Friday News And Views

 Sea Otter Sold To Life Time Fitness:

A bombshell announcement was revealed Tuesday this past week when Sea Otter revealed that they had sold to Life Time Fitness. The current Sea Otter leadership and staff has been retained and Life Time has committed to growing the event even larger. 

In a letter sent via e-mail to past Sea Otter attendees, CEO of Sea Otter, Frank Yohannan states, "The growth of cycling across all categories—whether road, mountain, gravel or e-bikes—will continue to be our single-minded priority as we begin our fourth decade of making cycling history. "

Comments: Life Time continues to creep into the world of cycling and the industry with this acquisition. Now it owns an event- but more than an event- Sea Otter is an industry trade show of sorts. How Life Time addresses this facet of Sea Otter will be quite interesting. In fact, we get a little hint as to what that might mean through a quote from the "Bicycle Retailer and Industry News" story on this news. Kimo Seymour, Life Time's President of Events and Media, was quoted as saying, “Sea Otter is really expanding beyond purely cycling-related types of exhibitors and issues, so we think there might be an opportunity to do something focused on outdoor versus just purely cycling,” 

I think it is safe to say that we will see more varied outdoors type media and vendors at Sea Otter in the future. Synergies with camping and hiking/running being very apparent here as Sea Otter boasts of its camping opportunities and has lots of outdoor spaces to utilize at Laguna Seca and the nearby former military installation. It also doesn't take a genius to see how that statement from Seymour dovetails right in with what "BRAIN" owner, Outside Interactive, could bring. Outside Interactive has a host of widespread media properties that could fit into this sort of expansion. In fact, "BRAIN" already publishes the Sea Otter Guide for the event. 

Is RAGBRAI Looking To Get Into Gravel?

A rumor reached Guitar Ted Productions headquarters Tuesday which may indicate that RAGBRAI is looking to expand its event offerings to include a gravel event. Obviously, RAGBRAI has flirted with gravel for the past several years, but a full-fledged, separate gravel event? It isn't as far fetched as it may seem at first glance.

Take, for instance, RAGBRAI's new director, Dieter Drake. He came from a competitive cycling and running background and was the director of the "Tour of the Battenkill", a multi-surface event that includes dirt and gravel roads. So, he is likely quite aware of the popularity of gravel events. With Iowa being basically the birthplace of the modern gravel scene, well, it would be quite the plum to have one of the premier gravel rides in the world be associated with RAGBRAI. 

The story I heard was that RAGBRAI was poking around last week looking at possibly taking over a current event. Scuttlebutt has it that certain folk well known to Iowa gravellers are principals in this story. I have heard details, but I am not at liberty to discuss them due to the situation as I understand it now. 

Suffice it to say that this has my attention and I will be keeping an eye on any further developments. But it would not surprise me at all to see this happen. At what level it starts at, and to what level it grows to is all purely speculation now, but looking at who is involved, I would guess bigger rather than smaller.
 

Wildfire Smoke Causes Events To Cancel:

We've seen the effects of the Western wildfires here in the Mid-West before, but this year it has been particularly intense. However; we've had it easy compared to some other places.

Take for instance Montana, where much of the Pacific Northwest fire smoke arcs up into. I even heard Wednesday of this week that a gravel event had to cancel its 2021 date due to the effects of the smoke in the air. Another social media contact that lives up that way also confirmed that almost everything has been postponed or cancelled due to wildfire smoke issues. 

Fall forecasts are saying that relief from the ripe conditions for wildfires is not coming this year. The word is that this wildfire season will probably end up in the top five ever recorded here in the U.S.A. This makes me wonder how many more events might get cancelled or postponed. Gee, if it isn't COVID it is wildfires. This decade is not starting out on a very good note, that's for sure!

Update On "Tool Roll Wars": 

Last Wednesday I introduced the "Tool Roll Wars" that I am engaging in. Three tool rolls that are being contrasted and compared for use in gravel riding. In the comments I heard from Josh of SILCA. He made it known that the current Asymmetrico Tool Roll isn't really up to gravelly standards and that a version of the Asymmetrico made especially for gravel travel is on the horizon. So, good news-bad news.  

Meanwhile the other two tool rolls are quite up to the task and holding up well so far. I'll have a lot more to say on all this later, but there is one side note that I found when ordering from SILCA, (yes- I paid retail for the Asymmetrico), and that was that the experience of purchasing that product through SILCA's website was outstanding. 

I got confirmation of my purchase and a thank you email immediately. Then, every step of the order was accounted for from packing up at SILCA to my mailbox. The order went through several stages and I was able to keep track without going through to a shipping website only to find that "your package is in transit" and nothing more. No- SILCA has details and you get them. I appreciated the entire process and the very timely delivery of the SILCA Asymmetrico to my door. I wager you'd be hard pressed to find a better online retail experience in the cycling realm than SILCA's. 

Contrast that to my dismal experience with ordering direct from Hayes and there is no comparison. In fact, Hayes never did respond to my complaints after a week waiting past the original delivery date of the handlebars I ordered from them. Anyway...... Sidetracked down a rabbit hole again! I just thought that the experience I had buying that SILCA tool roll was so exceptional that I needed to make a note of that.

More on "Tool Roll Wars" soon.......

Thanks for reading as always and have a great weekend!