Sunday location: Studio || 8:00 am – 6:10 pm
Today I felt like using crutches rather than a bike. No, I didn’t NEED crutches; it just felt like I could have been more mobile with them. Certainly better than being on a bike.
- Time Marker: The Ride Studio Cafe Rapha Festive 500 begins tomorrow. Hoping to make the grade. I don’t think I’ve ridden 500k in the totality of this year, never mind in eight days.
Saturday location: Studio || 7:50 am – 6:10 pm
- Note: Super busy at the Studio today; not just holiday shopping but bike buying. Great work happening. For some reason I thought of this image at the end of the day.
Image: Original source unknown. From Akira Kurosawa‘s Throne of Blood.
The Fall Five was a lifetime ago – way back in October – but the Champion jersey was completed only earlier this week. I think it was worth the wait; it’s a beauty.
I like this piece equal to the Fall Five trophies. I hope that John Bayley – the Champion – enjoys it. He certainly earned it!
I’m looking forward to the next “Five.” From the sidelines…
Until this jersey is in the hands of the riders participating in this event, the details of the piece will remain under-wraps.
Project: Jersey design for the Ride Studio Cafe Sicily cycling trip
When: 10 March 2013
Why: Because there’s no snow in Sicily. Why a jersey? Because it’s fun and I’m psyched that people will be joining us on this journey. A special jersey is the least we can do.
Elements of Design:
- Colors:
- Red and yellow for the Sicilian flag
- Blue, brown, and black for the RSC flag
- corsa siciliana al caffe’: The Sicilian version of the Ride Studio Cafe. It’s not an exact translation – it translate Race Sicily Caffeinated; it’s an adaptation appropriate for the trip.
- da caltagirone al vulcano etna: Start-point and endpoint of the tour
- 1.900 metri an the profile of Mount Etna: The height of the final climb up Volcano Etna
Special thanks to Patria Lanfranchi and Cristiano Bonino for inspiration and translation.
Project timeline in reverse:
Fe 26 | Having some problems with the Sicily jersey design. Nuances of embroidery are causing some trouble. We’ll get it figured out.
February 25 | Wrapping up the design. It’s fairly different from anything the Studio has previously done. I look forward to seeing it completed. A bit of a challenging embroidery design.
February 21 | Final jersey chosen. Final design begun. We still have two weeks until the trip. That’s lots of time in Rob Years.
February 5 | I’ve completed a first draft jersey design; no final decisions until we pick the jersey. Each jersey that Rapha offers has a different design, so depending on the jersey, the graphic design will have to change.
January 16 | We’ve decided we’re going to work with a Rapha jersey. The question right now is what’s going to be available once we go to order the pieces. We want a summer weight jersey for this trip.
January 7, 2013 | The trip is coming together well. It looks like we have enough riders signed up. That means I have to actually design a jersey.
December 22, 2012 | We’re providing a custom jersey design for each person that signs up for the Sicily trip that the Ride Studio Cafe is hosting for March.
Friday location: Seven || 5:10 am – 9:20 pm
- Coffee Project: I’m excited about the Ride Studio Cafe’s latest coffee project: Single Origin Saturdays! Starting next weekend – Saturday, December 29, the Studio will be employing Steven Lim’s Espresso Cart. The Studio will offer the standard espresso fair – at the moment it’s Madcap – and they’ll also offer a special espresso for Saturday only. This is an experiment that I’m confident will go well. Get ready to be overcaffienated on SOS.
- Clothing Design: The Fall Five Champion jersey is complete. I can’t post it until John Bayley picks up this one-off jersey; I don’t want to spoil the surprise. It’s beautiful. It’s almost makes me want to complete for champion for the next “five” but that’s not gonna happen.
Since today is the last day, ever, it seemed appropriate to ride to World’s End. Thanks to Pamela Blalock for putting on the ride and reminding me that I don’t have to work tomorrow.
Here are my last images. Some odd photos from the ride for an odd final day.
It all starts with proper drinking tools. In this case, John Bayley’s espresso tamper. Complete with bicycle cog engraving.
And it all ends here.
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Thursday location: Seven || 4:55 pm – 8:15 pm
- Ride: World’s End Ride in preparation for the end of the world tomorrow. A great ride with Pamela Blalock and some of her friends today. I’m hurting right now from having about five hours in the saddle; not so easy for me anymore. It’s good training – or good warning – for the Festive 500 that starts next week.
- Graphic Design: Wrapping up the RSC winter t-shirt designs. I have to do laundry soon so I hope these shirts are back from the printer quickly. We have enough designs that I’ll be able to avoid laundry for another month or so.
- Business Development: Year-end is always an odd time for me. A moment to reflect – not really – and a time to look forward. And get the next five year plan on the board. I love working on our five year plan. And I love that it’s garbage within six months of developing the plan. Well, maybe within a year it’s off track. On the one hand planning is fluid; we want to make changes as we go; to be open to change and opportunity. Being rigid is not particularly helpful in this very fast changing, global, and seasonal bike business. But this is not an excuse to not plan. We’ll be within a few percent of our very aggressive top line and bottom line goals this year. Ahead on the later and a bit behind on the former. And the way we achieved those goals is not precisely the way we began with our expectations. Europe was a bit tougher than I expected. Some of the product work I was hoping to accomplish I couldn’t get completed. Some of the revenue generation plans didn’t come to fruition. So, we found other opportunities. Too many words to say about this. More later – after the year begins and the latest five year plan comes off the rails.
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The Purple Rose of Seven
Wednesday location: Seven || 7:55 am – 7:10 pm
- Product Testing: Working on the rando fork test procedure. It’s a bit tricky because I haven’t found a test that duplicates what we’re trying to do. We’ll mesh something together. Hoping to begin testing right after the new year.
- Clothing Design: Wool jersey design confirmed. We’ve been trying to do something that’s difficult for the clothing manufacturer I’m hoping it will have been worth it. We’ll find out in about four weeks.
- Time Marker: We had a birthday party today at Seven Cycles. Purple roses and all. People at Seven are the best!
Tuesday location: Seven || 8:25 am – 9:45 pm
- Product Testing: I worked through some impromptu fork steerer deflection testing today. We did some spot checking of Seven Cycles 5E fork to compare it to, what I consider, the best – or most popular – alternative currently available. I won’t be publishing the data but the Seven steerer came out very favorable to the stiffest 1-1/8″ out there. The 5E is stiffer. Done.
- Graphic Design: RSC t-shirt design for the winter of 2012-13: We’ve finalized eight designs in all, in men’s and women’s, and hoodys, long sleeve, and short sleeve. Many colors. We’re waiting on quotes from the printer and answers to a few fabric questions. We’re – meaning I’m – so picky.
Monday location: Seven | 8:10 am – 7:35 pm
- Product Development: On the Nella Neve we’re switching over to SRAM components from Shimano – so we can make the hot-swap work a lot faster. I had high hopes for Shimano but it was not meant to be. Everything will be switched over by year end.
- Graphic Design: Spent some time on the new head tube “badge” today. Going to start Solidworks files soon and then a 3d print of some parts. What? Rob working with 3d printing? What have you done with Rob?
Until this jersey is in the hands of the riders participating in this event, the details of the piece will remain under-wraps.
Elements of Design:
Project timeline in reverse:
Tuesday location: Seven || 8:25 am – 9:45 pm