ASO and the UCI it has become, this year, more difficult to scrutinize the athletes adequately. In this case of the “feuding, divorcing parents” (ASO and UCI), the “kids” (the riders) are the ones that are free to do bad things that they might not do otherwise.

Since Beltran is not one of the top riders and no rider on his team, Liquigas, was forecasted to be an overall contender, let’s hope this is another incident that will blow over and we can resume paying attention to the race itself.

One side note, a recent signing to the Liquigas team for next year should give us an idea of the increased scrutiny that will be on this team. That would be Ivan Basso.

The ASO, organizers of the Tour de France, can not be asked to send a clearer message and every rider, no matter what station of the hierarchy of the sport, must race clean or never race again!

You Can Learn To Be A Better Fisherman Too!!

by Roby Holland, National Sales Manager

Change Tactics land bigger fish..errrr..more customers
As some of you who know me I like to fish. I have had the opportunity to fish in one of the most productive fishing areas for Striped Bass on the East Coast. The majority of the time I have been able to land fish that are between 24 and 28 inches in length. This year I wanted to land a 40 to 50 inch Striper and so I began to ask my fishing confidant and internal company mentor Dave Miller. After a few conversations during the winter months it was apparent to me that if I wanted to land bigger fish I needed to change my fishing tactics. I went out and purchased or was given a fine rod and reel for Father's Day that was to help me change that type of fishing I was doing. Now all I needed was some time on the water to try out all that I had learned from my many conversations with Dave. That day was last Saturday July 5th. I had some time to kill and the day was overcast with no wind, a perfect day for fishing around the bay. Well I'll spare you the details of the adventure, but it was the best fishing day of my life! I caught not one but two HUGE stripers in all of about two hours. Here is a picture of the larger striper that I was able to get back to the dock and then release. What occurred to me is that by changing the way I fished I was able to change the type or size of fish I was looking to catch. If I never did this then I would have had to resign myself to the same old size fish when ever I ventured out into the bay. The reason I point this out is the same philosophy applies to retail and the way we present our stores. You want more sales, change your presentation to your customer. This does not mean you have to do a total remodel of the store, just make some small changes here and there. Ask some of your employees for ideas, they are a valuable source of information on what changes you can make to your presentation. You also might want to look at your customers purchasing trends, are the purchases headed in a specific direction of price point or style of bike? If so then you might want to make a small department of accessories that is focused towards this type of purchase. Making a few changes here and there can really make a difference to your catch! Good luck!

Congrats Fredcast!

My fellow Spokesman, David Bernstein, not only does our little gig, but he's also the man behind The Fredcast Cycling Podcast. He's a talented guy and extremely knowledgeable about all things cycling.

His wildly popular Fredcast Cycling Podcast just hit the century mark! Yup, episode #100 is up and ready for your listening pleasure. He just finished it late last night. David says it's a bit long, but hey, it's the middle of cycling season AND the Tour Day France! It's chalk full of good stuff. Go give it a listen.

Congrats on the first century, David. Now get back in the saddle and start on the 2nd century! We are all looking forward to it!

Northern Cali - Jody & Nicole Tonight!

Hey lady motorcycle riders! If you live in the San Fran area, head over to Scuderia West tonight. Jody Perewitz and Nicole Hoffman Roesch are going to be conducting a Women's Riding Essentials. It will be educational and fun!

Check it out!

New Home Security

by Jody Perewitz, Team Kryptonite



I recently bought a house with my boyfriend Kory. It is the first house for both of us. It is a great house with a big yard. The house was a bank forclosure so we don’t know anything about the house and wanted to change the locks ASAP. Also it has a big fenced in yard with an inground pool or as we call it a lagoon. The first thing we did was change the locks.



We put deadbolts on all the doors because they didn’t have any and changed the locks on the fence. I didn’t have a key to the locks on the fence so my brother and I thought that we were going to have to bring cable cutters. What were we thinking?? It’s not like they were Kryptonite locks. I hit the lock once with a hammer and it busted off! OK so I did hit it with all my might because I didn’t think it would be that easy but the second one I tapped it and the cheap lock popped open. So much for security!

Now we have keyed alike Kryptonite locks on the gates to assure that no one will get into the back yard.





I also installed a Schlage Keypad Deadbolt on the front door. It is just temporary till I get my matching door handle and keypad lock from Schlage. The keypad locks are one of the best things invented!



We have contractor’s coming in and out and it’s difficult to get to the house when we are working so instead I just give them the code and they let themselves in! When all the work is done we can change the code!

I feel safe knowing that no one will break into our house knowing that we don’t live there yet! When I get my new front door lock I will post a picture.

Happy Birthday Bobke!

Yes, today is Bob Roll's birthday! Most every year he spends it commentating on the Tour Day France for us Americans and we are thankful for it!

We here at Kryptonite are just as thankful that he's a member of Team Kryptonite. He is a very valuable member of our team. We all wish him a wonderful birthday over in France and a great race to comment on today.

Happy Birthday, my friend!

It's Finally Here!

Today's the first day of the Tour de France.....or Tour Day France. Whichever you prefer, just enjoy!!!!

Woo-hoo!! Three weeks of awesome vistas, wonderful French scenery (love those shots of people having wine, cheese and bread on the side of the road), Bob-isms and, of course, all the drama of the granddaddy of them all.

Ok, so I was pessimistic to begin with, but I'm all on board now....Allez, Allez, Allez!

Don't throw out that Amazon box just yet!

from Eric Anastasia, Eastern Regional Manager

So on a post a while back I showed you a wooden bike, now I bring you a cardboard bike or to be more specific “hexacomb board”. This was developed by a college kid in hopes to shrink bike theft by reducing the value of the bike.

Take a look at the video below to learn more.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/7457220.stm

July is a month for cycling!

Ok folks, Bob Roll has left for France! Yes, in a few short days you American cycling fans can sit in front of your TV and watch the Tour DAY France with Bobke! You know I'll want to know your favorite Roll-ism this year!

And, I see that the US Olympic team has been set. Zabriskie, Leipheimer, Vande Velde, Hincapie and McCartney...nice.

If you are in Massachusetts, don't forget the Longsjo Classic this weekend, too! I might just head up there myself.

Safe riding (and don't forget that helmet)!