A Trek Legend

On my way to Europe this afternoon my wife Tania and I visited Chris Funk at the Hospice Center. Chris is battling brain cancer and is one of the best guys you will ever meet. He has a Rock Star wife, Brandi, and a couple of great kids. Chris was sleeping, and not even my booming voice could wake him. I gave Chris a big hug and held his hand for a while.

Trek is a company made up of people. Trek is a great company because its people are great. Chris is one of the best. I wanted him to know we had stopped by, so I used my second-grade arts and crafts skills to make Chris a Trek Legend Certificate.

Chris, love you SO much!  Jb.

Taking it to another level!

Tuesday night we introduced the new Gary Fisher Collection of Trek bikes to a packed house at Monona Terrace in Madison. Finally!!! This decision was finalized at the end of September last year, and it was a great night to reveal it to the Trek family. 

Gary is The Man. I have worked with Gary for 15+ years, and in that time he’s pioneered an incredible string of innovations and tackled every challenge we’ve thrown at him and more. Always with a smile. He brings so much to the table. Inventor of the mountain bike, first to use oversize in mountain bikes, one of the first to use front suspension, one of the first with a rear suspension bike, G2 geometry, and 29ers to name a few. Most people would die for one great invention in their lifetime. The Fish Man has a bunch.

The new Gary Fisher Collection brings Gary’s genius to 8X the retailers worldwide, with 8x the marketing resources, and 10X the web exposure. Gary’s best ideas are going to be sold through the best retailers and easily found by the best consumers.

I am more fired up about the future of Fisher than I ever have been. So is Gary. Game On!

Ride your bike today!  Jb

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Goodbye to an Old Friend

My Dad began his business career at Roth Distributing in Milwaukee as a 20’s something credit manager. Two months into the job Mr. Roth died of a heart attack. The sales manager thought that my Dad had some talent and wanted to know if he was interested in forming a partnership and buying the business. The man’s name was Red Schmalzer. Red and The Big Guy cobbled together $20,000 and purchased the small appliance distributor. They worked it hard over the years and built Roth into one of the best distributors in the country. They expanded the small distributor in Milwaukee that was doing $1 million in sales in the early sixties to one of the largest distributors in the country. In 1976 The Big Guy wanted to start a bicycle company. Red said Yes, and the rest is history. In the early eighties when Trek was losing money there were a number of people who wanted to shut Trek down. The Big Guy would not do it. His biggest supporter...... Red. My father was found of saying without Roth there would be no Trek. Without Red there would be no Trek. Red not only supported the business, but he taught my father the credit manager all about sales and taking care of the customer. Trek’s value of making customers successful can be traced back to Red. Red was not only a great business person he was one of the finest people that I have ever met. He could light up a room like very few could. He could put a smile on anyone’s face.  

Yesterday we lost Red at the age of 89. He was an original Trek Guy and he will be missed.

Jb.

The best ride!

The Trek 100 was Saturday. It's one of my favorite days of the year—a ride to benefit childhood cancer research. Trek has sponsored this ride for the last 21 years, ever since Pat Sullivan and I came up with the idea one day in the Milwaukee airport. 21 years later the Trek 100 has raised over $9 million to help fight childhood cancer and in the last 35 years the cure rate for childhood cancer has gone from 20% to 80%.

Highlights of this year's ride? 
1. The singing of the national anthem at the start of the ride. Gives me goose bumps every year.
2. The UW Marching Band playing On Wisconsin as the riders leave Trek and head out into the Wisconsin countryside.
3. The cars. I love the cars on the Trek 100 in Waterloo. I rode 100K. How many cars passed me? 1!!! No kidding.
4. The first rest stop, hosted by our very own Trek international sales department. Cotton candy and a dunk tank.
5. Second rest stop. Brats, and a polka band.
6. The guy from Racine who rides up to me every year and asks me if Trek is going public. No kidding, we've had this conversation at least 7 time. He concluded the conversation with I will see you next year. My answer is the same as my Dad’s. No. Don’t need the money. Don’t need the headaches.
7. The awesome people from Trek who make the ride happen. This year we had over 500 people from Trek either ride or volunteer.
8. The finish line, with a great group of volunteers with cow bells, one of whom was my daughter Courtney.
9. The post-ride beer. People were thirsty this year and the beer line was the longest I have ever seen it. I stood in line for 6:36. Will be taken care of for next year.
10. That we raised close to $1 million to help fight childhood cancer. We lost Travis Goodman, a Trek legend, in the prime of his life a few weeks back to cancer. Chris Funk, another Trek legend, is currently fighting this horrible disease. In a very small way we are doing something to help.

Best memory of the ride: Must have been around mile 30 when what appears but an actual hill. I get kind of excited and decide to crank it up the hill. I put my head down and I pick up the pace and hammer up the hill when I hit a wall. No, JB, that is not a wall, that is a person that you just ran into. A very nice young lady pedaling up the hill. Somehow I don’t crash my bike, which is a good thing because my wife was right behind me and would have gone down too. The girl is kind of shaken—and then she realizes that “Oh my god. Are you the President of Trek?” Well... yes I am, and I am sooooooooooo sorry that I ran right into you. Well, I just started working at Trek three weeks ago and I love it. What’s your name? Amanda. Well Amanda, I am so sorry, let’s get you back on your bike and let’s ride. Great....my Dad is just ahead of us. Swell... not only to I get to apologize to Amanda, now I get to apologize to her father for almost crashing his favorite daughter. Anyway, we ride for quite a while and Amanda is a wonderful person and so is Amanda’s father. Today I bought Amanda a half-dozen cupcakes as an I’m So Sorry gift—and that wraps up another great Trek 100.

Ride your bike today!! Jb.

Electric bikes

I am frequently asked about the future of electric assist bikes in the United States market. I typically respond that electric assist bikes are the number one category of bike in Holland, one of the largest bike markets in the world, and sooner or later electric bikes will take off in the U.S.

My latest reason that electric assist bikes do have a future in the U.S. is... my mother!

I was in Tuscany a few weeks ago and went riding with a bunch of our European managers and my 76 year old mother. Take a look at the video of her rocking up a climb, passing Gary Fisher, and having the time of her life! There were three very happy people with electric assist bikes on this trip and six very unhappy people who did not ask for an electric assist bike who will the next time around.

Jb.