Go Clipless

Lily Allen is going to be hot!

Going to be? You say?

That's right...she's going crazy on MySpace. She's being called the female Mike Skinner (from The Streets). I'd say that the cockney attitude is about as far as it goes. After that its a roaring twenties-retro-ska sound. Very cool stuff.

Actually (not cool) hot! Check this video of Lily on a banana seat bike tooling around London. Sizzling, I'd say!

Cannondale's corporate blog program

Many of you are familiar with Cannondale's The Brad Blog and the Cannondale Race Blog, but we may be on the verge of a Cannondale blog explosion if things go as planned. According to this article in Business Week, Cannondale has shifted a portion of its website from a traditional content management system over to a blogging platform and provided fifteen additional sales and marketing staffers with the ability to update the company site.

Janet Maurice is Cannondale's Webmaster. She explains that the staffers will not necessarily be blogging in the traditional sense, but they will have unfiltered access to update the site with news, photos, press releases, etc. A special section of the site has been added (Cannondale Community) to aggregate the news and information from across Cannondale and also includes the posts made to the two established corporate blogs. There is even a single RSS feed to help you keep track of all of the happenings at Cannondale.

So with all of this unfettered access to the corporate website will the corporate brass at Cannondale lose control of the brand? This is a common feeling expressed by executives and traditional corporate communications types. Most marketing thought leaders would argue that all companies have already lost control of their brands with the rise of social networking on the web and self-publishing or blogging. Cannondale deserves credit for recognizing this and participating in the conversation instead of trying to control it.

For a glimpse into how this initiative developed at Cannondale check out this post and comments from Jonathan Maus's old blog, Just Riding Along. You'll notice I called Brad out on the corporate blogging practices and he responded with some nice insight on the progress that was being made with the corporate leadership at Cannondale.

Now that the platform is in place and staffers have greater access to publishing, I will look forward to new Cannondale blogs that spawn from the enthusiasm of these employees.

I wonder how long it will take the other big guys to join in the conversation?

A more efficient energy source

With the cycling blogoshpere a buzz with car-free living, here's a look at a Miller High Life commercial that should provide more fuel to the discussion. The commercial never aired.

Velocipete reminded me of this (it seems to be floating around again), however, I think it was Nicomachus that first raised awareness of this video gem back in August (which I found in the comments to this post).

President Bush, come ride with MORE

Just tons of traffic coming in from people searching for news about George Bush mountain biking with the Chinese National Team. Trouble is they are finding my old post about the prez. when he first started riding. I wasn't going to post anything about this since many others already have, but hey, give the readers what they want! Right?

I've got to say that when I first posted about the president mountain biking back in July of '04, I really didn't think it would last. Turns out he is quite fit and very serious about riding (at least according to all that have ridden with him. I saw an article from the editor of Bicycling Magazine about his riding some time ago...but can't seem to find it online...anyone?)

Given my local mountain bike club (MORE) covers the Washington D.C. area, one of the members has suggested that the club petition the president to ride one of the club maintained trails.

Politics aside this would be a real coup for the club (am I allowed to say that when referring to the president ;-).

So how about it Mr. Prez?

Cycling in the mainstream

Ever notice that when you are thinking about buying a new car it seems like every other car you pass is the same as the one you might buy? I get that same feeling about cycling in the mainstream media. It seems like there are more examples of cycling used to sell products then ever before. Of course it could be that I'm just noticing it more.

Anyway, I was researching CRM systems (not related to my mountain biking habit) and came across this screen-shot of Microsoft's new CRM. The fictional example they use is Bike Universe.

Just for fun, I've added a new category to capture the moments when I see cycling things in the mainstream media or used to market non-cycling related things.