Mike and I and the $100,000 cup of coffee

At the National Bike Summit, Jenn Dice, who heads IMBA’s (International Mountain Bike Association), made a presentation on how hundreds of the best miles of singletrack are being shut down in Montana and that thousands of miles across the United States might be lost to mountain bikers if we don’t do something. Well Jenn, what are we going to do? She presented a very good plan with the pitch at the end. “All I need is money. I can put the organization in place to stop the madness, but I need resources to do it.” How much do you need? $300,000. Can Trek put in $100,000? My reply? YES!

Jenn is one of the all time great advocates and keeping trails open is a big deal. My next comment: make sure you talk to Mike. That is Mike Sinyard at Specialized. Mike sells a lot of mountain bikes. Jenn talked to Mike and Mike said YES. Jenn talked to Tim Blumenthal at Bikes Belong and he said YES. There you go, $300,000 in 30 days.

Last week at the Bicycle Leadership Conference in Monterey, California, IMBA wanted to have a press conference to announce the grants. Mike, Jenn, Tim Blumenthal, and I talked about the press conference for the following day. I asked Jenn if $300,000 is enough. “Well, we are going to be able to do a lot with that, but my dream would be $600,000.” Mike and I agreed that we should use this event to try and get the rest of the money. The next day we decided to ask the BLC attendees for the rest of the cash.

I asked Tim Blumenthal if Stan Day from SRAM should be part of the press conference. SRAM has given a TON to all sorts of great advocacy efforts over the past few years. The next morning at a coffee shop an hour before the event I saw Stan in line for a coffee. “Stan, at 9:30 Mike and I are going to make an announcement to help IMBA save thousands of miles of trails. We are also going to challenge the industry to come up with another $300,000. Would you like to join the effort?” “Sure, I’m in for $100,000.” That was it, a 30 second conversation and Stan’s most expensive cup of coffee to date.

Go Jenn, go.

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Photo courtesy of bicycleretailer.com

Comments

[Jim Thiede]

That is why I, my wife and son all ride Trek bikes- we will ot ride anything else!