My YouTube Video Debut!

We are going back in time a bit. Out of curiosity, doing a quick search of "Nineteen Wetsuits" on YouTube, turned up a series of short videos that one of our customers, Trisports.com shot at the Interbike trade show back in September. There is a total of four, and in them, I very quickly go over the features of each of our Nineteen wetsuit lines - The Pipeline, the Tsunami, the Frequency and the new Frequency SS ( Speed-Skin).I had talked at length about the new Frequency SS in a previous post about product development. Below are the links to all four of the videos on YouTube. A big thanks to Trisport.com's Seton Clegget and Sarah Lienke who shot the videos of, not just Nineteen but, I am sure their many other vendors as well. I was surprised, by the numbers of people that had viewed the Nineteen videos on YouTube already!

And by the way - this is a great example of Long Tail sales and marketing at work. I had reviewed Chris Anderson's book, "The Long Tail" in an earlier post, it's been interesting to see this in action. Again, anyone looking to get a better understanding of current sales and marketing trends and how to make the best use of the current resources of the internet and social networking that is available, should definitely read, "The Long Tail".

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=nineteen+wetsuits&search_type=&aq=f

Winter Bike Training

If you live where you get real winter you may have to make some changes to your bike training for the winter season. One option is to keep riding. The picture above is of Cervelo sales Manager Rodney Merchant's RS Road bike on a mid winter ride near Toronto. Few are as hardy as Rodney, but a great attitude and the right apparel can go a long way to riding outdoors in less then ideal conditions. However, let's be realistic - most triathletes will be doing their bike training indoors if that's what they are going to be facing outdoors.

So what to do on the indoor trainer? Personally, I have never been a fan of spending a huge amount of time on the indoor trainer. I know that there are people that grind out, 3, 4 and even 5 hour indoor rides. I would suggest shorter more focused and more intense efforts. Done right these workouts can be very effective.

If you have been off the bike for a while it might be good to put in some time just working up to being able to ride at a good pace for 45 minutes to an hour. Once you can do this, then there are three different kinds of workouts I suggest. They revolve around 1, 2 and 5 minute blocks of time. I set my timer on my watch to the count-down-and-return function so that if I set it at 2 minutes, it will run for 2 minutes and then beep and keep repeating the beep every 2 minutes and so on.

I would start with 2 minutes and after a 10 -15 min. warm-up, start to do 2 minutes at hard effort and then 2 minutes easy spinning. Do 4 - 6 of these and see how you feel. Next time play around with things, Maybe do four minutes hard with 4 minutes rest etc . . . One of the best workouts that you can do with these 2 minute units of time is 4 minutes hard with 2 minutes recovery. If you can do 6 of these at close to max effort and fully recover in the 2 minute easy period - you are doing well. Spin down for 10 - 15 minutes and you are done.

The one minute time period is good for working on your power and your sprint. Set the timer for one minute and then go as hard as you can for one minute - really max out. Then rest of 1, 2 or even 3 minutes and repeat the one hard minute. Repeat this cycle until you can't go all out for the one minute hard. This set can be worked in at the end of the previous 2 minute workout, or on it's own in the middle of an easy recovery ride.

Finally the 5 minute time period is good for building up your longer Time-Trial fitness and learning to work and sustain a moderately hard effort right at the edge, without going over - this is key for triathlon cycling. Start off going for 10 minutes at a moderately hard pace. Then take 5 minutes to recover, then go hard again for another 10 minutes. This should be the type of effort that feels easy at first but by the time you reach the last few minutes of the ten minute hard portion, you feel like you are really working hard. The gold standard of what you want to build up to here is 20 minutes hard with 5 - 10 minute rest and then repeat the 20 minutes hard. If you are doing this right, you should be surfing along right at the edge of your Lactate Threshold and not blowing up and going over it.

The other option for indoor riding is rollers. Many triathletes shy away from rollers, but they are one of the best training tools for developing a smooth and efficient pedal stroke. Typically they don't offer much in the way of resistance, so this is usually not as hard as a workout on the indoor trainer.

I have noticed from observing thousands of triathletes, that many don't have very smooth and efficient pedal strokes. Riding rollers really helps smooth things out. They also make you very confidant on your bike by teaching you what the keys to great bike balance are. You know you have a good aero-postion, are well set up on your bike, and have a smooth and efficient pedal stroke, when you can ride in your aero position on the rollers. Many can't do this - but it is worth striving for. If you look at the best triathletes and bike Time-Trialers they have one thing in common - they are all very quiet, still, smooth and efficient on the bike.

If you do have rollers, what I like to do is alternate roller sessions, with sessions on the trainer - so two rollers sessions a week and two trainer sessions a week. None of these sessions need last longer than 45 minutes to an hour. If you do that through the 3 - 4 months of winter, you will definitely maintain your bike fitness, you may even elevate it!

Hope this helps.

New Product Developmemt - Frequency SS

New product development is always fun - finding a market is the challenge.

We are currently in the final stages of developing a new product at Nineteen. Pictured above on one of our sponsored athletes, Jeff Keil from Colorado, is our new Frequency SS. The SS stands for Speed-Skin or Swim-Skin. Jeff placed second in his Age Group at the recent Ironman World Championships and swam to a 3 minute personal best swim time in the new Nineteen Frequency SS! This was a new product category that was really opened up by our fellow wetsuit manufacturer, Blue Seventy Wetsuits when they debuted their Point Zero 3 swim skin just over a year ago. Until then in non-wetsuit swims, triathletes had worn regular swim or tri suits. Now they could gain an edge by wearing a garment that made them much more hydro-dynamically sleek in the water.

Blue Seventy pushed the envelope and moved the ball down the court - kudos to them. They even took the ball outside of the triathlon court and potentially opened up a whole new market when they seeked and won FINA approval for the Point Zero 3. Problem is, in the world of pool swimming there is one and only one brand that rules - Speedo. All the talk before after and during the recent Olympic Games was the Speedo Lazer. And to Speedo's credit, they hit the ball out of the court as well, when the Lazer wearing swim stars of the Games, including the mighty Michael Phelps, went on a World Record rampage! Guess what racing swim suit all competitive and masters swimmers are talking about?

Where am I going with this? Well, as I mentioned, new product development is fun and cool, but new market development can be a slow and tedious process and that's what Nineteen as well as any of the tri wetsuit companies are facing with our new swim-skins, when looking into the real swimming pool. I have already started this process and like anything, it's about doing a lot of listening at the out-set and learning as much as you can, as quickly as you can. My sense is that their may be some real potential here, but it's going to take time. One great thing about triathletes, is that they are early adopters of just about everything. Tell a triathlete it will help them, even a bit, and they will buy into it, almost right on the spot! It's a key reason for the success of many smaller companies supplying product and services to the triathlon market. Single sport athletes, for the most part are much more skeptical. So I have my work cut out for me. I'll keep you posted as I go.

Triathlon Coaching

I will be taking on a very limited number of clients for 2009 who are seeking a triathlon coach.

What I offer is a bit different than other similar services out there. The best fit will be the experienced triathlete who knows what they are doing day to day and week to week, but needs high level guidance and advice to keep the program on track and that goals are being met. I will not be handing out individual workouts or spread-sheets of your entire program. If you are looking for that, there are ample other services available, even free down-loadable online training programs. My process and input is more consultative and tailored to your needs and goals, with an assumption you already have a good sense of what to do.

There is a tremendous amount of information out there on triathlon training and I know that many are confused about what to do and how to do it. Ironically, endurance sports training is not that complicated. Often athletes who are striving for personal bests, loose site of this and get lost or disoriented with all the details and the information. I can help simplify it, using the basic fundamentals, of human physiology and endurance sports training. You may even have a coach already or are following an online program and need some higher level advise or guidance to work through it all and get out of it what you want/need.

If you are a triathlete and this sounds of interest to you, I am keen to engage and see what we can do together.

For rates, more information on what I do, and my back ground, please don't hesitate to contact me: steve@nineteenwetsuits.com

Tri Business in Troubled Times

The daily business news is grim. Yesterday, I heard a chilling stat. Automobile sales, that had peaked last year at 17 million units sold in the U.S., have dropped abruptly this year and they are expecting only about 10 million new units sold this year. That's a 7 million unit drop in a year! No wonder the automobile manufacturers, in particular the big three US Auto makers are hurting.

What about the triathlon world and business? So far, from what I can tell it's for the most part business as usual. Most of our customers had good to great years this year - not just with Nineteen wetsuit sales, but overall. Despite all the daily bad news, triathletes where still buying, bikes, wetsuits, shoes, clothes and all those other tri gadgets and nick-nacks, mostly at a record pace. The recent Interbike Trade show (Picture of the Nineteen booth above) was very up-beat. Most vendors that I talked to, had good years this year and pre-season orders for 2009 were at or ahead of record levels. The mood amongst many of our retail customers was very good. Some were a bit wary about the dark economic storm clouds that have been gathering all year, but they still were optimistic for 2009.

It's not a surprise really. The triathlon demographic is very good. You need to have a certain level of income - well north of what would be considered "average" to afford all the equipment needed to do the sport. You need sports gear for, three different sports! I think that is one of the key things that keeps it going. This may also be the dark down-side to this as the barrier costs to getting into the sport have been going steadily up, as have race entry fees. I have heard others say that if we see anything over the next year, it will be a slowing down of new people that have been coming into the sport - for that reason. The barrier costs of all the equipment needed and race entry fees getting too high. However, that is a slowdown from an astounding growth rate over the last five years. Record numbers of new people have come into the sport of triathlon and embraced the training and the lifestyle with gusto - and this is where the opportunity may lie. Many of these new people, bought entry level equipment to start out, in the last few years, just to get going - particularly when it comes to bikes and wetsuits. When they come back into the store now, they are not going to want to replace what they have with something similar. They are going to want to take a step up. My sense is even in troubled economic times, we are still going to be seeing people trading up to better equipment. That's why, many bike manufacturers, such as Cervelo, debuted over-the-top new bikes at the top-end of their lines - they know, that in addition to building awareness and the brand, these bikes will sell, because people do want to step up!

Be ready for the step up!

Bicycles & Airline Travel - The Challenges

Below is a response to a series of posts on a message board that I take part in called TriRudy.com The subject was traveling with your bike on planes. It's been a subject of endless debate over the years, but has reached fever pitch recently, as almost all the airlines have significantly raised all of the extra fees that they charge people for extra baggage beyond one checked bag. It has become particularly frustrating and expensive for triathletes and cyclists who frequently travel with their bikes to places to train and to races.

My thoughts on Bikes on the Planes:

1. The prices that we are paying for airline travel these days are a bargain. Many would disagree with me on this, but it is the reality. I recently traveled to Ironman Hawaii (IMH). I paid about $900 for my ticket from Toronto to Kona. Nearly 20 years ago in 1989, I went to Kona for the first time. In '89 I paid . . . . . . . about $900. Name me another high cost business with very expensive deliverables, that has stayed the same price for two decades?

2. What the airlines are trying to do is recover some costs because, they are loosing money on many( all) seats in the planes. So they are starting to charge for all those little extra things that previously had been "free". Most of the airlines have totally overhauled their policies when it comes to extra baggage and come up with completely, and mostly much more expensive fees for overweight, extra bags, over- size and special bags( bikes, skis . etc) . . at least this is what they are saying.

3. Now, historically, the airlines have for the most part had a special fee for bikes. The problem was that this was very inconsistently charged and enforced. In the past, by chance and by luck, or by a bit of friendly persuasion at the check-in counter you could travel a lot with a bike and never get charged! No more - now they are starting to play hard-ball with this and the fees in many cases have gone up significantly AND they are cumulative ie if it's a B-I-K-E, you are charged this, if it's your second bag, you are given another fee, if it's oversize( which just about all standard bike cases are) you are levied another fee, and if it's overweight( again which many standard bike cases can be) you are dinged again with yet another fee. As ridiculous as this sounds, I know people that paid more to get their bike to Kona for IMH then they did for themselves sitting in a seat on the plane!!

4. There still seems to be a variation in which airlines charge what and also in the levying of the extra fees. We flew Delta to Kona and only paid $50 outbound for my wife's bike. The check-in agent said that she was only charging us $50 because it was her second piece of luggage. She had asked if it was a bike and we said it was. It says quite clearly in the Delta Web site that, bikes will cost $175 each way + any extra fees for over-size, over-weight etc . . I verified these charges before the trip, with a phone call to Delta Customer service and also an email to same. On the return trip leaving Kona we paid $100, which we were told every bike leaving Kona is charged. It's kinda hard to fake your way off the Island with a bike when over 2,000 bikes are leaving the Island in 2 - 3 days!! So we paid a grand total of $150 which was a relief because we had been mentally prepared to pay $300+ But again - confusion and inconsistency seemed to reign.

5. What to do? First, choose your airline wisely. Many people book via Expedia or other online agents and automatically pick the cheapest ticket. Before you do that check with that airline on their bike policy. There still is a range. For example, West Jet, still does not charge for extra bags and the bike fee is a set $50. It may be worthwhile to take the more expensive airline ticket up front, and know that you will be paying less for your bike. Second - write the airlines. Tell them that, you understand that paying a bit more for safe and secure transport for your bike is OK, but when the price to transport the bike is more than for your seat on the plane, it's an absurd situation. Third - lobby or contact Race Directors for the events that you are going to and inquire about the race's sponsor airline, if they have one, and use that airline. Only go to races that offer that sort of deal. At some point people can and should start to vote with their pocket-books. Fourth - You can as others suggested use another type of bag - Hockey Bag etc to transport the bike by stealth and try and fake it. Given the security measures with airline travel these days, particularly in the U.S., I would be a bit wary, of out-right lying about the contents of my luggage! But that's a personal decision. Also, significantly more work needs to be done to disassemble and re-assemble the bike and may be only applicable to those with advanced bike mechanics skills Finally - use a service such as Tri-Bike-Transport to ship your bike to the event. This is only offered for limited events and to limited geographic areas, but it is an option. I know that Tri-Bike-Transport's business is booming. No surprise, when you consider the hassles and how uncertain and variable the costs of traveling with your bike as checked baggage is.

No easy answers, but hopefully shedding some light on a problem right now for those that do travel with their bikes - Flyer beware!

Marathons & Triathlon

This subject routinely comes up at this time of year on triathlon forms and message boards: Should I run a marathon in the off-season? It seems counter intuitive, but if the desire is improving ones running in a triathlon - any length triathlon, the straight up answer is, "no, don't run a marathon in the off season"

Deeper questions need to be asked though before leaving it there: What is the athletes focus? Is it triathlon or do they have a singular goal of running a marathon, maybe qualifying for the Boston Marathon? How is their running in relation to the other two sports? Do they come from a running back ground? The answers to these questions, will give some guidance as to what direction to go.

If the triathlete has a burning desire to run a marathon. Great! My suggestion to them would be to take 6 months to maybe even a year and really focus on the marathon and do it right. The problem is many triathletes look at running a marathon in too short a period of time, just bolt on a few extra long runs, and hope/pray that running the marathon is going to somehow totally transform and improve their triathlon running. The actual impact on how they run in triathlons is minimal and over the short term, depending on the timing of the marathon and key tri races, can me detrimental to their triathlon running and performance. If they take the time to really train for a marathon and do it right ( and it's not just about all long runs all the time), they will have some very positive long-term impacts on not just their stand-alone running but their triathlon running to.

Now if the focus is overall triathlon improvement with a concurrent desire to improve their triathlon running, then the wise triathlete will eschew the off-season marathon completely. Again, seems counter intuitive, but if you understand what running in a triathlon is you will perhaps see where I am going with this. Tri-running is about running while tired. You start out with tired legs and often with poor running form after the bike. The pace you run has to be that all-day, I can run-this-on-trashed-legs pace. A potent builder of this sort of run fitness is high frequency running - running as many days/week as you can. Get out and run almost every day - for 20 minutes to up to 2 hours. Just get out and run. Don't worry so much about pace, or heart rate. At first just try and build up to running for some bit of time ( 20min minimum is a good place to start) for upwards of 6 or even 7 days/week. Once getting in 6 or 7 days week, then start to increase weekly volume slowly. Do this for 3 - 4 months in the off season and you will really deepen the base running fitness you have and your ability to run while tired. If the triathlete wants to race - do a few 10K or even 1/2 marathon races. These distances push key fitness parameters like lactate threshold, but you can recover quickly and get back to the high frequency program quickly without a lot of down time.

My wife, Paolina Allan (pictured above), has become a very consistent 3:20 marathon runner in Ironman runs. She is not a natural runner and she has never run a stand-alone marathon. She has achieved this standard of triathlon and IM runnning by using a program of high frequency running through the winter months and she races a number of 10K and 1/2 marathons and uses these as training efforts and benchmarks of fitness.

Hope this helps.