Tuesday, January 31, 2006

Going once....Going twice....

Poor Tim has been keeping the Krew afloat here for awhile. But, I must say that he's been doing a fabulous job, don't you think?! Tim's as busy as the rest of us, but he either manages his time better or he doesn't sleep....I'm going for the 'no sleep' option.

Anyway, although cycling season is a ways off for some of us, I've found this little tidbit of information for you all that I thought you might be interested in to help pass the February weather.

The Tyler Hamilton Foundation's annual online auction is starting February 1st! As there was last year, there are all kinds of great items to bid on. Here are just a few for the cycling nut:
Jan Ullrich signed jersey
Robbie McEwen signed Lotto-Domo jersey
Pedro's, Pedro's, Pedro's, including the Super Pit Kit
Kryptonite lock set (of course!)
Best of all - Tyler and his wife, Haven, will host dinner for 4 at their house! Guess who's cooking? Andy Hampsten!

There are currently 116 items with more being added each day. You don't have to be a cycling nut to join in either. Check out some of these items:
Bath lovers basket
Indulged Doggie set and Dog Spa Set!
Ray Bourque signed Bruins jersey
And all kinds of trips - Orlando, NYC, DC, Maui and Tuscany

All of the proceeds go to the Tyler Hamilton Foundation. The THF "believes in the power of the bike! The Tyler Hamilton Foundation is dedicated to empowering lives through cycling. THF believes that cycling can heal and cyclists can help."
Good cause. Great items. Just thought you cycling fans might want to check it out. The auction goes to February 28th. I'll be bidding.....

And now I'll echo what Tim's been saying - we're all amazed at the recognition we've gotten here and we'll all try to do our best to be a real "Krew", not just an army of one.

Posted by Donna Tocci at 6:12 PM 2 comments

Monday, January 30, 2006

Where did my manners go?

I can't believe it has been almost 9 days since Tim Grahl's wife Candace gave birth to their beautiful new baby boy. Worst of all, I can't believe it has taken me this long to remember to congratulate Tim and Candace on this wonderful moment in ther lives.

Tim is one of our Krewmates here and is a great guy on top of it. Tim is also the man responsible for the look of this site. I digress though...

Anyway, from the rest of your friends and "colleagues" here in the Kool-Aid Krew, we wish you, Candace and Conner David the very best. May your nights be full of sleep and relatively few stinky diapers.

Congratulations friend!

Tim Jackson
Chief Kool-Aid Dispenser

Posted by Tim Jackson at 8:38 PM 0 comments

Thursday, January 26, 2006

Kool-Aid exclusive; interview with Ibis founder Scot Nicol.

You may remember that I wrote a piece about Ibis Bicycles a while back. Well, it turns out that Scot Nicol was reading and we got to talking and an interview ensued. That interview is below for a great read.

I openly admit that I am no Barbara Walters, but I think that the questions and answers do a pretty fair job of being insightful as well as entertaining. This is an exclusive interview and I am way, way, way excited to be able to provide it here.

So without further delay...

Bike stuff;

How many bikes was Ibis making during its peak?
Never more than 1500 per year, usually far less. At our peak we capped in-house production at about 1200 bikes a year. We didn’t make them very fast. Google’s third core value is “fast is better than slow”. We didn’t do too well on that one, but should have. Off subject already—we did share many of their other core values including their philosophy of “never settle for the best”. Other commonalities we shared with Google’s 10 things they found to be true: #1-focus on the user and all else will follow, #2, it’s best to do one thing really really well, #6 you can make money without doing evil, and really close to home #9 you can be serious without a suit.


Why the move to carbon?
It’s a move back to Carbon. We did a few custom carbon bikes in 1988. Built them with the highest tech tubing you could get at the time. Apparently, most of the fiber we spec’d for the bikes “ended up in space” according to the people who built the tubes. There’s a picture of one on our website (http://ibiscycles.com/tech_faqs/technology/), and we have one hanging in our office. They were pricey.
There used to be a lot of reasons not to build in carbon, and now there are no reasons to not build in carbon. I’m not saying that we won’t use other materials, it’s just that carbon makes a lot of sense.


Any plans for steel in the future?
No plans, but that doesn’t mean yes or no. It has been talked about.


How much can I get for my Ibis Hand Job bottle opener on eBay?
They will keep becoming more valuable, because we are not going to do them again. I hope we do other cool things like that, but we’re not planning on merely duplicating old Ibis stuff, as cool as some of those things were.


Any plans to bring back details like the Hand Job and Toe Jam to the bikes?
V-brakes and now disc brakes have sort of rendered the hand job useless. And CO2 has kind of rendered the toe jam useless. So we’ll need to be clever and come up with the next thing…


What's the warranty on the Mojo - which I think I'm correct in saying is one of the first two "all mountain," all-carbon frames (the other being the Scott Ransom)?
Three years, and we have a pretty generous no-fault replacement policy. You could make the case that Carbon is more repairable than Aluminum (which is really the only other widely used material in full suspension bikes). Calfee repairs them, we have a link to his repair page on our site. Many of the Aluminum FS bikes are solution heat treated, and would need to be re heat treated after a repair. It’s not easy to find a manufacturer who will repair and re heat treat a bike for you. Carbon is quite repairable, and you don’t need to put the frame back in an oven or mold to cure the repair. Because cured carbon re-melts at a much higher temperature than pre-preg, you can do spot repairs without affecting the surrounding area.
Scott has the Ransom, I’m not sure where Specialguys is positioning their S-Works carbon (except expensive) and BCD has been making their downhill carbon frames since 1996.


Are there bikes in stock? Can you talk numbers?
Mojos begin shipping in April, and are sold out until November. We had to turn a lot of dealers away who wanted them this first year. Silk Carbons are easier They’re selling well, but we have a better supply and our back orders only go to late spring. Our current production is 50 Mojos and 100 Silks a month. We’re hoping to bump those numbers dramatically in the next …let’s just say soon. We’re working on it.


Seems like everyone has a carbon road frame this year, what's the reaction been to the new Ibis road frame? Any indication it's getting lost in the shuffle and can you give a hint as to how the product line is going to evolve?
While the Mojo is clearly getting more attention-as it should-the reaction to the Silk has been excellent. You’ve got to remember that the two markets (road & mountain) are still very different. The road market does not adopt change as quickly as the mountain bike side of things. So if you introduce radical departures of technology or aesthetics too quickly, you’ll be fighting a battle of acceptance. What’s radical about the Silk Carbon is the price. We had long talks about the pricing of that bike. We could easily have charged a lot more and sold all the bikes we could build.
This leads us to an interesting marketing discussion about the positioning of the company. There is a lot of history in the Ibis brand. The luddites wanted to see more steel hardtails from us. Same old same old. But that’s not what we wanted to do. It’s like a musician who only plays the hits from 20 years ago. You appeal to the same crowd time and time again, but any sort of creative process is hibernating. That’s fine if it’s what you want to do. The continuity to old Ibis is that we’re still building bikes that we want to ride, and like Kip in Napoleon Dynamite, we like technology. And we embrace change. Since we (my partners and me) also seem to be serving a life term in the bike industry, we’re no strangers to poverty. So another aspect of the company is that we’re building bikes that we would actually purchase at retail. We’re not pricing them at what price we might be able to get. We’re amortizing development costs over a longer period of time to kept the cost down. We’re taking a much smaller margin that what we could get, because we want to make the bikes affordable (this is a relative term obviously). This goes along with Google # 6, making money with out being evil. We’re not charging what the market will bear, but what we think is fair. This might sound like a bunch of hooey, but these were the actual reasons we chose the prices we did. Some of the other manufacturers aren’t too happy with our pricing.


Industry stuff;


Where do you see the future of the industry? (Nice big, vague question for the old grey matter to ponder.)
From a rider’s standpoint, I like what I see. Clearly there are tons of choices for good suspension bikes and good carbon road bikes. That’s where the main thrust of the market is. But I think looking elsewhere is a good indicator of health of the industry. I absolutely love the whole cruiser movement. And the commuter/city bike scene is great. Sky’s (Sky Yeager of Bianchi USA- Ed)Castro Valley is my current favorite. Trek’s Soho, the Breezers, and the custom guys doing fun stuff like the Sycip’s Java Boy.
Cycling is still too exclusive. And I mean that in the truest meaning of that word: we exclude people. I don’t have a solution to this problem. It’s more of an observation. I think the new incarnation of Ibis will be a lot less exclusive than the old Ibis. See the McBikeshop question below for more on this subject, where the industry is going.


Did Interbike make sense just as a launch pad or is there use for it past that? Is Interbike dead?
Interbike worked very well for us for the launch. And I suspect that it will continue to work for us if the present state of the industry stays more or less as it is. Interbike was our only advertising/promotional expense for the entire year, and it was money well spent. That might not be true for others. It’s actually a benefit that Trek and Specialized aren’t there (see below for elucidation).


How's the dealer base coming along? Will Ibis eventually hold it's own dealer pow-wows in lieu of Interbike?
We are having no trouble signing up dealers. Interbike was great for that. It’s been much harder for us turning away really good dealers because we don’t have the capacity. How the effectiveness of Interbike will play out in the future is not visible in my crystal balls.


Interbike's effectiveness has been questioned for a number of years now, but with Trek and Specialized both moving away to one extent or another, the question seems to be getting bigger. What do you see as the "point" of Interbike now? Social function or is real business still being done at the show?
We did a ton of business. I think the limited presence or outright absence of Trek and Specialized only helps all the small guys. Everybody is fighting for the attention of the dealers and press before Interbike, which has made Interbike an ideal launch pad (again) for new products. We very purposely waited and didn’t say a peep about Ibis until the show. It worked well; we weren’t at all lost in the shuffle.


Is Dirt Demo now replacing the exhibit as the real reason to go to the show?
Not at all. In reality there are long lines to ride the hot bikes. We didn’t do Dirt Demo last year and will do one day this year. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a fantastic venue, but by no means replaces the exhibit.


Does the show need to leave Las Vegas?
It doesn’t matter to me. We stay in a condo, get up, make breakfast, walk to the show, jabber for 10 hours, then find a quiet spot off the strip for dinner, come home, go to sleep and do it again the next day. It could be in Des Moines or Dearborn for all I care. On the other hand, a lot of the industry is on the west coast, so there’s some sense to having it in Vegas. Flights are reasonable and frequent.
Nobody is holding a gun to your head and telling you to be a part of the excess that is Vegas. It can be avoided. Conversely, you probably can’t get as good a lap dance in Des Moines.


How big do you and your partners want Ibis to become?
We have big plans to keep it small. We think there’s a sweet spot with around 10 people in the company, plus or minus a couple. Hans wants to avoid having layers of bureaucracy. Direct communication between all involved contributes to efficiency. We’re going to run it pretty lean.
Coming back into the game after sitting out awhile, what's the most striking change you see?
I was never gone. I only missed one trade show during the hiatus. We were planning new Ibis for almost three years before the actual launch, so we were paying close attention.


From a macro level, the number of shops keeps going down and with Trek and Specialized honing their McBikeshop approach, where does Ibis fit in?
This is really the big question about the future. Where are the bike shops going to be in a few years? If the two 400-pound gorillas (do the math) are capitalizing 70-80% of floor space in the successful dealerships, that leaves a lot of small guys fighting for the crumbs. Is it similar to the Wal-Mart’s kicking in the heads of the mom and pop stores on main street, USA? I don’t know. I could start to talk about American Culture here and why our kids don’t ride their bikes to school anymore and why people live a long way from their jobs and live instead in their cars and why their lives are out of balance and so there’s road rage and obesity and ugly things like that. But that would make me very angry and then I’d start drinking. So what I will do instead is talk about my other favorite non-essential luxury item industry: Wine.
Seriously, there are a lot of parallels. Bikes and wine, both non-essential luxury items that people have tons of passion for. Both make you feel good. Both have three (and sometimes four) tiered distribution systems involving manufacturers, distributors and retailers. Neither do a lot of online business (wine.com and others continue to flounder and there is no Amazon of either the wine or bike world). OK, so you’re a bike manufacturer, your choices are sell direct to a dealer who then sells to a retail customer, or possibly you sell to a distributor (in our case only in other countries) and then they sell to a dealer who sells to the end consumer. There are always two or three margins in there. This is pretty much true for all of us. The big wine producers are pretty much in the same distribution boat as everyone in the bike industry (big or small). There are arcane prohibition-era laws that are only now being challenged in the highest court of the land, so some of this may change soon. What I think is an interesting trend to follow though, is how the smaller boutique producers of wine (the Ibises and Sevens and Moots’ and IF’s of the wine world if you will) sell a lot of their wines directly to consumers through their wine clubs. And this number is only going to increase with the aforementioned Supreme Court rulings. Let me make up some numbers for illustrative purposes. You might sell a 40-dollar retail bottle of wine to a distributor for 20, to a retailer for 30 and you already know the retail price. The wine guys know that they need to have presence in stores and restaurants. But they also know that certain numbers of their customers don’t need the wine retailer or restaurant guy because they know more about the wine than the person selling it to them does. It’s not always true, but is frequently true. And when you blend the margins, if you’ve sold a significant percentage of your wine at retail as opposed to distributor, your bottom line looks a lot better. The exact scenario is true in the bike industry. Now don’t jump down my throat here, because I’m generalizing; there are always exceptions. There are some consumers who know far more than the guy selling them the bike. Our customers are not entry-level customers. Trek and Specialized have a lot more entry level customers than we do. So it makes sense to have a bike shop person hold their hand through the sale. And sometimes it makes sense for this to happen with our bikes. But does it always? The high-end wine guys have a nice little component of their business that delivers them a spectacular margin with their customer, someone who they’re also in direct contact with. The numbers are purposely kept small, as they don’t want to cannibalize their other distribution venues. Like the small bike guys, they don’t have big (or any) ad budgets, so they rely on reviews to inform consumers about their product. I know that building a bike is more complicated than opening a bottle of wine, but there are plenty of customers who are capable of and actually want to build their own bikes. An obvious question is what about test rides? I’d be curious to know what percentage of customers who will buy our bikes through retailers will actually ride a perfectly set up bike: the right sag, air pressure, stem configuration, etc. How many will actually get to try it on a trail? I think we can trust the magazines to give us good reviews. Just like the wine industry (unless in a restaurant), you don’t get to sample the product first. I’m just rattling a few of the common reasons we here for not selling directly to a consumer. I guess I end up this little observation with a question, why not do it like the wine industry?
This whole scenario might make more and more sense moving forward as the Trekification of the IBD continues. I think we small guys need to keep our eyes on this excellent question you bring up.


Marketing stuff;


What are you doing to advertise the brand?
It’s all guerilla, word of mouth, and hopefully some decent magazine reviews. No magazine ads or race teams in the foreseeable future.


Someone was telling me about an hilarious ad a while back, playing off the Clif Bar ads featuring prominent athletes who had "converted" from Powerbar. I was told the ads had a picture of the athlete with "CONVERT" written on top. Word has it you sent in an ad of yourself with "PERVERT" as a headline. Nice job. Can we expect more of that sort of shake-it-up-a-little advertising?


What are your plans to reconnect to your old fans? On the flipside of that, how are you planning to grab new fans? What sort of magic are you hoping to entrance people with this time?
I’m satisfied with how word is spreading about Ibis. All the little things we’ve been doing to announce the relauch over the last 10 months. New fans are going to be sucked in by the beauty of the bikes. Particularly when the realize how reasonably priced they are. This is really where the dealer comes in, because when you see the bikes, your jaw drops.


How is the Chuck Ibis blog coming along? Is the traffic growing still or has the traffic been steady from day one and stayed pretty much level?
I’m not a very good blogger. I don’t keep track. Nor do I make regular entries. I make irregular entries.


What has the feedback been from the "Old Ibis" fans? Since I have a brand that is very similar in the cult-like following, I know how hard it is to deal with the obstacles that come from history while still trying to use that history to sell bikes. Do you feel you have a tough battle or is it proving to be as easy as it always was?
I don’t think it was ever easy. It’s actually easier now that it has been. Part of that might be experience, part is having such a kick ass product. The good thing about Ibis is that we were constantly changing and evolving, so what we are doing is only a natural progression of where the company would have been anyway. I really believe that. And to that end, there will always be people who associate us with one thing or another and want us to just keep building that product. Those people are in the extreme minority though. What has been very successful is keeping our old base very loyal, while catching the eye of an entirely new audience. The challenge is to keep doing that, and not to keep referring to history. Innovation creates value.


What roll does blogging play in your over all strategy? People used to love to interact with you and Ibis in the past and now blogging can do that much more "real time" without being on the phone all day and night with people who want to be your buddy. The blog existed before anybody saw the bikes, so I would assume you see a value in blogging, but has that role diminished some now that the bikes exist?
It’s a great tool to stay in touch. I will see a lot more opportunity in the future as products, reviews and customer feedback comes rolling in. We haven’t delivered a single bike at the time I’m writing this, so there’s less to talk about. All the stuff happening now is sort of mundane production related issues. Not the great stuff of entertainment.


What role does print advertising play now? Has web-based advertising replaced it or will it?
No advertising for us right now. But that will change. Web has not replaced print. TV didn’t replace radio, but it shook things up. We can be certain that things will continue to change. For Ibis in the immediate future, we’ll rely on our dealers, on reviews and word of mouth.

Will company websites replace catalogs? (This has been a big question for us the past few years.)
For me as a consumer they have completely replaced them. You can put so much more info on the web, include motion graphics and it’s easier to show engineering concepts. If I want to learn about a car or a shaver or a camera, I go online.


Thank you Scot for this exceptional conversation. The pleasure was all mine... and I'm stealing your ideas!

Tim Jackson
Chief Kool-Aid Dispenser
(Editor's note; I failed to mention on the original posting of this interview that the questions for the interview were provided by the Krew's Karl Wiedemann, myself and future contributor Chris Lesser- formerly of Bicycle Retailer and Industry News. My apologies to both for the initial omission.)

Posted by Tim Jackson at 8:29 PM 5 comments

Wednesday, January 25, 2006

KHS revisited.

I just recently received the March issue of ROAD magazine and saw the new KHS two page ad. I am very happy to say that the new ad is far better and conveys a much better image for the brand. I'm not saying the ad is perfect, but it is a far cry better than past ads.

This new ad has a gigantic image of their new high-end road bike and smaller images of two other models. In the upper right corner of the ad is a solo male rider riding over the crest of a hill. Man and bike- a simple image. The caption for the ad reads "Turn you riding buddies into road kill!" Much better than the previous ads and still holds onto an edgier image than other more "traditional" road bike brands (which I am assuming was the goal, but I could be wrong).

Shortly after the first post here mentioning KHS, I was told by a friend "in the know" that I was not alone on my assessment of the effectiveness and impact of the older ads. Allegedly, KHS was already moving away from those ads and seeking to make strides to improve/ polish brand image. I wish I could say that it was all due to my first post, but it seems that KHS was already thinking ahead. (I also noticed quite a few visits here from KHS, though I doubt my comments had anything to do with their decisions- though I certainly invite their feedback.)

Bravo KHS!

Tim Jackson
Chief Kool-Aid Dispenser

Posted by Tim Jackson at 9:45 PM 2 comments

Friday, January 13, 2006

Attention Bike Industry!

Our friend in the UK, Carlton Reid, sent me the following email this morning and he has graciously offered to allow me to post it here. Carlton is the editor of BicycleBusiness in the UK. If you do not already receive a copy of this magazine and are a member of the cycling industry, get in touch with Carlton and the subscription folks there and get signed up for your copy.

BicycleBusiness is essentially the British version of Bicycle Retailer and Industry News (BRaIN) that we have here in the US (but totally different owners and staff). Having a look at how business is done and how it is doing in a different market can be a very beneficial and enlightening thing. Personally, I think it's foolish to not take up this offer... but I have been known to have some crazy opinions.

A message for those who don't get mailed with BicycleBusiness

If you'd like to get on the mailing list for the new-look BikeBiz mag of the UK - now published by Intent Media - send an email to the subs department. We'd especially like to hear from international readers of BikeBiz.com.

The relaunch issue will be mailed in mid-February. Existing recipients of the magazine need do nothing, they'll continue to be mailed. To get on the expanded mailing list, please email: Bike.subscriptions@c-cms.com CC to subs@bikebiz.com Send a contact name, job title, full mailing address and add which of these categories you belong to: 1. Independent Bicycle Dealer 2. Chainstore Bicycle Dealer 3. Supermarkets & Non-specialist Bicycle Retailer 4. Online & Mail Order Bicycle Retailer 5. Manufacturer (including accessories and apparel) 6. Wholesaler/Distributor/Import/Export 7. Specialist Services 8. Media 9. Associations & Organisations 10. Other


CARLTON REID
Editor, BikeBiz


(I apologize for the weird formatting here. I have no idea what is happening.)

Tim Jackson
Chief Kool-Aid Dispenser

Posted by Tim Jackson at 12:10 PM 3 comments

Wednesday, January 11, 2006

KHS and advertising in the cycling industry.

The piece I wrote yesterday about KHS has gotten a lot of great attention and has started some great dialog here the past two days.

I just want to point out that even though KHS is the only company mentioned by name and used as an example, they are far from being the only company "guilty" of the type of marketing efforts discussed. The cycling industry is full of advertising and marketing efforts that take the low road and go straight for the "sex sells" approach. True enough, it does sell. However, it is my belief that those gains are short lived and do not add to a brand's credibility. Anybody remember those horrible colored Macaw Tires (sorry, I tried to find a link to them but couldn't) from the mid 90's with the ad that had a row of women in thong bikinis? A few folks may remember the ads, good or bad, but the tires are now long gone and were never really taken very seriously.

Though KHS was the example used, they are far from being alone. My whole point is that the bikes they sell are being held back by their advertising, at least the type outlined yesterday. The product merits a better image to help it sell. (KHS- I think you guys have good product. Honest, so don't sue me. Just ask my wife, I'm pennyless and not worth coming after.)

My bigger point is that the entire industry needs to look at the way it presents itself. By going after the crotch appeal, you automatically run the risk of alienating one group of potential consumers. Plus, it not only reduces your brand's credibility, but it has the potential to turn outside investors away from the industry or the sport. If we collectively raise the bar and increase our professionalism, the entire industry will benefit.

Tim Jackson
Chief Kool-Aid Dispenser

Posted by Tim Jackson at 10:05 PM 1 comments

Pick of the Orchard

Scott at Media Orchard has as once again selected the Krew for Pick of the Orchard (1/11/06). We were first selected on 12/04/05, oddly enough for the introduction piece about the site contributors. Pretty cool! This time Scott has selected us for the piece yesterday about KHS and their recent advertising efforts.

Again, all of us here are flattered by the recognition. It's nice to get "the nod" from mainstream marketing professionals.

Thanks again Scott- the check is in the mail.

Tim

Posted by Tim Jackson at 9:49 PM 0 comments

Tuesday, January 10, 2006

KHS Bicycles; potential untapped?

KHS Bicycles has always been a brand that has appealed to me personally. They have always produced a bike that is reasonably well spec'ed and priced. I've always had a soft spot for brands that provide value-based performance. The bikes, in my opinion, have not always been all that "pretty", but who cares what they look like when the parts mix is great and the price is one of the better prices on the market? For the rider/ racer on a budget, the bikes are a great deal. Plus, they have always done a pretty good job of supporting grassroots sponsorships- another topic near and dear to me.

My only real gripe with KHS has been with the magazine ads they have run, especially the past year or so. Unfortunately, I do not have an example to post with this, so you'll have to just work with me for a minute on this. The ads have taken the "low brow" approach of using scantily clad women in provocative poses/ situations to sell the bikes. For example, there is one ad that has a rider on a bike, stopped on the side of the road talking to two women in a convertible. The two women are sitting on the back of the car, fleshy chests in the sun, and the guy's bike is barely visible at all. Now, I am not a prude by any stretch of the imagination, nor am I opposed to seeing attractive women in advertising- far from it. However, the cycling industry is in need of breaking out of the "boy's club" mold. More and more women are coming into the sport and the industry, so the old way of appealing to an all male audience is just out of place now.

I spoke to one retailer who said, "the girls in revealing clothing work in Lowrider magazine. I'd even say they work well selling mountain/freeride bikes and other more man-centric products. But it doesn't work so well for road bikes, and obviously also means they're ignoring how many new bikes are bought by women.." He also said, "I totally agree, that if KHS could cultivate a better image, the sales would increase, because there's nothing wrong with the product." I very much agree with that assessment.

The company has good products that they could better exploit to sell bikes. Though, as they are competitors of mine, maybe I should be applauding them for what they have been doing so that they don't do even better.

All of this falls into the themes I have been discussing here and elsewhere in public and private conversations for years now. If the cycling industry really wants to expand and grow, in this very competitive market, then it needs to begin to think differently. Many more women are coming into the sport and industry now and even the ones who aren't have influence over many buying decisions. Alienating this segment of the buying population doesn't make good business sense. Plus, in the case of KHS, upgrading and updating their image would allow them better growth and increase the perceived credibility of the bikes.

Maybe you think I'm totally off the mark here. If so, let us know.

Tim Jackson
Chief Kool-Aid Dispenser

Posted by Tim Jackson at 9:16 AM 17 comments

Monday, January 02, 2006

Kool-Aid Krew named "the blog to watch in 2006".

Fritz, over at Cyclelicious, has named us "the blog to watch in 2006" in his Best Bike Blogs of 2005 post.

WOW!

Thanks to Fritz for his generous compliment. It's really an honor to be given such a title, especially considering the other sites listed and nominated.

From all of us at the Krew; thank you!

Tim Jackson
Chief Kool-Aid Dispenser

Posted by Tim Jackson at 10:21 PM 2 comments

Um, I don't know what to say...

This is just too funny not to share.

Apparently somebody was doing a search on MSN for "want to watch nude move right now" (notice misspelling of 'movie') and got to our blog space here instead. The weirdest part is that we were the first site on the list. All because of the word "nude" in a comment I posted a while back regarding the A&F/ Inferno team. Some poor guy/ gal was hoping for something a whole lot more entertaining, but got us instead.

Isn't technology great?

Tim Jackson
Chief Non-nude Kool-Aid Dispenser

Posted by Tim Jackson at 11:33 AM 2 comments