Journal: A Garden And A Library

Tuesday location:  Studio  |  Seven  |  Studio     ||     6:30 am – 10:10 pm

• Business Development:  After fifteen years we are scheduled to start paying back Seven Cycles’ first investor.  This is an important milestone.  A.N. was the first person – with capital – to believe in the project.  Through Seven’s history we’ve had a total of four investors – while ensuring that employees maintained the vast majority of company ownership.  As of today we have only two investors; we paid down the other two years ago.  Now we’re about to start the pay-down schedule for number three.  It’s a huge deal, to me, that we’re paying him back, with interest, as promised.  A.N. is very special to me because he was Seven’s first – a believer when no other potential investor was willing to risk capital.  A.N.’s return on investment is better than he would have had in the stock market so I know he’s happy about his investment.  And that makes me happy.

• Product Design:  Chainstays – again.  Working on next generation belt drive system for 29ers.  Gates belts have two chain-line options – actually more than that.  And two different belt systems – center track and classic.  And a bunch of ring sizes.  All told I think there are about 35 combinations that affect chainstay length.  This may seem a bit odd because most companies that work with belt drives offer a complete bike:  one belt, one ring size, one tire size, etc. so it’s fairly easy to design the bike – really that’s designing the bike model.  With Seven every bike seems to get a different combination based on rider size, needs, interests, style, terrain, etc.
• Design:  Brochure text:  We’ve – read John L. has – got about 8,000 of the words in the right order.  Only another 7,000 or so left to go.  Starting to do fine tuning on grammar edits.
• Project:  Ride:  Thought about a new ride this past weekend for Ride Studio Cafe.  Planning something for the Lexington 300 – the 300th anniversary of Lexington, MA.  Not sure that I can pull it off.  It’ll be the most ambitious Studio ride yet.
• Project:  Ride Studio Cafe is offically a Focus retailer.  Very excited about this.  It’s been in the works for a while.  It’s great to have cyclocross bikes in the sub $2k range.  And, of course their high-end cross bikes, too.
• Note:  10:10 pm felt a lot later than that.  I must be slipping.

Post title:  “If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.”  –  Marcus Tullius Cicero.  I have a very small library and a half-living plant.  It’s apparent I don’t have everything I need.