2012 Specialized Dealer Product Launch- Travel Day

Yosemite Valley from 25,000 feet in the sky!

Greetings from a cool, foggy, misty, Monterey, California. While everyone in Seacoast New Hampshire is sweating it out back home, we're here, well, I'm here in representation of Papa Wheelies Bike Shop for the 2012 Product Launch from Specialized Bicycles. What a treat! I must say, these guys go all out for their dealers. Before I get into a few details on the event, let me tell you about the journey so far. It all started Monday morning with a 3:30 AM wake up. In the car for 4:15 AM and off to Logan International for the first leg of the flight to the west coast. On the plane and headed for my connection in Chicago, I awoke to some chatter over the intercom from the pilot saying that instead of circling over O'Hare (like we had been for over an hour, due to some nasty T-Storms) and risking running out of fuel, we were diverting to Indianapolis to refuel and sit out the bad weather. Moans and groans were heard from most of the folks in the cabin as concern grew over possible missed connections or family and friends who would be waiting for flights that were now delayed. I thought about all this too, but figured what the heck, I'm in no real rush to get anywhere, so I turned on my iPod (a little Pink Floyd, Dark Side of the Moon) and just kept to myself. Well in the end, my connecting flight was also delayed into O'Hare, so after hiking around the halls of one of the largest, busiest, airports in the world with gate changes and such, I was on a plane bound for San Jose, CA arriving only a couple of hours late.

Arriving in San Jose we were greeted by our friendly Specialized contact at baggage claim, who would have us assemble for the shuttle bus ride to Specialized Head Quarters in Morgan Hill. I say us because I was with probably thirty or so other East Coast Dealers on the flight from Chicago to San Jose. After a short scenic ride, I was eating a yummy, fat, burrito followed by a self guided tour of the facility. They've done a lot of improvements to the building since I was there in 2005, including a new retail lab, SBCU classrooms (SBCU= Specialized Bicycles Components University), the newly expanded test lab, where the had bike frames in process of being tested for torsional and vertical compliance in machine jigs on head tube fatigue, pedal induced torsional stiffness testing at the bottom bracket, also wheel testing both vertical and aggressive side load tests, torsional handlebar and stem testing, and so on. They've also got quite the collection of bikes in the museum including the World Championship Bike ridden by the man himself, Mario Cipollini. Below are a few pictures from the museum.

 Mario's 2002 World Championship bike.

DACIPO Wine & Olive Oil / hair lube.

Shaun Palmer's 1999 NORBA National Championship DH bike.

Fabian Cancellara's 2010 Yellow Jersey Bike

After the Morgan Hill tour, we hopped back on the bus for the lovely ride to Monterey. I was thoroughly exhausted from the days traveling. There's something about jet travel that just beats me up, it's not like you're doing much at all, but the adrenaline spikes from take off and landing and running around trying to catch connections can be just brutal, oh woe is me. Anyway, I checked in to the dealer event, meeting up with Lennard Zinn in the hotel lobby. In my previous role at a local bike parts distributor, I had worked a little with Lennard on some product reviews through his weekly Tech article in Velo News, so it was nice to see him. I then checked into my room, relaxed for a little bit and then headed down to dinner and met up with our Specialized Rep, chatted with him and other New England dealers for a bit and went back to the room fully intending to write up this blog post, but as quickly as I started brainstorming about all the thoughts in my head, I passed out with my lap top in my lap of all places, and drooling (not really) on my pillow. So, stay tuned, I might be a day & three hours behind, but there is more to come on the official day one of this product launch including riding some fast and fun road bikes along the picturesque 17 Mile Drive. 

Thanks for reading,

Steve