Big 'S' part three: "We Ride in the Rain Here".

"We ride in the rain here." Nic from Specialized marketing dept.

As if to portend of things to come, the rain started up again after lunch as we prepared to get out and try and find a place to go for a ride. At the back of the warehouse, we spun wrenches getting an XL 2010 FSR Stumpjumper Expert 29er ready to ride. I felt kinda bad taking what is pretty much a new bike out in this weather. It was not going to be pretty.

We crammed the van full of bikes on the carrier and 4 of us inside; Myself, Nic, Eric and Robb. Nic was on a carbon 29er HT, Robb was on a 29er Epic and Eric was on his FSR Stumpy with a 1x10 XX set up running a 30 tooth front ring.


We drove out into heavy rain and winds with lightning flashing in the distance. OOofff. I kept thinking that these poor guys got sucked into taking this stupid media guy out in this weather...part of the job, Old Bean, etc...but looking at the faces in the van I think these nuts would have done this anyway if given half the chance. Hard core.

Nic had taken pity on this So Cal dryland rider and set me up with some wet weather clothing:

The Aqua Veto jacket, BG Deflect Gloves and some Tech Layer base layer pieces.




Combined that stuff with tights over shorts and some water shedding Sombrio baggies, the water proof BG Defroster Shoes and a head cap under my helmet and I was good to go. We ended up at the non-techy but super fun and super soggy-sandy soil of the Laguna Seca/Sea Otter area.

Now is this trick or what? I gotta do that at home.

We rode out in light rain and wet trails, although the sandy soil was very forgiving of our passing. No trail damage here. The FSR Stumpy 29er was a hoot to ride. I was aiming at every chunky thing I could find and watching the boys ride over the next hill while I wheezed along. These guys ride a bit, it seems. I was glad to have a granny on this bike.


The trails here are up and down, sandy and banked with fast bermed corners. What a great place to ride!


The FSR Stumpy is a really fun bike and obviously a different flavor than the Epic Marathon I have been on lately. I hope to get more saddle time on this one. I can see a trip to Blue Diamond in Vegas or Maybe Gooseberry Mesa. Yum.

I can't thank the guys at Specialized enough for taking such good care of me (and waiting at the top of the hills). It was fun and mildly epic in a wet kind of way. I will remember this ride.

Sitting in the San Jose airport the next day, I was listening to the reports come over the intercom as one after another the airports in So Cal were shutting down...San Diego, then Burbank. Nuts. I was headed to Burbank. Was. At the last minute I jumped ship and grabbed a flight to LAX where I could shuttle back towards home.

Standing in front of LAX waiting for the shuttle bus, it was raining, windy and in the low 50s. I was wearing a few layers including a raincoat and nice wool cap from Ireland. Out of the corner of my eye I see skin walking by. Lots of it.

There, coming out of the terminal building was a sight to see; a beauty of a women...tall, blonde, young and in oh-my-god shape. She had her entourage...two nicely dressed young men in front with the baggage and one at her side with the umbrella. She was wearing workout clothes; nice sweat pants that hugged the waist and a sports top/bra up top. You could see every toned and sculpted muscle as she walked...nay, not walked...it was more like a feline strolling along...languid comes to mind. The hip action was deliberate and remarkable. Like a living metronome, those hips could have powered a small town if you could have hooked a generator to them.

I watched the underdressed, walking, living testament to 'looking good in LA no matter the cost' cross the windy, wet and cold taxi way and move toward the waiting limo, no doubt. Ya' gotta laugh.

Absurdity and vanity on display. Welcome to LA.

Big 'S' part 2: In the Belly of the Beast

"First thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers"

From Shakespeare's King Henry the Sixth, Scene II

Without going into all the politics of it, something I have no real interest in knowing much about, I will say that there are things about big companies that can affect their...ahhh...popularity, shall we say. Think about the Walmart Syndrome; a big company that has been accused of being a bully, unfairly treating manufacturers, putting smaller companies out of business, etc. I have heard similar things leveled at the Big S as well, in one way or another. There are some real haters out there and Trek, Giant, etc all get their fair share of name calling. I will not make apologies for the way Specialized does or does not conduct business. Not my deal.

I wanted to meet the people that have their hands on the products you and I can wear, ride, and enjoy and see what they are all about.

And it was with that in mind that I stepped into the lobby of the Specialized HQ, dripping nicely on the carpeting. A matronly lady, no doubt having seen the Keystone Cops chase drama of my folding money cast to the winds, looked at me with a bit of a tsk-tsk look. I called my contact there, gathered my thoughts and looked around me. First I saw this:

I remember this bike!

In fact the lobby was adjacent to a museum of sorts with old bikes from the past, wild one-off custom bikes, new bikes, signed jerseys....man, cool stuff.

OOhhhh...I can touch Ned's bike????

The new Globe line represented here.

The tour included looks at the overall corp digs. Classrooms, testing facilities, warehouses of bikes for testing, employees bikes, secret bikes, old bikes, new bikes, borrowed bikes, blue bikes. This is a bike culture here, that much is apparent. You know, it could be a widget that gets designed here. A big company can make great widgets. They have the brains and the brawn to get it done. But a widget does not inspire. It does not call for lunchtime rides. Widgets don't get into your lives and create passion.

This is, as far as I can see a passionate place regarding creating a better bicycle. I know that it is also made up of layers and layers of emails, budget meetings, sales projections, engineering VS. marketing VS. accounting like any big company. And the legal dept too, at least until the torch bearing townsfolk catch up to them.

I have seen that same passion in the lives of other bike guys like Jason B. at Salsa Cycles. I have caught a glimpse of it in the halls of Giant Bikes HQ. The bike industry is made up of a lot of bike nuts that pinch themselves every day to see if they are dreaming. They may not be rich and life still happens, etc, but they get to work on, dream about, plan for, and play on bikes all day and they get paid for it. It could be worse.

Nice workout room for those days when ya can't ride outside.

I met the tire guy, the wheels guy, 2 29er guys and 2 marketing guys. Several of us sat in a room and discussed what I think, what they think, why this and that, etc. Interesting perspectives, for sure. In many ways, it feels odd for someone to ask my opinion like I have some great insight or something. Man, I am just an old dude who has loved mountain bikes for 25 years now and recently found that he loves big wheeled ones even more. I guess I have to blame that for getting me here. And, I suppose I have learned a few things along the way. Still and all, I do sometimes worry about, to paraphrase a wise old story, the 'emperors new lycra'.

Lunch happened at a local deli and as we walked over in the rain, I knew the next part of the journey was a bike ride on a 29er FSR Stumpjumper. Grey skies, rain, wind, monsoons, thunder, lightning...gonna be an interesting ride.

Next: Part Three - "We ride in the rain here". Nic Sims, Specialized

Tall Boy out of the Tall Box

The Big 'S' Part one: Come Up and See Us Sometime

A while back I got an email from Specialized inviting me up to take a tour of the Corp HQ, meet some of the staff and test ride a bike for the day. Being a jaded bike journalist (hah), that was not quite enough to get me there, but the mention of Sushi tossed in to the deal capped it off and I was in.

The day rolled around and as we got toward D-Day, the weather turned to complete junk. California was seeing more rain in one week then it had seen in 5 years...nearly 10 inches in 5 days...tornados were touching down and mudslides threatened. Perfect bike testing weather? I asked Nic @ Specialized if this changed things. His reply: "We ride in the rain here." OK. I think I am among the hard core. Cool.

Flying out of Burbank I landed in San Jose with the weather looking just like I had left it in So Cal. Wet, windy, thundery. I was supposed to be met at the airport, I figured by a company grommet who got tasked with driving down through a monsoon to get this silly media guy picked up. I was told to look for someone with a sign. Cool, just like Justin Timberlake gets...his own sign.

But I saw no sign. A few phone calls and I was told that Al was there to meet me. Look for the sign. OK...outside, nothing but Middle Eastern cab drivers smoking cigs in the rain. Back to the baggage counter and this silver haired guy walks up and says, "are you so and so?". Yep. I had seen this guy at least three times in the baggage area during my rounds...no sign. I ask him where his sign is. How am I supposed to feel like Justin T. without my sign? He steps back, looks at me, blinks once or twice and then points to the jacket he is wearing, emblazoned with big letters across the chest: SPECIALIZED. "I am the sign" says Al.

Oh...right. Sorry.

Ushered into the Lincoln Conti in much greater style than I expected (and typically warrant), we head off into the storm. Al is a great guy and we hit it off. Both of us have backgrounds in Martial Arts, so we talked about that. We also talked about his experience working for Specialized as a contract service, ferrying folks to and fro. He begins to speak about Mike Sinyard, owner of the company. It is unscripted and initiated by Al, and it is apparent that he not only respects Mike, but genuinely likes him. According to Al, the head of one of the most successful bike/component/accessory makers on the planet is a down to earth guy that is a bike nut at heart, often choosing to ride to work from an airport rather than take the Limo.

It is an interesting sideways look at someone's character. I have heard an adage that rings true more often than not. If you want to get an insight into a person, see how they treat people that are serving them: waiters, counter sales persons, customer service...and guys like Al. Mike does not need to invite Al on bike rides and encourage him to begin cycling. He could just sit in the car and be taken care of. But bike nuts tend to spread the passion they feel about bikes to others cuz they want everyone to know the fun and joy of it for themselves.

I have had the opportunity to hang a bit with Gary Fisher and he is that way. I never saw a sign of being jaded or uppity. he seemed to love bikes, bike people and the journey that two wheels has provided him through life and continues to provide.

Passion at the top of the corp ladder seems to be what is going on here at the Big S. It is going to be an interesting day.

Pulling up in front of the office building, the wind and rain is cranking. I reach into my pocket to grab a bit of legal tender for Al and the wind grabs my wad of cash (ok...wad is maybe the wrong word here) and flings it back in the direction of the airport. As I scramble around the parking lot looking under cars for that 20 dollar bill that remains missing,I hope that the guys I am meeting here are not watching out the window. I consider telling Al that I have good news and bad news....the good news is I was going to give him a 20 buck tip and the bad news is the missing bill is his!

I think Al would have laughed at that.

Part two coming up: In the Belly of the Beast - Putting Faces to the Faceless Capitalistic Juggernaut?