A little bit of time travel

Facing the prospect of leaving the apartment I’ve had for over three years, my stacks of cycling magazine back issues started to look a lot less like a useful resource and a lot more like some really heavy boxes. So I put them on Craigslist to give away for free and found a good home within a day. Now I’m sorry if this offends your gender or religious sensibilities, but the only way I can explain the taker’s level of excitement when he picked them up is that he was like a 13 year-old seeing his first porn magazine, except that this was a stash of about 60 magazines.

As much as I love cycling, we’re getting to be like an old married couple; I’m committed but it’s hard to maintain the day-to-day enthusiasm. I know a lot of people in the bike industry who’d say the same thing, and it’s probably true for people in general whose passion has become their job. So I didn’t share this guy’s exhilaration at first but soon enough we were sitting on the floor, flipping through back issues of VeloNews.

After the roller coaster that the sport has been on since Operacion Puerto blew up before the 2006 Tour, going back just a couple years felt like an archeological dig. I had completely forgotten that Tyler Hamilton finished second in the 2002 Giro. Remember how big a deal that was? My nostalgia got to the point where I starting thinking, “maybe I shouldn’t give these mags away.”  But, as they say, back to reality. Paper is heavy and I can’t afford movers. Alas, this was not the only back-to-reality moment I’ve had lately.

After spending a year in the white-hot social networking industry and looking in on some less-than-scorching times for the bike racing business, I was arguably crazy for wanting to get back into the sport. But on a personal level, I missed being around the big races as part of a team. Professionally, I wanted an opportunity to try out some concepts that I’d been kicking around but had to put on the shelf. So I pursued a few opportunities that came up at Interbike and started down the road with one program. Unfortunately, it was not meant to be. They’re a great organization and I’m good at what I do, but these things happen.

Projects come and go in my line of work and I still have three to juggle. MyByk, a pre-launch social networking website for cyclists, will fundamentally alter the way that you interact with information about bikes. I am not exaggerating when I saw that MyByk will change parts of your life as a cyclist.

Outside of cycling, I’m working with Sneakerplay, another social network that will be similarly important to people who are into limited edition Nikes that cost more than a pair of Rock & Republic jeans.

Lastly, I am involved with a new organization that could be considered a cycling team. I hesitate to say “cycling team” because it’s not cycling in the way that you think of cycling and it’s not a team in the way that you think of a team. We’re applying an action sports model to bikes in a way that hasn’t been done before. It’s edgy but respectful of tradition, casual but aggressive, spectacular but approachable. They’re already big in Japan but you’ve probably never heard of them.

Schamber is blowing up my IM for this column, so I’ll tell you about those guys next month. Happy New Year!