Going Local – Getting Personal

From farmer’s markets to urban development, the discussion about sustainability and buying local is a hot one. The bicycle industry is inherently green, but long before sustainability and buying local was trendy, I knew I wanted to focus Signature Cycles around local partnerships. Back in 1999, I saw that creating the best custom built bicycles was about creating personal relationships – both with the best manufacturers and with our clients. What’s drawing people to the buy local movement is the sense of confidence and trust they feel when they actually know where a product comes from, who made it and how it’s made. It’s about transparency and going back to old values of real craftsmanship, whether we’re talking artisan cheeses or handmade bicycles.

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A Special Look Behind the Scenes: SRAM & Zipp

Paul’s report from SRAM & Zipp’s Product Advisory Board, February 2012.

Seeing and playing with cool bike stuff before it gets released is fun. Having an influence on what great products come next in the bike industry is a privilege. I sat on the SRAM / Zipp Advisory Board with seven other retailers last week. Our group was eclectic in their business models, from arguably the most successful bicycle mail-order owner to owners of tri and road shops from around the country with both single and multiple sites. The common thread that ran through the group was that we challenge ourselves, our staff and our businesses to be on the cutting edge of bicycle technology. We don’t stay stagnant and we expect our manufacturers to give us intelligent, well thought out and executed products that will enhance our clients’ cycling experiences. This group would chew up and spit out any pretenders. The “powers that be” at SRAM did their homework and truly wanted to know how they can be the preeminent player in their market. Our group was not short on giving comments and advice.
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Dream Cycle

I have been a cycling wannabe before clipless pedals were a mainstay in road cycling.  I would show up with the other twelve or so wannabes in Florida, NY every Saturday to play on our bikes and pretend to be fast. The Orange County Bicycle Club was created because we thought a club name would bring us closer to our dream of making our play relevant.

This tradition has developed over the past twenty years and it is not unusual to have 100+ cyclists show up for a Saturday ride. Like all clubs, we break up into smaller groups, so within your group you can always feel like you are still fast amongst your peers. No matter how fast we think we are, in the back of our brains we know that we are playing little league. We dream of beating our buddies up the hill, racing for the town line and just once taking the field sprint. We hold on to those dreams. It brings us out every weekend, year after year.

Dream cycling goes on all over the world. We shot this video of our Double A group playing on a beautiful fall Saturday in Orange County. I am the wannabe with the Rockstar kit and Team Rockstar Parlee. Because as all pretenders know, looking fast is better than being fast, even though it is best to be both.

Produced by the Cavallaro Group

Peloton Surfing: Learn the Secrets of Staying with Faster Riders

I wrote this for the Orange County Bike Club’s newsletter recently, my home club. We do a fast group ride every Saturday called the Hump where I am repeatedly forced to the limits of my strength and/or fitness by other, stronger (and usually younger) riders. What I’ve learned over the years is that you don’t have to be the strongest, but it pays to be the smartest.

Here’s the recipe for what I call “Peloton Surfing”. You don’t have to be a racer for this to apply; pretty much every cyclist has been dropped from a group at one time or another.
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Lightweight Factory Tour

110902-lightweight-23-wpTop Secret. Every manufacturer that I have ever visited has a Top Secret, behind the curtain section that is corded off to only those with the proper clearance. Lightweight goes beyond any limited access areas that I have seen in our industry. For good reason, Lightweight is more than just a wheel manufacturer. They are a carbon company first; wheels are just one of the products that they produce in their factories. Lightweight is contracted to build satellites, MRI equipment, airplane components, Formula One parts and a slew of other really cool stuff that requires exacting manufacturing to tolerances measured within 1000th of a millimeter. Think what would happen if the MRI track that the camera rides on is out of true or if a satellite camera mount is off by just a hair. Lightweight lives on the razor’s edge of tolerances like no other company in our industry.
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Website 101

“I need a new website.”

These five words strike more fear in more business owners than hearing “We are heading for another recession”. Websites are everywhere, so why are they so hard to construct? The answer is that they are not. Websites are easy, great websites are a lot of work.

That was my mission nine months ago. Create a great website that distinguishes us from our competition. I consider any recreational activity vying for cyclists’ time and attention to be competition. I needed people, lots of them, to look at how we operate and help create our online vision. The funnel theory was explained to me on how we need to direct more people to our proposed site and get them to act on our message. Sounded like a good theory, so I searched for the best “funnel” people that I could find.
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A Day with Lance Armstrong and Senator Kerry at PMC 2011

Friday evening in Sturbridge, MA started out with our traditional dinner by Rovezzi’s Restaurante before the official Pan Mass Challenge ceremonies would kick off.  Attending were Senator John Kerry, his brother Cam, PMC founder Billy Star, Senator Kerry’s Aide Jason Meininger, my wife Liz and Lance Armstrong. The conversation was eclectic and light, as you would expect from such a diverse group. We bantered from this year’s Tour, to recent politics, to the amazing growth of the PMC, raising nearly $35 million this year to fight cancer. Continue reading