Bike2Work

Three cheers for the latest UK/US collaboration! Two cycling mavens written about before in our blog, Carlton Reid and Tim Grahl, have completed their book, Bike to Work, and to borrow their words, it is a page-flippin' beauty! To download a free 50 page sampler , go to http://tinyurl.com/Bike2Work. Once you do, I bet you won't be able to wait for the full 250 page version due out at the end of December.

More iceBike

A picture is worth a thousand words, right? Well, here are a few thousand "words" (and some real ones, too).

The Kryptonite booth at iceBike. Paul, Don and I are joined by Andrew Wagerer, our great product manager at Madison.

Patrick (left) is chatting with his mates about his impending fatherhood. Congrats Patrick! I can't wait to get the fantastic news of Baby J's arrival.

Sim and Chipps hard at work...I think...or maybe it was snack time.

Thanks to Kryptonite's marketing team in the UK, we had some cool swag to give away, including these thermal mugs....

...and bottle openers disguised as key rings, pens and reflective straps. Like the 5 year old that I am, I played with these all week....but I wasn't the only one!

Got to meet Jay Townley for the first time, in person. We'd chatted on the phone years ago, but we'd never caught up in person. He gave quite an informative talk to the dealers each of the three days. Carlton caught him on video. Check it out. How psyched was I to find out that Jay swings by our little blog sometimes? Um...very! Hi Jay!

Here Jay is chatting with Mr. Blue himself, Eric from Park Tool. Eric was at iceBike with his normal posse, Roger and Calvin. It wouldn't be the same without them.

Ok, so after I shot this picture I think Neil may have wanted to toss me off the balcony, but he was giving a detailed, passionate presentation on one of the fastest growing lines at Madison - Ogio. Ok, I'm just guessing at the "fastest growing" bit, but if UK consumers are anything like US consumers, they will be fighting for these bags. Gotta tell you, the laptop case is pretty sweet!

It's always great to catch up with Hank from Finish Line at shows. He had a new recruit with him this year. Dan started in the last year with Hank and seems to be fitting in quite nicely. Welcome to the industry, Dan! (Note: Check out the reflective Kryptonite stickers doing their job on Don's computer there!)

Dominic is Madison's Chief Executive and a great host. He really makes people feel comfortable in his "home". We had a nice dinner on Thursday night which included all the Madison folks (my table mate Susan has been with Madison for 28 years!), the 'movers and shaker' dealers (which included Simon and Lisa/Colin Lewis Cycles!) and the suppliers.

Dinner was good both if you love meat and if you don't. It was a hog roast with all the fixings. And, for us veggies, there were really yummy veggie Kabobs, salad, bread etc.

Continental had a great idea when they sponsored this game, eh? I never saw the table empty once after dinner.

I don't have pictures of the master planner, Will, or our wonderful friend Richard or all of the rest of the reps, which is too bad. They are fantastic partners and I wish you could see them all here. Ok, truth be told, I have a couple of photos, but I actually like these guys so I won't display my bad photography!

Thank you all for a great week and all of the hard work you do for us throughout the year! You all ROCK!

iceBike - Day 1

I'm over in the UK this week attending a trade show at Madison, our UK distributor. Don's here with me and we are joining our European Sales Manager, Paul Graveson at the stand/booth. Paul's been with us about 7 months now and you will be learning more about him in the coming weeks.

Madison puts on a fantastic show under the tents at their warehouse. Yesterday was the start of the show with dealers from all over like Barry from Firth Cycles and dealers from Oxford, Bristol and loads of other places. It was also press day where I got to see some of my friends in the UK media like Chipps and some of the guys from Future Publishing. It was great fun for me because this show is less hectic than Eurobike or Interbike so I got to spend some quality time catching up with them. I really enjoy that.

Off to get ready for Day 2 where I'll get to see fellow Spokesman Carlton Reid today! I'm very excited about that. Maybe it will even be sunny again today. Yes, it was sunny yesterday! Really. I'm not kidding.