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We're at Xantusia. Getting here was a series of annoying mini-disasters for me that began with wrecking my car in the airport in Detroit following by a chain reaction of flight delays/cancellations triggered by the snowstorm that also contributed to my car accident. Typical U.S. air tavel experience.
This place is..... Weird. It is 30 miles from Edwards AFB in the high desert with structures in various states of repair and construction/decnstruction. It gives you the impression something new and secret is going on out here. Beautiful place though. Snow in higher mountains outside Dan's big picture window. Kind of like a villain's lair in a James Bond movie. Did you see "The Man With The Golden Gun?". This is like that island The Man lived at.
A small crowd of interesting people here. Dan Empfield of course, Gerard Vroomen of Cervelo, the perpetual athete Mark Montgomery, a fella named "John" Bill and Val from Mission Bay in Elgin, Illinois (these people are cool, they have some awesome stories), Dan and Fiona from Endurosport in Toronto, and Mike the swim.tri coach. Good crowd.
We mostly talked shop, old school triathlon stories and other stuff laast night over a great dinner prepared by Mark.
It's about 6:40 A.M. now and we'rewalking a growing herd of dogs here and then we'll do some bike fitting.
The whole thing has the "feel" of something that may be historic in the sense that years from now people will say "The first FIST class was held out in the desert at Dan Empfield's house and we all slept in campers!". One thing for sure, everyone here recognizes the need to standardize and methodize a reliabe and repeatable universal standard for sizing and positioning people on their triathlon bikes. More tomorrow.....
Tom Demerly
The Tri Shop.com
Tom, now you not only can't say you have never met Gerard, you know have to say you slept with him.
Bob Sigerson
Oh no! Seperate trailers! Eh gad, how does this stuff get started? I just want to sell Cervelos! (and fit them perfectly). The wind is picking up here.... A couple people are looking at this weird GPS based topo map program reviewing our proposed ride for today. There are like, eight computer monitors in this room. I am starting to wonder if Dan has a Predator drone in the air around here. Dan claims the riding here is absolute Nirvana. Mark Montogomery tells me "Stealth jets buzz this place all the time. But you'll never see them...." Must be becasue their stealth.....
Tom Demerly
The Tri Shop.com
We just returned from our dog walking tour of Xantusia and outlying areas. Interesting place filled with interesting individuals. This is definately the topic for future writing projects. I've started shooting a few photos. I'll post a feature on our Bikesportmichigan website as soon as I get back. I don't know what I'm going to say at this point..... This is kind of a Hunter S Thompson situation.
Tom Demerly
The Tri Shop.com
Tom, You guys doing any work out there or is this just a vacation? Don't forget your race is less than 7 months away--get out there and hammer the pavement!!!
How is your fit according to Dan?
In the traditional sense of the word we have done nothing constructive related to bike fit up here yet... but the day is still young out here. Dan is working on the DeSoto T1 Wetsuit website and Gerard is typing into this little computer thngy and a new guy named Rich just showed up. We're eating breakfast. I'm posting on Slowtwitch (what else is new?). Looks like the schedule has us getting started here pretty quickly and there is talk of a run at the noon break. Pretty laid back environment except that everybody seems pretty serious about why we're here. Serious, but unhurried perhaps. I have the feeling we are going to be up late.
Tom Demerly
The Tri Shop.com
Tom - I think it's great you are giving us updates. Very interested in what you guys are doing. Looking forward to all your updates.
Wow. We're on our Lunch break now. I'll tell you, the group of people we have assembled are impressive. Perhaps the biggest take-away at this early stage is that the guys from Mission Bay in Elgin, Enduro Sport in Toronto and Edge Cyclesport in Laguna Hills (as well as me from Bikesport Michigan in Dearborn) who are all here actively participating have encountered the same things in the course of fitting and selling tri bikes. We've all encountered the same obstacles, and Dan has promised us a unified, systematic approach to this. Interestingly, as a group, when you look at how all of us have been doing tri bike fit- it is incredibly similar despite the fact that we have never communicated or held a "summit" on our fit techniques and standards. One thing for sure, a lot of productivity in terms of refining the process is happening here right now. OK, Dan is calling, back to work.....
Tom Demerly
The Tri Shop.com
Tom,
Whatever you do, DON'T go riding with Rich. He'll claim that a nice Z1 ride is in order, and then take off up a mountain while you try and put your lungs back where they belong. He is evil. Of course you could soften him up with some Ben & Jerry's--it is his Kryptonite.
Ever get a chance to look at the Open Road pedals I sent you? Dan should have a set around there as well.
mdo
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"There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs." John Rogers
Sounds like you're gonna have a lot of fun this weeekend. I'd love to take the course myself, but it's probably hard to financially justify for those of us interested in bike fit but don't actually work in the bike industry. Unless I could take the course, become FIST certified and then set up as some sort of a private consultant to do bike fittings. Don't imagine that the local LBS's in our area would be too receptive, but individual tri-geeks might be interested in this kind of a service. What is interesting is that you're trying to find some kind of a censensus to standardize the way things are done. Definately sounds like you've got an interesting crowd there. Imagine there will be a good exchangeof ideas.
Took an afternoon break and went for a run with the entire crew. This a great place to train. Weird desert vibe out here. Next: Bike fit math class.
Tom Demerly
The Tri Shop.com