Interbike Report

This Interbike report will have no pictures of funky aero bikes or gadgets, so you can exit now if that's what you are here for. There's lots of threads with cool bike pics at www.slowtwitch.com I am writing this up, so that those outside the business may get an idea of what it's like for a small company exhibiting at a show like Interbike in Las Vegas.

Tuesday

- Arrive from Toronto around noon.

- Booth set-up on Tuesday afternoon went well. Had a bit of a hassle getting past the Teamster folks at the back loading dock. We have one of those portable booth-in-the-box set-ups that we just roll in and hang up our samples on.

- Retired to my hotel room to further review dealer numbers and notes. It's going to be a hectic first two days as we are completely booked up with meetings and I want to have as much info as I can on each account in my head.

- Grab dinner at a Resturant in Harrah's with a colleague who had gone to the Demo Day and I get all the updates on that.

- Go to bed reasonably early as I know the next three days are going to be very long and tiring.

Wednesday

- Show opens and we are right into it with meetings with customers and prospects.

- We over-hear all the noise down the aisle about the Cervelo P4 launch but, we carry on talking wetsuits.

- As usual it's way too cold in the hall. Why is the AC at the Sands set to Arctic?

- Meetings, and more meetings. Even a few drop-bys which is nice.

- I bump into Gerard Voormen and Herbert Krabel enroute to get a quick drink of water( voice going horse already from dry air, AC and talking - not a good sign) I have a spare few minutes, so Gerard, Herbert, and I don't talk P4 which is right there in front of us. Instead, we have an entertaining, but brief discussion of the fashion forwardness of shirts tucked in or out for men. For the record: Krabel - cool Slowtwitch T - un-tucked in. Voormen - dress shirt tucked in. Fleck - Dress shirt un-tucked.

- Back to the booth and more meetings.

- Herbert Krable drops by the Nineteen booth in a rare lull in the action and snaps a pic of the new Nineteen Frequency SS. Pic goes up on ST later on. Thank you Herbert.

- Simon Whitfield drops by to say "Hi" but I am conducting a meeting with two dealers so we acknowledge each other with a head-nod and a Thumbs Up. One of the dealers wants to know who that was???

- Show wraps up for the day and as we walk by the Cervelo booth we stop and chat with some more of the team there that we know( Both Cervelo and Nineteen are in Toronto) I finally have a closer look at the P4 - looks cool. Learn that Cervelo has formed an R & D allienace with top Canadian Wheel-Chair racer Geoff Adams to make cutting edge wheel chairs - very neat. Meet Geoff for the first time.

- Onto the Competitor Group Party at V. Open bar with many key tri and bike industry insiders = many very interesting and entertaining discussions( some/much of which can't be printed here!!!) Thank CEO John Duke and our rep Sean Watkins for the party. Compliment Sean on his funky head-ware - a plaid poor-boy cap.

- Introduce someone to Dan Empfield, who did not know who Dan was and, I tell my friend, that we would not be here doing what we are doing if not for Dan - He is the Godfather!! Thank you Dan. We are all grateful. Seriously.

- Off to dinner with a customer at Tao. Great food and cool music.

- There is talk of doing some gambling, but we decide at 11:30pm that our day is done.

- Back at the hotel room we get the report on the Cross race from someone, the Lance news of the day and some other stuff.

- Fall hard asleep shortly after mid-night

Thursday

- Really a repeat of Wed. Mostly chock-a-block with meetings all day.

- High -light of the day: Two dealers drop of finished pre-season orders. Booking season is off to a great start!

- Lance siting. By chance, I am walking by the Oakley booth and just as I am walking by the entrance Lance pops out with body guards all around, but we still pass almost shoulder to shoulder.

- Bump into Gerard V. again. I note that he has his dress shirt is untucked today and I compliment him on how it looks!!

- Tribe Multisport drops by for their meeting. Kevin W. and the team from Tribe seem to do this show right. They go all out! It's Las Vegas baby!!

- See Andy Ording from Zipp and we have a quick catch-up chat near one of the concession stands as I grab a quick snack and drink. Andy sponsored me with Zipp wheels, years ago when Zipp was just starting out. One of the nicest guys in the business.

- AC still arctic in the Sands convention center. Throat and voice getting worse. More than a few folks walking around with jackets on!!

- On a bathroom break I meet up by chance with Whitfield. We quickly catch up. He's going to be on Royal Canadian Air Farce( a Canadian Comedy show) later on this week. I say that I will see if I can come to the taping. My son loves the show. Simon says to contact him if I have a problem getting tickets.

- Day wraps up and we head to the Cervelo Test Team Launch party, ironically back at Tao. Good food, good drink and more interesting discussions with a number of industry insiders, reps and others.

- Walking back to my hotel I spot Cid Cardoso Jnr and the team from Inside Out Sports at Chipotle( they had been at the Cervelo event to). We all sit down and have a good catch-up over burritos. They are going to the USA Crit Champs and offer me a drive. So off we go.

- Back from the Crits by about mid-night, but run into another customer in a bar at Harrah's and we share a night-cap and then after that I hit the hay by 1:00am


Friday

- At the Nineteen booth more of the same, but mercifully, booked through only until 2:00 today then more or less done.

- Feet are starting to get a bit sore. Same for the back

- Super Freelance photo and writer-guy Jay Prashun drops by to have a look at the Frequency SS. Thanks Jay. Again, I am with a customer, so I let Jay shoot what he wants and we agree to get together for lunch in Kona in a week and a half.

- Dean Jackson from Blue Seventy wanders over for a chat as things start to slow down. I should note that a number of the key Tri vendors( Cervelo, Felt, Scott, Blue Seventy, nuun, Orca, Orbea, 2XU, Rocket Science, and our selves are all within a very short walk on the massive Sands convention area show show floor - sort of an informal Tri-Zone). Shows winding down so Dean and I have a chance to talk about the wetsuit business and where we are all at. Good talk with a good competitor and the wetsuit business leader.

- Spy Bryan Rhodes in the aisles some where and I congratulate him on his IMC win. We talk IMH. and Rhodsy gives me the inside run-down on who is fit and who is not for the top men. Bryan thinks he has a great chance at IMH. Go Rhodsy!

- On Friday afternoon as the attendees start to leave, there tends to be more booth to booth and Exhibitor to Exhibitor chat. One of our neighbours, BigFish, make these very cool folding bikes - that people can take on buses and trains. They are from Slovenia and looking for business in North America. I give her a few leads of shops in the Toronto area that specialize in commuting bikes. We also talk about triathlon in Slovenia - it's growing rapidly. She shares with me a few key tri contacts over there.

- A customer who I was not expecting to see does drop by, and would like a detailed Nineteen PK session for a couple of his staff, who are along with him who are new, so I happily ablidge.

- The show really starts to wind down as we get closer to closing time at 6:00pm. I start to make notes, review each meeting and sort through the stack of business cards that I have in my left pocket. Only one no-show in three days of meetings and a good number of walk-bys. Perfect!

- At 5:30 everyone is starting to break-down their booths so we start in. Takes about an hour to pack everything up for us, just like the set up was. Then it's off to the Airport to catch the flight home.

- Tex-Mex for dinner and a few beers at the airport then the over-night flight back to Toronto.

Home now and already starting to get orders in for next year and follow-up on new leads that we dug up at the show. All-in-All it was a great show. I really did not get to see much of the show, but that's OK. Key thing is growing Nineteen's business and on that front it was very successful.

Sorry for the long report. Just thought some folks might like a slightly different perspective on Interbike than more aero bike pics :-)

Here are some pics of the Interbike Trade Show:
Our little spot at the Interbike Trade Show

Breaking the booth up and packing up.

Shopping cart of outlets from booths

Cleaning The Mind - Keeping It Simple

The financial news is not good. Gas prices are all over the map. The whole North American continent is in the midst of an election - Canada and the U.S. It's a time of extreme uncertainty. It's not the end of the year yet, we still have over three months to go, but in a way I have already turned the corner and am working away on 2009. In this business, the sporting goods business, that's the way it works. In light of that, I have just cleaned off my desk - time to start fresh and focus on the task at hand, which at this time of year is getting our ( Nineteen Wetsuits) information out to all our customers and to as many prospects as we can. So despite all the uncertainty and variables that are going on with the economy, with the elections and in the greater world, it's nice to just zero-in and focus on one thing - building our Nineteen wetsuit business and focusing on our sales and business development. At times like this it's best to keep things simple. That I find sharpens my focus and allows me to really get done what needs to get done.

It's been a good year. Our sales grew by over 50% this year. Based on conversations I have had with many dealers who are both customers of ours and good prospects, I have a good feeling that we could equal our growth this year in 2009. That's very encouraging. However we can't wait around for that to happen, we need to go out and make it happen - by talking to customers and prospects, making proposals and receiving orders. It helps that we will see many key people in the business next week in Las Vegas at the big Interbike Trade Show ( www.interbike.com ). Trade Shows get mixed responses these days when you bring the subject up with people, but I figure you will never have that many key people all under one roof at one time in a business - make what you can of it. Many go to Trade Shows, set up their booths and wait for people to come by. This approach rarely works. I have spent the last month booking meetings with many key customers and prospects. We have over 40 meetings set up. For some people, it's the only time all year that we get to see them personally. More time with customers and prospects is always good thing.

We have some very exciting additions to the Nineteen line for next year that we will be launching at Interbike - some very cool stuff actually that I know we are going to sell a lot of. Check back in, in a short while and I will have more information on some of the new Nineteen Product for 2009.

That's it for now. I will try and make the blog posts more regular.

I Knew That I Would Not Be Good At This

Where does the time. I knew that I would not be good at this. I had admired other peoples blogs from afar for some time. Somehow they always seemed to have some snappy well written post up on their blog or something else entertaining almost every day. I will fully admit that it's been nuts recently with work, with Paolina getting ready for Ironman Lanzarote, me squeezing in the odd ride here and there, Matthews soccer practices and games also trying to keep up with all the social networking on Slowtwich, Facebook, Imeem, and then Paula Newby Fraser sends me an invite to join some new triathlon dedicated social networking site called IamTri or something like that. It's being run by the WTC - the people that run the Ironman races. Looks interesting, but it's just one more thing to get to check out and do each day before . . . . . getting to my blog which I have been terrible at updating.

Work: Nineteen Wetsuits

Currently we can't make them fast enough. Orders are flooding in and we are still signing up new dealers. So far we are over 50% ahead of where we were last year at this time. We have had to, at great expense, air-freight in our last two shipments from Hong Kong where our wetsuits are made, just so that we could fill back order and have stock to fill current orders. In this business it's one of those good problems to be having. I would like at this time to thank all of our wonderful retail customers who have really stepped up this year for Nineteen and also the end-user customers who have bought Ninteen wetsuits this year. Thank you to all of you. The picture to the right is of Tereza Macel who was the first woman out of the water yet again - this time at Ironman Arizona. She's wearing our Nineteen Frequency model. We have sponsored Tereza for a few years now and she has been great to work with. Unformtunatly Tereza just broke her arm in a freakish accident whike out running - we wish her a speedy recovery.

I was asked in an interview, recently why Nineteen has been so successful. I am not sure there is one thing. There are a number of market forces, that in addition to our hardwork and our products great quality that are all coming together to move things forward. It's very exciting to see the progress. As a life-long sales-person, this is what you live for.

IM Lanzarote
The great news is that Paolina finished a strong 6th place in a very competitive women's field. I am so proud of her. She trained really hard for this. Went in with almost no racing yet this year. Travelled a long way to a strange place, and did very well on what is generally regarded as the toughest IM race course in the world. As if they all are not hard. The picture on the right is of Polly doing some rather unorthodox training for the race. It is typically very hot in the Canary Islands and it's not been very warm here this spring. What to do.?Set the bike up on the trainer in the bathroom. Put a heater in there and get the room up to 30C. Do some high intensity cycling sessions( 90 minutes tops) to get used to the heat. Whatever it was, it worked out well as the heat on race day was the leat of her concerns. Polly got a spot for the Ironman World Championships in October this year in Hawaii. So looks like another trip for her and hopefully for me to to another hot, humid and exotic Island.

Polly also received a nice new bike fram from the fine folks at Trek Bicycles - one of her sponsors on the Timex Triathlon team. We had it built up and detailed just in time for a few last training rides before heading off to Lanzarote.

What else is going on?

Matthew has been playing up a storm on the soccer pitch. His team the Aurora Stingers are off to a great start this year. With a nunber of wins. League play has started and will go all summer. Aurora is a hot-bed for youth soccer. They have so many kids that are good at Matts level that they have two Rep/Club teams. It's amazing to watch the level of skill at this level( 10 & 11 year olds)
At right is Matthew at a training camp that he went to at Bethal College in Wheeling W. Virginia

The Victoria Day Weekend was designated as a Severn River Cottage work weekend. Unfortunately the weather did nit cooperate and it was rainy, cold an windy all weekend long. We distched plans to put a new roof on the cottage, in light of the weather - for roofing you really need sunny clear conditions for 3 - 4 days and we opte to start a refurbishment of sort of the Boathouse. It desperatly needed new decking, so we started on that only to discover that some of the support beams right at the water line where in poor shape. Suddenly, a relativly easy a straight-forward job, just became very complicated. My bother-in-law, my Brother with the aid of my Step-Father and myself came up with a plan and it all fell into place. We replaced the beams, re-engineered the deck substructure to better facilitate drainage and then got at the decking. Unforntunately we ran out of time to get all the decking done. It will have to wait for another weekend. Sorry. No pictures. My brother John took some on his Camera phone. Everyone fogot the "good" cameras. Edit - Now we have a picture!

Finally, I did the first Cyclissimo bike club race of the season on the weekend. The picture to the right is of me racing last year at the KW Classic race. I had no expectations going in. "Training" has been sporadic at best, but I managed to hang in there with the strong guys until the end, but was dusted fairly badly in the sprint. Received a nice compliment from JP the winner, for a nice lead-out on the final run in to the sprint at the finish and for so much work during the race to keep the pace high and form the final break away. That's bike racing - sometimes the real hero is not the one across the finish line first! :)

That's it for now I need to get back to some writing and editing that I am doing for the Subaru Triathlon Series Program.

Sunflowers

The picture at the top of my blog is currently of one of the Russian Giant sunflowers that I have been growing in our garden every year for the past 5 years. They can grow to be ridiculously huge. The first year I grew them, I had a couple of plants that were well over 12 ft/3m high with flowers over 12 inches wide. They were the gardening talk of the neighbourhood. When I was out walking the dog, people would stop me ask if I was from the house with the massive sunflowers. Truth be told, sunflowers are not hard to grow. They are like weeds. They will grow anywhere. The last few years I have been planting second generation seeds - seeds from the plants from the following year, and I have noticed that they have not been as big in years past. However, we have had a couple of extraordinarily dry summers in Aurora, so perhaps that's what has lead to the smaller sunflowers. Last year's group topped out at about 8 ft/2m.

I thought that with winter dragging on here in southern Ontario - it's past mid-March and we are expecting more snow today, that a picture of a beautiful sunflower in full and perfect bloom would brighten my day, and it has. I hope that it has done the same for any one else who stops by.

Married

Paolina and I where married last Thursday in a quiet civil ceremony in our own house in Aurora, Ont. In attendance where some of our closest friends and family members including my son Matthew who was good enough to hold the rings for us. Thanks, Matt!

After the ceremony we all gathered at Chinook Resturant in Aurora, our favourite place to eat for dinner.

Paolina and I met on a bike ride near Aurora, and I somehow knew from the first time that I met this amazing woman that I would be with her for a very long time. I am very happy and so is Paolina. We have carved out a life together. It's had it's ups and it's downs, but we feel like a team. We have been together now for five years, and I can honestly say that these have been, in many ways the best five years of my life!

Orginally, we were hoping to be married in Scotland, which is where Paolina grew up. However, we ran into some significant logistical and paperwork issues regarding having the right visa's in place. It was a much more complicated, expensive and time consuming process than we could have ever imagined. So we decided to have the civil ceremony here and still go over to Scotland and celebrate with Paolina's family over there with a reception and a renewal of vows ceremony - just in case we had forgot them! We leave at the end of this week for 10 days in Scotland. I have never been, and I am looking forward to meeting other members of Paolina's family and seeing Scotland for the first time.

Hoping to post up some pictures when we get some downloaded from friends that where at the ceremony. For the time being this nice picture of us riding in Tucson will have to do!

Tuscon & TriFest

Last week I had the opprtunity to attend TriFest in Tucson, AZ. I had never been to Tucson, so Paolina and I decided to head down a few days early to enjoy the warm weather and the great cycling in the area. Tucson has been a favourite winter training area for many top cyclists and triathletes. The picturehere is more or less the view looking to the north and out the back window of the house we stayed at. The desert scenery in the area was stunning!




We rented a house with some friends in the N. Eastern part of Tucson near the foot of one of the famous mountain road climbs - Mt Lemmon. We progressivly made it up higher and higher on Mt Lemmon. On the Friday towards the end of the week we made it right to the top on a ride that was orgaized by TriSports.com and TriFest. It turned out to be a great ride with over 70 people at the start. There was a core group that went all the way to Summerhaven - 27 miles and over 5,000ft up Mt Lemmon. Here are the bikes siting the on the front porch ready to go.

To the left is a picture of Paolina in her Timex Team kit and Ben Bigglestone of TYR at Windy Point - the 14 mile mark of the climb.

Here's another shot of the smaller group that went on to the top taking a rest and stretching the legs a bit at Windy Point. Beyond here, about 6,000ft and I really started to feel the altitude - I wa sable to keep up and keep going but getting enough air into my lungs became a challenge.

After coffee and some outstanding Rubarb pie at the bakery in Summerhaven near 9,000 ft it was time to head back down. Here's Paolina starting the descent. On the way down we were hitting speeds close to 50 mph. I was able to follow one of the well known Tucson locals, former top ranked Pro Triathlete Jimmy Riccitello, who knew all the best lines in the turns on the descent.

Despite it being the desert, they had some rain and snow at the higher elevations on the mountains earlier in the week. On a couple of our rides we had to cross washes that had water flowing right across the road. Paolina and Vince try not to splash each other as they go through the wash on Soldier Trail that we had to go through to start almost every ride.

Now it was not all play in Tucson I had some work to do while I was there! Trisports.com - http://www.trisports.com/ is one of Nineteen wetsuits's newest accounts and it was a pleasure to be able to meet many of the staff. It says something about an organization when you give a PK session and almost the entire company of 35 people shows up - even the shipping staff. Impressive! Nineteen also had a booth at the TriFest Expo which you can see in the photo here. This was an outstanding first year event, that I hope grows into something much bigger in the years to come.

Too soon the time in Tuson was over and it was time to head back home to the Toronto area - Aurora, Ontario to be precise, and this is what we had to some home to. Here's my son Matthew survaying the Mt Everest size snow bank in front of the house and this was before the road was ploughed out and Mt Everest added to! It was great to be back home.

Finally a Blog From Fleck

I tend to be late with the technology, so I am finally getting around to setting up a Blog. I must admit that I have been very inspired by friend and Olympic Triathlon Champion Simon Whitfield who has one of the best triathlon blogs going - http://simonwhitfield.blogspot.com/
. He's really been out there with what he has been posting up and I am sure that he has many people reading and watching. I have been around many world class athletes in my time and it's rare for an athlete of this stature to be so honest and candid. It's great stuff. Thanks Simon for the inspiration.

I also thought this would be helpful ( warning - crass promotion coming) in the business development of Nineteen Wetsuits. I am the Sales & Marketing Manager for Nineteen and I have been using online portals and sites such as www.slowtwitch.com and www.facebook.com in my marketing and networking, to great effect - having a blog seemed like the next step.

So there it is. First post done. Not sure who is going to read this drival, but it's here for everyone.

I have just returned inside after shovelling a monster amount of snow here in Aurora with my Son Matthew and I am about to get dinner ready for Matt, Paolina and I.