This past semester was a whirlwind of activities and I hardly had any spare moments to post. I hope for that to change, and I plan on to posting something weekly at the very least… I think of something to post almost every day, but seldom have had a moment to do it.
The only thing on my mind is what is happening in my life in the next couple of days… Recently (for the past 6 months), I’ve been training for a charity bike ride across West Virginia called Outspoken. Outspoken is 250 miles, and each biker in the ride is raising at least $500 dollars for West Virginia State 4-H Camping Program. I decided to tackle this challenge in January. I can certainly say that as a designer I have found plenty of room for designing services in this rhelm. There is so much to professional biking (I’m not even sure if that is the right term), that it’s scary. There are the padded shorts, the pedals, the cleats, the shoes that attatch to the cleats, the handle bars, the tires, the gears, the tubes, the levers, the tune ups, cyclists even have their own lingo… believe me… the list goes on!!!
I have to thank my cycling enthusiast friends like John, Courtney, and Phil. They helped me find an amazing (and used, yay green) bike, and figure out what to do with it once I got one… but the entire time, I kept thinking, shouldn’t there be a better way to introduce all of this to someone. I mean.. I spent 3 hours one morning trying to figure out how the shoes I was about to purchase would actually clip into the pedals that came on my bike. Even then I wasn’t sure I had gotten the right thing.
I know I won’t have time to get to this, but I think it would be great if there was a simple website that explained all of the professional biking components/gear that was needed. Maybe even a step by step guide to just getting started. Tom Kelley wrote in his book, The Art of Innovation, that when we travel or try something new, it will be easier for us to notice what is out of place, or where design can help. I certainly think this is the case for cycling.
Courtney introduced me to www.roadbikereview.com where I was able to look at many posted questions and reviews about gear by other cyclists. This is where I obtained most of my information (besides my 3 favorite cycling friends listed above), but it wasn’t until I started shopping for gear, or tried using the new gear that I would realize what I was about to encounter. I don’t think that there is no hope for beginning cyclists, I’m not whining, I liked learning about the different pedals and supplies, I just really found it interesting that there is this vast amount of information about this one sport, that SO many people don’t know about, and wondering how it could be made easily accessible… and understandable.
Starting tomorrow, I’ll be on my way to Jefferson County, WV (just outside DC), and at 5PM Thursday, I’ll hopefully be nearing the end of my first day on the road. I hope to take my camera, maybe the pictures will turn out nice!
Three cheers for summer!!!!
