The Zen of Bike Building

Apologies to the real thing, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. A neat book when it came to the sections on maintenance, but totally lost on me otherwise. I never could figure out why that guy would let life come between him and his motorcycle.

I've been in a zen state myself the last few days, building up a new Terry frame built for me by Waterford. It's a little bit of Valkyrie, a little bit of Isis and steel blue like the color of my eyes. If the bonding that's going on now between woman and machine is any indication of the future, this bicycle will take me to Brigadoon and beyond. Of course, I say that about all my bikes….

It's been a while since I've done a true from the "ground up" build, cutting the steerer tube and installing every component from scratch. I feel like I'm at a long overdue reunion, getting reacquainted with hacksaw, file and production cloth, feeling the weight and balance of well-made tools in my hands. Recognizing again the difference between the "clean" dirt of metal filings and grease and "dirty" dirt. I'm comfortable eating a sandwich in the presence of the former, but not the latter.

Sometimes I wonder what my bikes talk about in the wee hours of the morning when I'm sound asleep. Do they stir restlessly, waiting for the dawn, wondering what roads await them? Do they reminisce about rides they've done? And what will they tell this newcomer? Hopefully that a bicycle couldn't find a better home!

Tailwinds,

Georgena
talktous@terrybicycles.com
www.terrybicycles.com

My Vacation

Late every summer, I meet up with some friends from California and we go on a tour in Vermont with Bike Vermont. This year we chose a new tour that started south of Burlington and made its way into the Champlain Islands. I've never been on a Bike Vermont tour that wasn't super duper, but this one was over the top. Imagine a week on the bike with a tailwind, great weather, eye-popping scenery, quiet roads and sumptuous meals. (Of course, if I'm not cooking it, anything is sumptuous....). The Truth: I like Larry Niles, the owner of Bike Vermont, but he's not paying me to write this.


We began in Shelburne, south of Burlington, and spent a day exploring the roads around Charlotte and Ferrisburgh before heading west to pick up the ferry across Lake Champlain to Essex, New York. Now, given that I had left New York to come to Vermont to ride, this did seem like a step backwards, but the relaxation of a twenty minute ferry ride across the Lake (not to mention the free wireless network on the Charlotte side, which made my iPhone giddy) assuaged my grumbling. Indeed, the five mile loop around Essex rewarded me with great views of the Lake and Vermont. The deli in Essex was rumored to be fantastic, but, cheap date that I am, I opted for a row of Fig Newtons and a couple of bananas that I scarfed from the ever-present Bike Vermont van. Returning on the ferry to Vermont (yeah, that feels better), there was time for more exploring around Charlotte before settling in for the night in Shelburne.

Tuesday showed just how beautifully planned this tour was. We rode from Shelburne onto Burlington's famed bike path. Getting from Shelburne to the bike path was a little dicey (turn here, turn there, repeat 100 times...) so one leader rode in front of the group and one in back acting as guides through the maze. Then came the piece de resistance. We turned from the bike path onto a narrow three mile causeway (a former railroad bed) across Lake Champlain. 200 yards of the causeway is missing. It was once a railroad bridge, but is now a cut for marine traffic. No problem -- a bike ferry took us, 4 bikes and riders at a time, to the other side of the causeway and we rode onto the Champlain Islands.

The causeway was amazing -- fairly hard packed dirt; just a little soft on the sides. My 23 mm tires didn't complain, but I kept thinking what a challenge this ride could be on a windy day. Hmmm -- it would probably be coming from my left. First I'd bounce off the huge rocks on the side of the causeway and then I'd go in the drink. It was becoming clear that this week was all about water. From this point on, no matter where we were, Lake Champlain was never far away.


Our home base on the islands was North Hero. From there, we explored north and west, in the U.S. and in Canada (as long as one remembered to bring a passport...). The most remarkable riding was on Isle la Motte. It was also the only place where I gave up on the Fig Newtons and had a great sandwich in a little bitty eatery off the back end of a farm in an apple orchard. ("More free wireless!", the iPhone shouted with glee.) It's open for about two hours a day. Call me nuts, but I spent the rest of the afternoon simply riding up and down an eight mile stretch of road, taking in views of the Lake, orchards and historic sites.

Within a few hundred yards of each other on a beautifully kept dirt road are two neat stops: the Fisk Quarry Preserve with 450,000,000 year old outcroppings of the world's oldest coral reefs and a house where Vice-President Teddy Roosevelt stayed in 1901. He was there when McKinley was assassinated. Between The River of Doubt, by Candice Millard and Pelican Island National Wildlife Refuge, I have a soft spot in my heart for Roosevelt.

Isle la Motte has become a cycling hotspot. So much so that the residents have gone to lengths to request that cyclists remember the rules of the road to safely enjoy the island. At breakfast the morning of the ride, we were given a handout reminding us to ride single file, get off the roadway when we stopped and to respect private lakeshore property. Road signs at regular intervals encouraged single file riding; no excuses unless you can't understand English or French!

On the following afternoon, we went kayaking in Carry Bay. I don't do that much kayaking, so it's a real treat for me to see the world from a different perspective. I must have seemed like a real laggard to the rest of our gang, but I couldn't be rushed with so much flora and fauna begging for a longer look. I saw several osprey as well as an immature green heron.

The final morning led us back south, bumping up and over the spine of the lowermost island. A cold front had come through mid-week, so the air was crisp and the views of the Lake were crystalline. We finished up at the Snow Farm Winery where a Bike Vermont van drove us the 40 some miles back to Shelburne.

You know how once in a while you land that perfect ride, when it seems like the bike is doing all the work? When you don't feel any pressure on the pedals and the miles fly by effortlessly? Imagine five straight days like that! It made it very hard to stop riding!

Tailwinds,

Georgena
talktous@terrybicycles.com
www.terrybicycles.com

For those who are curious, I rode an Isis Pro with a triple crankset. I used Schwalbe Stelvio 23 mm tires (now replaced by Durano or Ultremo), which were just fine on the well-packed, firm dirt roads we encountered. My on-bike fuel of choice was Cytomax® in the water bottle and Hammer® and Gu® gels in the back pockets. Shorts by Terry and jerseys by Terry and GORE BIKE WEAR™.

Competitor Analysis

Competitor analysis. One of the fun things I've been doing as we get our Terry bicycle line cranking (no pun intended) again. It's been a long time since we've had a presence in any more than a handful of bike shops and we're on the way to changing this in 2010.

So my competitor analysis tells me things appear to be skidding around on the road a bit with respect to women's bikes. In a nutshell, if you're 5'2" or shorter (and 8% of you are), you may be having a tough time finding a good fit on a bike. There are still a lot of women's bikes out there with long top tubes and steep seat angles. Translation: "My neck and shoulders are sore and I keep pushing back on the saddle."

At the same time, I've read about 3200 comments from customers we surveyed for their reactions to Terry bicycles. It seems like we've been doing a really poor job of explaining bicycle fit to the world. Ironic, since we're the company that defined fit and created the women's cycling market.

Wheel size is very much misunderstood -- not just the 24", but even 650 as well. And that seems to be manifesting itself in a shortage of bicycles using this size. Frame material is always hot. Carbon is pretty much universally the material of choice. Some love steel, some don't. Titanium hovers in never-never land and aluminum is as pervasive as beer cans on the shoulders of a back country road in a state that never passed a bottle bill.

In a nutshell, there's a lot of pressure on me to make our bicycles a little more mainstream so they will be more readily accepted by both dealers and consumers. I.e., dump the small front wheel: she'd rather be miserable on the bike than look odd on it (if she does indeed look odd). I guess I'm too much of an engineer to just say, "OK." How can I look that petite customer in the face and tell her this is the best we can do? How can anyone, for that matter?

 I recently read notes from a lecture given by Professor Eric von Hippel at MIT's Sloan School of Management. He talked about "user innovators" (which I consider myself to be) and manufacturers. A user innovator develops a functionally novel design, like a women's bike that really fits. A manufacturer takes that design and makes it more appealing -- looks better, costs less, fits into their way of doing things, etc. Is it a better product as a result? Maybe, maybe not. But who's going to tell you?

Sounds like we need to bring back the Terry van and hit the road. We have some teaching to do!

Tailwinds,

Georgena
talktous@terrybicycles.com
www.terrybicycles.com

The Conservationist in Cyclists

Inside every cyclist, whether she knows it or not, there lurks a conservationist. Indeed, how could this not be the case? Show me the rider who hasn't developed a keen weather eye. In much the same way, as the miles glide by, so do a panorama of fields, forests and wetlands. Surely you're aware of flowers blooming today that are nowhere to be found a month from now. Or perhaps your ear has tuned in to the songs of birds that change with the seasons. Would the Tour de France be nearly as appealing without the incredible vistas that cradle it? If you consider all of this to be a little "value added" to your bike ride, then you know what I mean.

Now you'll understand why I found myself in a field in Shelburne, Vermont very early one morning last week. I was there to see the fruits of many people's labor, all directed toward one bird, the bobolink. To paraphrase A.A. Milne, "Nobody knows where the birds come from, or where the birds go." Well, of course we do know. These birds come to Vermont and they go to South America. What we don't know are the particulars of that journey: do they linger here or there along the way; do they take the most direct path; do they stick together? And if we knew these answers, how many more questions would we have?

With the help of tiny solar geolocators, we can now embark on a new road -- one like the shaded lane winding through the woods that lures our bicycles ever onward. Attached to the bobolinks like little backpacks, these instruments will store the journey of the bobolink's migration over 12,000 miles as he flies to South America and then back again to (most likely) this same field in Vermont next spring. And what a welcome he'll have then. Tell us all about it, we'll say...and this time, he will.

I often wonder why the bobolink doesn't take a page from the book of his confrere, the eastern meadowlark. Breed in the northern U.S. and winter in the southern U.S. What's with this "I have to go to South America" stuff? It doesn't have to be so hard, you know. But that is flawed logic. Like it or not, we understand this much: the bobolink will continue to make his journey as long as he finds suitable habitat along his way. Much the same way we'll continue to ride our bicycles as long as there are rideable, safe roads.

Which is why I was in a field in Shelburne, Vermont very early one morning last week.


Tailwinds,

Georgena
talktous@terrybicycles.com
www.terrybicycles.com

Your purchase of our conservation products helps make projects like this one possible. Profits from the sale of these products have enabled the Vermont Center for Ecostudies to purchase geolocators for use in this pilot project to understand more about the migratory habits of the bobolink.

The Changing of the Guard

If you haven't read about it yet, here's the news: as of April 30, Terry Precision Cycling has a new CEO! I've turned over the handlebars to Liz Robert. I'm not going anywhere -- I'm President of the company and a shareholder, but I decided it was time for me to get back to basics, like getting more acquainted with our customers, working on new products and building up the culture of the company. I didn't start my own business just to end up pushing paper all day.

In an incredibly serendipitous moment, Liz, who was most recently CEO of Vermont Teddy Bear, was on the hunt for another company where she could put her formidable skills to work. Besides being a serious runner, she'd been bitten big time by the cycling bug. So when Terry met Liz, the combination had synergy written all over it.

 have to admit my image of the CEO of a teddy bear company was totally different than the reality. I anxiously awaited the first face to face meeting in February. Lo and behold -- she looked like a mere mortal! Like one of us -- outdoorsy, energetic, sincere and full of fun. When she asked me what it would take to get me re-energized, that cinched the deal. As she says, "the brand is bigger than the business." But for too long, the business had been getting in the way of the brand. Now that will change.

On April 30, I was in Maryland at Blackwater NWR, getting ready for the Wild Goose Chase. But at precisely 4:00, when the all the lawyers had all the signatures on all the papers, an invisible mantle passed quietly from my shoulders. Every oriole, catbird, bobwhite, robin, meadowlark and wood thrush and its relative seemed to sing especially loud and that soft late afternoon glow that only comes in Spring lit up my world.

Liz was at the Wild Goose Chase a couple of days later, getting to know many of you and feeling for herself the energy of many women riding for fitness, health, fun and a good cause. There were many fine moments to that great weekend and one of them was going for a ride with the boss.

Tailwinds,

Georgena
talktous@terrybicycles.com
www.terrybicycles.com

Love Those Gloves!

Some people have a drawer full of socks. I have a drawer full of women's cycling gloves. (OK -- I have a drawer full of socks, too.)

I just happened to be pawing through that drawer this weekend. One of those weekends when the sun said warm but the 25 mph north wind said spring's not here yet. What a variety I've accumulated over the years. Am I tempted to "retire" any of these gloves? No way. Cold hands are a deal buster for a bike ride, so I do my best to avoid that scenario.

What's in the pile? An ancient pair of LL Bean® Gore-Tex® gloves, complete with Polarfleece® liners that can be worn by themselves. The Gore-Tex shell lost its waterproofing years ago and the liners are pocked with holes, but I wouldn't give them up for anything. Hey -- these were my first "real" cold weather gloves. If nothing else, they warm my heart.

Moving forward in the timeline, there's a veritable feast of GORE® BIKE WEAR™ gloves, each with WIndstopper®; Toko®, which became Yoko® (or is it the other way around) -- gloves spawned from the cross country ski side of sports and a sampling of not so well known brands.

Some have lots of insulation, others less (think 25 and sunny versus 35 and cloudy). Some are light enough to be worn over short fingered gloves and then crammed in a back pocket when I don't need them. Some are simply windproof with no insulation at all. Over time and miles, I've learned to choose gloves like a master chef chooses seasonings.

Ever bungle around trying to eat a Gu® when you're bundled up from head to toe and there's no way you're going to stop riding? Here's my tip of the day: first, unzip your jacket about 7 or 8 inches; then, if you're right handed, use your teeth (gently, please) to remove that glove. Stuff the glove in your open jacket -- a placeholder for a while. Now, go for the Gu. Follow the instructions in reverse when done. I learned this after losing one of my favorite gloves. I thought it was snugged away in my back pocket. Still looking for that glove on the road...

Tailwinds,

Georgena
talktous@terrybicycles.com
www.terrybicycles.com

Ride for the Economy

Some welcome warm weather has come to The Salt Lick Known as Rochester. Ah, nothing like riding my bike and smelling Mother Earth instead of ice water. Cardinals and robins are singing and V's of Canada geese fill the sky. No matter what's happening in the economy, their world is still sane. And that makes me feel very good.

I was thinking about it -- when I come back from a ride, I always feel confident and optimistic. It's the endorphin effect, no doubt. All those problems I had at the beginning of the ride seem to fall away with every mile. By the time I get home, I'm in an incredible frame of mind.

If it's true that consumers need a little optimism to get this economy cranking again (no pun intended), then I think we need a "Ride for the Economy" campaign to get as many people as possible in the right frame of mind. More bike riders means more optimism, which is just what we need. It's up to us as cyclists to put people on their bikes. I'm not talking about just your cycling buddies; I'm talking about your friends who don't ride. Introduce them to our wonderful sport.

This economy is about to meet its savior: the bicycle rider.

Ride for the economy!

Tailwinds,

Georgena
talktous@terrybicycles.com
www.terrybicycles.com