Opinion/Analysis
I’ve been telemarketing for the last six weeks. Unlike most telemarketers, I love this job. Selling my stuff to bike retailers means catching up with old friends, swapping cycling, parenting and golfing stories, and… selling my stuff. It’s been an especially interesting year to talk to retailers, with the economic turmoil swirling about. Every conversation begins and ends with, “How are you doing? What are you hearing?”

His business name: The Kinky Llama. His specialty: delivering sex toys faster than you can get a Domino's pizza. His mode of transportation: the bicycle.

As promised in my entry last week about One on One, I’m finally getting around to sharing some photos and thoughts from recent visits BRAIN sales guy Barry and I made to several bike companies in and around Minneapolis. Press deadlines and a short-lived cold (thankfully), kept me from tackling this blog entry sooner. But here goes.
Had an interesting chat with the vp of communications over at the Motorcycle Industry Council last week about the CPSIA.

Speedway, Indiana isn't only home base for the Indianapolis 500, but also Zipp Speed Weaponry, which resides right down the street from the iconic raceway.
Continuing his quest to be the next Anderson Cooper, BRAIN publisher Marc Sani interviewed Jay Graves, owner of Portland, Oregon's six-store chain the Bike Gallery, about the state of his business at the NBDA Super Seminar in Anaheim on Tuesday.

If you’re ever in Minneapolis, make sure to stop by One on One, especially if you’re into vintage bikes, bicycle art and coffee. This quirky bike shop in the Warehouse District is owned by Gene Oberpriller and wife Jen, who put in time at QBP. I had the opportunity to check it out during my trip this past weekend to Frostbike along with our sales rep Barry Kingwill.

Big shout out to Ben Serotta and Jeff Rowe, owner of of B and L Bikes in Solana Beach, for a hosting a terrific ride on Monday from the shop to Serotta's Composite factory in Poway.
Americans are driving less and that could mean more reason for them to consider replacing car trips with bike trips.
It’s nearly impossible to make it through a day in this constantly connected world without hearing about Twitter.

As a self-professed apostle of city bikes, Tom Petrie sees them as the next evolution of bikes in the United States. But when asked whether he believed U.S. bike shops would convert, he admitted that was the $64,000 question.
Thanks to Kate Scheider at Bikes Belong, I just discovered an enlightening piece of research on bicycling and walking. Commissioned by the National Highway and Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), executed by the Gallup organization, and released in August 2008, it’s a treasure trove of how Regular Americans use and view their bicycles. Click here to download the .pdfs.

All this jabber about cycling being the new golf has clearly gotten under the tender hide of the medical community, long renowned for spending more time examining putts than patients.