Friday, July 16, 2010

Tour de France & thanks to everyone

Andy Schleck (left) and Alberto Contador (right)

I don't know about you, but I think the Tour de France is the one of the most epic examples of sport in the world. The race has over 100 years of history pitting man against the elements. It's past contains more than it's share of the good, bad and ugly. But despite all this (and perhaps because of this), the Tour encapsulates so much of the human spirit.

If you are a mechanical geek (like me), or a fan of human endurance (also like me), it's very easy to get sucked in. I like watching sports on television. But with the Tour, the 3-4 hours of daily coverage always leaves me wanting more. As I watch, I suffer from serious bike envy, and I really think that Phil Liggett and Paul Sherwen are some of the best sports commentators out there. I'm watching it "quasi-live" right now, thanks to my DVR and a strict avoidance of all sports related news sources during the day. I'm looking forward to see how today ends, because there is a battle on the go. Andy Schleck is 41 seconds ahead of Alberto Contador in the general classification. I think one of these guys will win the Tour, but I'm not yet sure which one it will be. And today's mountain top finish may be advantage Contador, allowing him to take the yellow jersey. I'll know what happens (or actually happened this morning) in 70 kilometers. By the way, both of these guys ride Specialized. Riley and I like that.

Anyway, thanks to everyone for the support and emails we've received since we've launched Endurance Athlete Project. It's been really motivating and equally as inspiring. We are thrilled to have received so many offers for product testers, and as we have said this is going to be key to getting our products right. If you emailed on this, thank you, and we've got you on a list. Once we get closer to actually having product to test, we will launch our testing/incentive program and start reaching out to you.

In the meantime, I'm working on building the community and Riley has started discussions with various potential manufacturing partners. In the next week or two, we'll release an online questionnaire asking all sorts of questions covering everything from color ways and prints to the all important fit questions. Hopefully you'll have a second to participate.

That's it for now. I hope everyone has a great weekend. If any of you are racing, make sure you post a photo on our Facebook page, we love the ones we've got so far.

- Patrick

6 comments:

  1. The Tour has sucked me in as well. DVR is great. The climb today hurt to watch. Enjoy!

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  2. I call it the lost three weeks of July. No DVR for me; thank God Versus shows tour footage three or four times a day!

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  3. No versus for me - I just get the internet highlights.

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  4. As I mentioned, I'm not watching the TDF this year; in fact, the only reason I'm halfway interested is hoping Contador doesn't win. I don't think he's a good ambassador for the sport.

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  5. My husband and I watch the TDF every night, commercial free (yay DVR), after we put the boys down. I am really routing for Andy Schleck! I hope he wins...I just think he's so cool!

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  6. I love the Tour. Years ago, I'd workout at the gym for hours just so I could watch it. Now without cable or a gym membership, I'm left with just the highlights. Thank goodness for the Internet.

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