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!

Zurich Airport

Don and I made it home Friday night after a full day of travel (20 hours). I'll write more about iceBike next week (and I have more photos) but right now the airport in Zurich is still on my brain. We spent 5 hours there on Friday afternoon so we pretty much know the terminals we were roaming inside and out.

We shopped a little bit (can you say "Swiss Chocolate?), ate a little bit and people watched. Oh, and admired cars. Yes, in the airport.

My observations? Everything at the airport is in English. All the advertising and directional signs are in English. Interesting.

There aren't many places to eat. That's a major international airport. I would have expected there to be more. Maybe 5 places total and only one may have been a sit down kind of place. The rest were typical airport places - where you walk up to the counter, order and find your own table. Yes, there was a Burger King and no, that's not where we ate. With all the time on our hands we wanted a good sit down place, but in the end found a few places close to each other where we picked up our own food and got a table.

Security is very smart. Know how you have to put liquids into a zipped, clear bag to go through the security check point? They give those bags to you, in case you forgot. How nice is that? Most places will just make you toss your liquid (cream, lotion etc) if it isn't in a baggie. These folks give you the bag so you don't have to toss it. Nice!

And then there were the Formula 1 cars. I'm not kidding. There is an auction going on from February 19 to March 25 of 11 Formula 1 cars and 4 are at the Zurich airport on display. Opening bid? Two hundred thousand Euros - and it doesn't come with an engine. You can follow along with the bidding here. You can see some of the cars below - enjoy.

1998 - Jean Alesi

1993 - JJ Lehto

2001 - Kimi Raikkonen

Back of Kimi's car

IceBike - Day 2 with video

Two days down and one to go of iceBike. Madison really puts on a great event. Dealers and suppliers alike are well taken care of throughout the week. I've just had a look at some of the photos I took, which mostly turned out awful. What's up with that? So...none to share tonight, I'm afraid. I'll run around and picture take tomorrow.

But, here are a few things I've picked up at the show...
- Dealers here like our armoured cable more than I expected. I don't remember much of a fuss about it at all last year. Good deal!
- I'm getting an education on the size of the sidewalks - or lack thereof - in English villages.
- Jet lag is getting to all of us from the US. That should be no surprise.
- Apparently, I sleep through earthquakes. Didn't register with me at all...it was one of the few times I was asleep last night.

And...best of all, I got to see some friends, again, today. Chipps was back for Day 2 and Mike Davis of Bikemagic.com came to visit. And, of course, my fellow Spokesman, Carlton Reid stopped by for a bit of an exclusive....had I known he was going to do a funky video, I would have brushed up on my mambo...or salsa...or whatever I'd need with this fun music. Check it out.



That's it from here today. Didn't sleep much last night so I'm a little pooped. Off to bed. Yes, I know it is only 8:30p - but I'm trying to fend off the cold/flu that has, apparently, ripped through our office, including Don, who is here with me. Yikes!

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.