The Bike Mag BIBLE of Bike Tests issue hit the shelves over the last few weeks.

The BIBLE isn’t just an issue of reviews. It isn’t even just a yearly round up of some bikes and parts. It is certainly not a compilation of information taken from the catalogues of bike brands like EVERY other mountain bike magazine. Don’t be fooled, the others are just bike brand marketing copy rejigged and printed out.

The BIBLE is different because we actually rode and tested every bicycle product that is in the magazine (and more that didn’t make the cut). We rode most of the day, everyday for two weeks. We rode all sorts of terrain in all sorts of weather. Then at the end of the day we sat down and jammed on our impressions and opinions. Then we went our separate ways and tried to distill all our combined thinkings into a 150 word review (actually we wrote full length reviews too and they will be turning up on bikemag.com soon). The result was this special issue. So special school that some brainiac called it the BIBLE two years ago when the first came out and now we are stuck with the f-ing name.

This year we visited Brevard, North Carolina for the test sessions. I was curious as to why Brevard had been chosen. I mean, North Carolina? Really? What’s there? Well, turns out some of the best riding in North America. OK, I’ve said that before – lots of times – but I’m just trying to emphasize how blown away I was by the quality and variety of trails and the amazing riding community there. If you get a chance to go then don’t pass it up. If you don’t have the opportunity then make one, you won’t be disappointed.

Anyway, that is that. Just a quick ‘hey look at me, how great am I?’ blog post. I hate the word blog. The person that coined that term needs his backside stuffed with bog roll and set alight.

Oh yeah, Dan Barham photo blah blah blah www.danbarhamphoto.com

Some idiots had to do this eventually. Sorry.

What did we miss?

It seems as though I’m going to have to do some search engine optimization with my weekly News Of The Tweet feature. When I typed ‘news of the tweet’ into Google my feature came up seven places down. Strangely it came behind a story about a football player who had a cold but is getting better.

Anyway, by now we are into the fifth week of #NOTT for Bike Magazine’s website and despite wondering whether this was a horrendous idea to basically regurgitate the already vacuous gas that is Twitter it is going rather well. It seems people like pithy one liners about pithy one liners more than I thought. For this weeks #NOTT I asked ‘What is Twitter?’ and went right up to the first knuckle in answering that question. Not far but it you could still very much get a feeling from it.

If you would like to follow my nonsense on Twitter or allow me to follow your nonsense then please respond with 140 characters of begging, pleading greatness to https://twitter.com/#!/sebastiankemp

Till next monday, keep tweeting.

This photo was taken at the 2010 Interbike show in Las Vegas. This young lady's name was Joanne. She signed the entire quota of her posters the day before so had none left. She doesn’t bike, she doesn’t know why she was there except to look pretty.

Each September a small cabal of NSMB newsroom hacks head off to Las Vegas with camera and pen in hand, ready to report on the latest and greatest in high performance bicycle developments from Interbike. Each year we try to do that but each year we get side tracked by silicone bumper girls who stand guard on the stands like hyper sexed sentries. These puffed out, pimped out princesses of man-pantie filling dreams are stationed throughout the show to attract and lure people to the products on display, but most of the time we are so distracted by the products they are displaying that we forget what planet we are on and drift off into a salivating, panting, dribbling, giggling, blushing reverie.

The bicycle industry is a dominated by males and the few females within the testosterone circus have to be as thick skinned as chubby rhino in order to deal with the constant dick jokes, boob gags and references to hard and dirty action (I’m talking about biking…cough). But it isn’t just the cycle industry. At the 2012 CES (Consumer Electronics Show) in Las Vegas a BBC news team went inside to ask whether booth babes are an effective marketing strategy or just a reflection of the gender relations in technology.

[The BBC videos can not be embedded so you will just have to click the link below to see the video in question]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-16533289

“I’m not sure if it is degrading so much as it is uncomfortable, or confusing because it is sending this message of what my sex is here to do…if anything it is kind of weird” said Molly McHugh, a technology writer for Digital Trends who perhaps knows a thing or two about handheld toys.

“I wish there was more visibility for women who are working in technology as much as they are hired to strut around” said Taylor Hatmaker, the senior editor for Tecca.

However, not everyone is against booth babes and one particular high ranking officer is willing to fight for booth babe rights. Gary Shapiro is the CEO for the Consumer Electronics Association and had this to say “It is a bit old school but it does work. People are naturally want to go to what they think is pretty”

Anyway, here is a few memories from our 2011 Interbike coverage. You make your own mind up about sequined sex bots and plastic androids selling your next bike. Below is an article that I wrote and which originally appeared in Dirt Magazine’s issue #113.

DIRT

WHISTLER DIARIES

#113

‘Worthless wankers’

By Seb Kemp

—

There are some great ways to get your message across and some not so great ways to get your message across. There are many ways to effectively convey a message and then there are ways that make a great deal of noise but don’t exactly do the message justice.

Children have a wonderfully potent and yet seamlessly idiotic means for making their feelings known. These bratty snot breathing bastards resort to feeding the cat to the tumble dryer, snorting a toy car up their sniffer, or shouting ‘LA-LA-LA-LA-LA-LA’ until someone takes notice. It’s a wild gamble because it used to end up with them getting their backsides spanked or them getting the KinderSurprise they wanted. Of course, now that disciplining your child has taken on the spineless psycho babble ethics of a wet sponge who smells of tea tree oil and whose only friends are the several dozen cats she owns, kids don’t face the penalty of getting a swift hiding, so more often than not they get what they want.

Another not so great way to get your message across is to say the entirely opposite thing that which you actually want to say. I’m not talking about some clever reverse psychological mind tool, what I’m saying is making a complete balls up of it all and thinking that by doing something so far off the point, it doesn’t matter that it bares no resemblance to the message you actually want to convey.

[The name of the brand highlighted in the following example has been replaced with a pseudonym so Dirt or myself cannot be sued. However, it’s still pretty obvious who it is. Here is a clue, issue 105 of Dirt Magazine. Also, I am only highlighting this example and not the company. Biking is full of examples.]

Take Worthless bikes attempt at taste testing at last years Outdoor Demo at Interbike. Worthless employed the talents of two extremely errr…talented young ladies whose forte is dressing in skin tight spandex and walking around. Even if you didn’t go to the Outdoor Demo you very well might have seen pictures of these ladies, so does that mean they did their job?

These two savage looking machines of the night looked like they were disassembled and put back together by dirty old men who used a blue print based on the sexual proclivities of teenage boys.

But is having two skanky young ladies (no offense to them personally but they did not dress or act in anyway that could be mistaken for classiness and sophistication) strutting about the kind of brand message they were looking to spread? Does this mean that Worthless bikes are trying to say they are slutty little plastic sex toys for men? I like to think a bike should be sexy, but not in a Pussy Pocket kind of way.

If just getting people to actually look in the general direction of the Worthless stand rather than run the other way vomiting into their own mouth for a change was the idea then it might of worked a little. But did the ladies overshadow the bikes? I for one don’t even remember seeing a Worthless bike. I saw the Worthless logo, but only because it was stretched across a size 6 derriere and a size 36 bust. That logo could of said “Every time you look at this a puppy dies” and I would of still stole dirty little glances. However, whenever I think of Ellsworth now I think of $500 hookers giving a $10 service. Is this the kind of thing that I should think when I look at a bike brands logo? Not unless I’m in the market for a bike that I could bury in the desert after three minutes of abuse.

Bike companies try to link their wares to the things which they already know we love and desire. By doing so they are increasing the likelihood of us purchasing their bile. They try and snare us, the consumer, with images of sexy ladies and a vision of what we could do and achieve if only we weren’t rubbish. It is all aspirational imagery that triggers the what-if gene in our otherwise crappy dull lives. Katie Price, James Bond, Malibu beach homes and manly sports cars are main tenets of the marketeers and advertisers arsenal. However, in biking they try to clinch us with pictures of other men doing what we already do, pictures of men doing things we don’t ever want to do, and shiny objects that shouldn’t really get us stirring. What are we? Half magpie, half Gok Wan, half Anna Nicole Smith?

When bike companies do try something different to attract our spending dollars, they are usually about as imaginative as a 1970s porn film plot. It is either with free beer, girls who look like underaged, malnourished Ukrainian sex workers, or…well that’s it. There isn’t much variety or imagination going on.

Sex sells, but there are many sorts of sex. There is the type of sex that funnels into our deepest, most treasured fantasies, wishes and hopes. Taping into this is a good way of selling something. Then there is the kind of sex that two men share. It’s a bit gay and not everyones idea of a good time, in fact, I’m pretty sure the idea of this kind of sex is off putting to most men and almost every woman. This is not a good way to sell something. Then there is the kind of sex that Worthless was trying to sell. Cheap, artificial, superficial, crude sex that will leave you with an empty feeling, a hollow wallet, and a motel room cleaning bill.

Isn’t mountain biking better than all of this? Don’t we deserve to be seduced by the harpies in an altogether more sophisticated manner? Are we stupid enough to keep falling for free beer and a eye candy? I know I am. I’m just saying, wouldn’t it be nice to not be a loathsome masturbator.

The future is here. Words aren’t dead but in a changing media landscape they may have to be integrated with moving pictures. The writer’s place isn’t diminishing it is expanding. Stories still matter.

This is the first episode of the Hey Neighbour! series which I have been working on. When I moved to the North Shore of Vancouver I wanted to learn about the people and places that have made this such an important place for mountain biking. I knew other people wanted to hear these stories too so I pitched the idea to NSMB.com. Fortunately NSMB have the little genius Matt Dennison on contract for film making duties.

The first episode was all about Cam McRae and he kicked off what is going to be a great series. Click the LINK to read the accompanying story. The feedback from viewers has been fantastic and I want to thank everyone who left messages on NSMB.com, Facebook and Twitter.

Hey Neighbour

By Seb Kemp

The North Shore has always intrigued me. Why is it that this one place has had a huge influence on mountain biking? The need to explore this question lead me to move to the North Shore recently.

Arriving somewhere new is daunting and yet invigorating. Everything is new and every corner turned is exploration that leads to new discoveries. This is amplified when you are graced with having the whole North Shore trail network laid out before you but not knowing which way is up or down. It’s like knicker naughties with the lights out: lot’s of fun but requires some guestimation.

Hey Neighbour is about discovering the people and places that characterize the North Shore. Each episode we meet someone who will take us on a literal adventure of the trails all whilst allowing us to explore and fathom why the North Shore is the way it is.

It is my aim that with each episode with learn a little about someones personal history with the Shore and for them to explain a little about how they see the history of the Shore. This isn’t just about pro athletes or celebrity faces, sometimes these people maybe hidden heroes or the unnamed soldiers of the Shore and each episode we will go on a short ride on these peoples favorite rides to put some color into the trail map.

Although it is my own need for answers I hope that everyone will learn a little more about the North Shore, whether you live here already, have visited here and left with the same questions as I, or if you have never set foot here but still curious about the land of the big wet trails. If you have heard it all before then I apologize but everyones personal experience and interpretation of history differs so maybe there’s something new for everyone in here.

So it makes total sense that we start with Cam McRae, who is one of the first people I met who lives on the Shore. I have had the pleasure of getting to know as a friend over the last few years and who has helped me find my way around North Vancouver since arriving here.

Cam McRae is the captain of the good ship NSMB. Many of you will know of him, some of you would have ridden with him but perhaps many more have no idea who the chap behind this site is.

Cam McRae has a long history on the Shore. A longtime Vancouver resident he began mountain biking here on the Shore, but as he says in the video, it was a baptism of fire and took a while for him to feel comfortable here. Biking here on the Shore is more than just a fact of growing up here and having his family here, he really appreciates the unique character of the trails here and has a great respect for the trails, the community and the legacy of the North Shore.

It was whilst teaching English in Italy between the fall of 1998 and early 1999 that the idea of NSMB came to him. He was so desperate to hear about what was happening back on the Shore, a place that was alight with activity as more and more riders were joining in the antics, building wilder and wilder trails and the Shore was starting to get a lot of attention, not all of it good. It was a hot bed of activity and Cam wanted to keep in touch with what was happening and realized there was no way he could get any information about it. The few magazines he could get hold of were Italian mountain bike magazines that had nothing about the North Shore and at this particular time immediate information wasn’t at all readily available like it is today. The original idea for NSMB was for Cam to start a magazine that focused on the North Shore but it was whilst speaking to a friend that he realized they could harness the internet. Websites were something which at the time was very new to anyone, in fact many people didn’t even have email accounts back then. NSMB was soft launched in 2000 and was one of the very first mountain bike websites to appear.

NSMB has always been about crafting original content that celebrated the lifestyle of mountain biking rather than just a consumer advice website. For years Cam has been documenting the North Shore scene and in doing so has attracted the attention of readers from 70 countries around the world these days. Cam helped bring the Shore to the world and bring the world to the Shore. Just like Cam’s original intention, people can feel engaged with what is happening on the North Shore and they can be living on the other side of the world.

I’ve always been very impressed with Cam as a rider. He might not be showy and is always modest enough to let everyone go first but this hides the fact that Cam is a very accomplished rider. His technical skills and mastery of the bike on technical lines is always impressive to watch. Whilst we were filming this episode Cam showed me several lines off the side of Ladies Only that have become almost forgotten as the trail has found more flow over the years. Most of these lines are awkward, requiring brute force and finesse in equal measure and if you get them wrong you will be left sore and embarrassed for some time.  He also showed he how to ride over ‘humper logs’. It requires a bit of trials skills and a sturdy chain ring or bash guard.

Also, at the end of the day, with light fading fast, Cam showed us a cheeky line right at the bottom of the trail which leads to Dempsey called Rag Doll (another Digger line). As we approached he said there was a move coming up. Now if Cam says there is a move then this means there is one hell of a move coming up. Usually Cam doesn’t talk people down a trail so I knew there was something ahead that I’d need to keep on my toes for. Matt set up his camera and Cam talked me through it, “Just try to step up wide and then get your front wheel on the far side of the huge root that runs downhill as you turn hard to the right.”

I’m comfortable on my bike and figure that there isn’t much I won’t ride. Then as Matt gave the all clear sign and Cam rolled in I stopped to see Cam come to a complete stop on the corner between two really meaty roots and in one powerful move turn and push up, over and down the drop. I didn’t move. It didn’t look right and I have to admit to being intimidated enough by this one move that I walked up to it, shrugged and lifted my bike down. I could say that I wasn’t feeling it that day but I have to be honest and admit to just plainly beaten by it because it looked like a move with consequences that I wasn’t willing to deal with. Cam isn’t a wild or a ballsy rider but with years of North Shore trail riding under his belt is comfortable on his bike in these positions.

He wasn’t showing off, he is just a seriously calculated and composed rider. Which is how he is in life. I’ve not met many people who are as calm and fair as Cam. He always sees the wider picture, is willing to give everyone an opportunity to shine and seems to be very balanced as a human and in his life. He is unselfish and willing to give praise where it is due but this doesn’t mean he is some even mannered dullard; give Cam a beer and an opportunity to flare up and Damn McMenace comes to life.

So here we are at the first installment of Hey Neighbour. I hope you enjoy these looks at the people and places of the Shore. If you have any feedback, questions you want answered or recommendations for people to be profiled in future episodes then please leave a comment and I’ll endeavour to heed your advice.

Before 2010 I had spent very little time in the US of A. I had been two times for a combined time of less than 48 hours and not ventured further south of Canuckistan than Seattle. The first time was a trip to Mount Baker to dodge avalanches and the second time was due to crossed wires with a drunk that needed to be picked up from an airport, any airport, in the North West, that ended up with a night of drunken mistakes in Seattle. This year however, I have had the opportunity to visit parts of the States five times and, I’m sorry to disappoint some of my Canadian friends, I actually really enjoyed every single trip. The people are nice, I didn’t get shot, and the food was some of the most palatable I have found. In fact, I think I will be revisiting some of the spots and hopefully ticking off more in the future.

After living in Bellingham, WA for a month, where we ate our body weight in bacon, kept a steady stream of piss weak beer in our bodies, and quivered with fear that each day the looming El Nino would drown us, I made the trip down to San Clemente in Orange County for two weeks. Orange County had a peculiar lure for me. It is like looking into a hole which you are told could contain a snake. You want to look, but you know it might be dangerous. You see on the one hand it’s just a hole, and anyone who has observed the male psyche knows that a male can not avoid looking into holes, even though ten times out of ten there is nothing remotely interesting in the hole, but a man has to look just to make sure. And on the other hand, you don’t want to get your face chewed off by a toothy draft excluder…but it’s a hole and you need to look. Besides, you know there’s probably not a snake because every hole you have ever look into has contained anything more interesting than an empty chip packet.

Anyway, Orange County. I have had several friends describe Orange County, and the majority of the sentiment was negative. ‘Cultural abyss’ was the main theme that ran through all references to Orange County. I wasn’t discouraged, I’m a not exactly a culture vulture myself and I get a strange kick out of being in alien places because I like just fading into the background and watching it all unravel. I imagined monster trucks, plastic fronted ladies and grey highways for miles. Well, the only thing that is true of this grotesque vision was the highways. I still like to think that there is some hyper-real Orange County, and that San Clemente is just a blemish on the otherwise perfectly sculpted West Coast shopping mall.

San Clemente is a little quiet to say the least. I imagine for surfers it is a hoot and holler as there are miles upon miles of shark infested waters on your door step. Now I say shark infested waters not because I am being dramatic, but that it is actually true. I went out surfing one early morning with Von Minnigh and it was one of the most beautiful sunrises I have seen in a while. The clear sky being increasingly illuminated by the rising sun over the sand cliffs, the spray of breaking waves being backlit, and the hazy view as you looked down the line cleared the mind for the coming day. I sucked at the surfing malarky, but like biking, it doesn’t matter how good you are, it’s how much you enjoy it that counts. However, that day a friend emailed me some links to videos of some close encounters with sharks at the very spot we had being surfing. The ocean shoreline suddenly became far deeper and darker in my mind. All I could see in my minds eye was hundreds of sinister inky shapes silently thrashing about in the murky gloom of the coastline. It’s a shame because I hadn’t surfed since a teenager and I really enjoy being out in that opposing element to the world of woods, dirt and bikes, but after this I never seemed to find the time to go back out in the ocean. I wondered maybe if I should take up Stand Up Paddle boarding, but Von Minnigh told me that if I wanted to ‘become a sea sweeping kook’ then he would beat me up, steal my lunch money, and never talk to me again.

Another side-note: There is somewhat of a territorial and aggressive element to surfing in SoCal that we don’t have in mountain biking. Fighting isn’t just prevalent but also spoke about with dispassionate nonchalance by the surfers I spoke to. It’s as if the fighting and aggression is as much a part of the experience of surfing as getting mud on your shorts is to mountain bikers. I didn’t get into any ruckus myself, and I didn’t see any, so perhaps all the talk of fighting is to discourage Brits like myself to keep out of the water.

Whilst in SoCal I managed to ride most days, twice a day, even if that was to the burrito stand for breakfast and dinner. I rode the local San Clemente trails, sometimes at night until we discovered a healthy dose of mountain lion poop on the trails. After that we saw that we started to see shapes in every shadow and heard rustles in every bush. I also rode San Juan, Chiquita, Laguna and Noble Canyon, all of which we high on my to-do list and didn’t disappoint. Rocky then dusty, fast then technical.

The rides were often surprising how remote they made you feel, even when you know you are in the highly populated slither of land at the end of the continent. One such ride was Noble Canyon which felt like you could just keep going through the brush and be across the border in Mexico eventually. Once out there you felt like there wasn’t much else but a few rattle snakes and the occasional attack helicopter from nearby Camp Pendleton flying overhead. Saying that, we did come across this one strange fellow.

Dressed in a man sized diaper and a soiled string vest, he was entertaining enough to look at, but as one of our companions, who had decided to ride ahead of the group, rode past him, he was asked, “Are you alone?” Back at the parking lot as we passed around beers and shared trail tales, our conversation drifted to the Man Sized Baby which we has all come across at several points in the ride. We started to muse upon what he could be doing out that far, especially dressed like that. Of course, like boys around a camp fire our theories of sinister acts of depravity turned to real life stories of murder and kidnap. Apparently, several women were kidnapped in the area we were in and then some bodies were found a time later. What a lovely way to end the ride.

That particular ride was organized by Dain Zaffke of Giro helmets. He had organized the ride to get a bunch of people into the new Giro Xar helmet. There was no big deal formal blah blah about the helmet, Dain loves Noble Canyon and rates it as one of his most favorite trails, so he wanted to get one last ride in before winter hit and share the fun with a bunch of fellow riders.

Aside from the sharks, the aggressive surfers, the mountain lions, the snakes, and the murderous man-toodlers, the safest I felt the whole time in California was when I was wearing that helmet. I’m not trying to sell you anything with a cheesy closing line, what I mean is when I was riding my bike I felt safe because I could control what was going on around me.

Last week I was remarkably surprised to be the daily lotto prize winner in the PinkBike Photo Of The Day sweepstakes.

You don’t get sent a framed picture of your POD. You do, however, get a framed picture if you shoot or appear in a cover shot that appears on an issue of Bike Magazine.

Like most of the tosh on this blog, this piece is roughly edited, a bit rambling, and possibly pointless. My reason for sticking it up here is to try and get some discussion from any readers out there. I’d like peoples opinion and theories about social media use in mountain biking. Feel free to post a comment below or find me via Twitter.

MEDIATED MYTHS

PART ONE

BY SEB KEMP

—

Not that long ago a company wishing to promote their wares would place a few adverts in magazines, perhaps get some good point of sale merchandising made (which would be lost in the clutter of a well lubed bike shop), maybe print a lovely catalogue for the year ahead, and contract a hand selected bunch of highly skilled mountain bikers to represent them. The professional mountain biker then would have to turn up to events and races, place well, shake hands, kiss some babies then head home. They would also have to hustle to appear in magazines, and perhaps have a video part in some of the handful of widely distributed movies that were released annually. This was how they reached an audience. Today, social networks such as Facebook and Twitter as well as blog publishing sites like Blogspot and WordPress are creating new forms of social interaction, dialogue, exchange, and collaboration for all of us, and many individuals and companies within mountain biking have begun to harness these tools in order to further market themselves or the products they represent. They can reach a wider audience quicker and they can interact and communicate with them directly.

This multi-page diatribe of guff is an attempt at training our focus on the bigger picture of status updates, relationship statuses and a 24/7 scrolling rain storm of pixelated triviality. We all use Facebook and Twitter (well aside from anyone who is either so backwards that they live under a rock or so forward thinking they see the banality of signing up for such time robbing deceptions). However, do we know what these things are? Of course we do, anyone with first class honors in interneting knows what they are, but do we know what we are doing in terms of reshaping our political and social landscape, molding art and entertainment, even affecting the methodology of scholarship and research. More importantly, how it is affecting our experience of off-road bicycles, whether we are actually riding them, or blogging/IM/Twittering/Facebooking/foruming/article commenting about them in the digital woodland where the physical act of biking is severely removed. So this article attempts to define what Facebook and Twitter -the two most pervasive and predominant forms – are, how they are used, and what they mean. I  asked for the perspectives of a few mountain bikers who  work within the industry and use these things on a daily basis to try and generate a more accurate and non-partisan image of the digital landscape. Ultimately, what I have achieved is something akin to smelling my own farts because there is just more questions that are raised.

—

Facebook

There are 600 million users of Facebook and counting. In a single day about a billion new pieces of content are posted on Facebook, 60 million status updates are made, and in a month there are 260 billion page views. Facebook is estimated to account for as much as 25 per cent of all web traffic. It is the connective tissue for nearly a tenth of the planet. And it is growing. 

Somehow, seemingly overnight, many people have become part person, part profile. Part of the reason could be that it allows users to exercise the narcissistic and voyeuristic tendencies that many humans possess. Facebook has undoubtably changed how we interact with each other, how we present ourselves and it has blurred the lines between the public and private self more than anything else previously.

There is also a commercial use to the individual and/or business interest. Using it to spread news, draw attention to people, places and products and to make friends – friends which equate to a loosely corralled network of fans, followers and fanatics in some cases. There are many ways to utilize Facebook and mountain bikers and companies have utilized done so to varying successes.

Peter Vallance (Rocky Mountain, Product and Sports Marketing) – Personally, I use Facebook as a kind of blog with links to things I like or find interesting like photos, videos, and news stories. If I was to create a blog, I’m skeptical that many of the people in my life would regularly check it out, both because they’re too busy and I’m probably not that interesting. With Facebook, my content is forced onto their Facebook feeds and they have no choice but to see it. For that reason, I try to keep the quality level high.

Olly (Creator of Factory Jackson website) – What started as a tool for socializing and communicating with friends is now it is a tool for self-promotion and marketing to a pre-built target market in the unknown void between social networking and marketing.

Sven Martin (Photographer and MTB journalist) – I don’t use it for that. Rather use it to keep up with friends spread all over the world. I try to keep business and marketing off Facebook. I’d rather use social time to interact in real life not on web.

Facebook is a very public domain in many respects and the more private moments that find their way onto the News Feed can have a negative affect upon a person.

Olly Forster – Facebook represents a machine that is no longer innocent fun and can damage someone’s career if used incorrectly. Frightening stuff really!

Peter Vallance – A couple years ago I found myself getting added by colleagues, acquaintances at other companies, and more often by total strangers. I wasn’t able to speak freely anymore and had to censor a lot of what I said, so I quit it altogether. It was only when the Rocky Mountain fan page started to get neglected did I sign up again to clean it up. Since then I’ve allowed pretty much anyone to add me and I just keep the content reasonably clean.

The boundary between public and private is now blurred as everything is beamed and boomed out loud on the News Feed. This means users have to monitor what goes out, especially when there is a business interest involved. For businesses when Facebook is utilized properly it can act as a forum where information is shared in both directions. Customers can digest information and then feed back into it by commenting, Liking, or sharing it. As Craig Glaspell points out, doesn’t have the downsides of internet forums such as anonymous users sounding off with impunity.

Craig Glaspell (Intense Cycles Marketing Director)- It’s a community for our customers to share ride experiences, their bikes, show off their stuff. And its controlled by us, so I can keep out the haters, unlike a **** forum. [Name withheld.]

Peter Vallance – For a bike brand, Facebook functions similarly to Twitter in the way content is pushed onto the feed of a friend, but it differs in that it acts more as message board in which friends of the brand can have discussions, share experiences and post their own content relating to the brand.

The impact and influence of a well executed Facebook presence goes further than just being noticed by large numbers of people but also the quality of the information transferred and digested.

Craig Glaspell – It is very important in the circle of current customers, it is an aspect of marketing, very small one I think, but it grows everyday and our fans feedback from it has been very good “heard about the new…” and they are getting this info before their dealer-which is a whole other topic.

—

Twitter

There are currently around 160 million users and Twitter traffic continues to grow exponentially, with users sending over 65 million tweets a day by July 2010.

Twitter enables its members to post or send short (140-character) messages called “tweets”, whereby users can broadcast what they are doing or thinking to the world, to closed “list” groups or to other individual Twitterers. Tweets will range from breakfast-cereal updates, interesting links, showing off new kit, training ride bragging and even musings on current affairs.

Lady Gaga has 8,625,656 followers and Charlie Sheen opened an account one day and the next day he had over one million people following him. This keys into the issue of the cult of celebrity where users create a real life yet virtual following, where their every little bowel movement and night club visit is chronicled and circulated via the hub of the Wild West Wonderland. Steve peat has over 11,000 followers, which is a considerable number of people who have chosen to personally his every announcement. Not as large as the meat dressed fashion experiment herself, but still a substantial number of mountain bikers who wish to digest the bite sized info blasts that Peaty dishes up each day. This gives someone like Peaty the ability to be constantly in touch with his flock, feeding them morsels and allowing them to be privy to parts of his private life and his professional life, and in doing so breeds a further affinity towards him by his followers and extends his reach of influence as a marketing tool invested in by his sponsors, and his own interests.

Mountain bikers may perhaps still be figuring out what Twitter is for and how it can be utilized as a powerful tool for promotional means, but many people have been quick to join up and a network within a network exists where information relevant to the mountain biking industry can be distributed very quickly, and where professional mountain bike athletes can promote themselves and their wares.

Craig Glaspell – If you are into twitter, it’s a great place to get up to date info on your favorite brands, athletes and what not.

But it needn’t be just about who got signed to who, and what promotional video is hot today. As Sven Martin explains, it can be a useful tool for skimming the fat off the milk that is the on-line dairy factory of the internet.

Sven Martin – It’s a quick way to disseminate, news, results, new articles etc. I can scan a host of interesting insightful articles and ideas that impact the various industries I’m involved in, all in very little time. So really it is a time saver for me. I spend less time browsing actual websites, just click pertinent links I’m interested in.

This is an interesting point. Twitter can act as the hub for news and information, where the content is selected and distributed by other users, whereby users act as the gatekeepers of information rather than necessarily the commercial interests of websites. Rather than checking out the front page of an ever expanding list of websites and sifting through the detritus each day, you can be directed to the pertinent information by other Twitter users that you follow, perhaps because you trust them to spread the best information. Many social media are fundamentally based on the premise that people freely share information and data. Social media users are now determining how – and which – information is shared over the Internet by posting news, views, presentations, pictures and videos, which they share among friends, family, and other communities and acquaintances. Social media are transforming the on-line behaviour in terms of the initial entry point we choose to dive into the ocean of information, the way we can now gather rather than hunt for information on our searches, and the way that we can browse for information  preselected by others, rather than wallow in the mighty halls of the virtual equivalent of the worlds largest library in which there is often little order to the shelves.

Social media are increasingly blurring the boundaries between work and play. The online tracking and dissemination of news and views over social media mean that we may now continue to live in a media world long after the end of their working day. There is no off switch to the internet and once we are signed up to the social media networking sites then we are destined to be forever jogging along on the treadmill of status updates, Tweets, pokes and links to hilarious videos of a monkey face pumping a frog. In their recently published social media guidelines, the Reuters news organization observed that “the distinction between the private and the professional has largely broken down online and you should assume that your professional and personal social media activity will be treated as one, no matter how hard you try to keep them separate”. Reuters are a grown up and very professional organization so if they say this is the case then it jolly well is. But what does this mean for us? Well widely speaking it means that with social media shrinking the rule of five degrees of separation to about two and one third degrees of separation then your private antics at the weekend may become widely broadcast and affect the view of your professional self.

John Lawlor (film maker) – If you ask me, it’s a weird state of affairs when you’re telling the world what you had for breakfast or how many hours you spent in the bath, but I guess the line between professional careers and personal lives got blurred a long time ago.

Sometimes the content of tweets can seem a little insipid – perhaps such users should be referred to as Twits – but they do offer a glimpse into the lives of people who have been chosen to be paid to represent a company’s interests. Sort of like catching a glimpse of your mates mum through a crack in the curtains just as she has got out of the shower. But far less interesting. Tweets don’t have to take on the form of blaring advertisements but can be used to keep viewers interested in the person or company behind them, but there are pit falls.

Peter Vallance (Rocky Mountain Bikes, Product and Sports Marketing) I also really like Twitter because it can give a company a personality, which is conveyed in the tone of the tweets. I’ve seen some of the biggest jumps in followers after a funny or slightly snide tweet. It’s necessary to censor yourself, understanding that while your audience may be relatively small, it can represent a wide range of political/religious/social views and it’s incredibly easy to alienate people with a single tweet.”

Twitter is free to sign up for and costs nothing more to maintain your membership. All content you provide is self-managed and therefore you can choose the exact strategy for your Tweetings. Some people like to string a line of twitterings that are irreverent, others like to be all business up front, some people make them related to their profession, others use it as a forum to demonstrate their wide scope of interests – from pictures of vaguely phallic root vegetables, to photos of themselves.

Olly Forster -[I use it] The same as it is for everything and everyone else who uses it  – effective, self-managed, cost effective, target marketed social networking solution for self-promotion and information sharing.

Strangely it is not only bike companies and their athletes that are using social networking sites like Twitter for promotional means, these days professional photographers, designers and writers are self-promoting. Like a self-implemented exposure machine, Twitter and facebook can be used to brag about what jobs you are on, what you have lined up and ultimately be used to show that you are more important and relevant that anyone else. Like a calendar that is pinned above the desk of execs and string pullers, Twitter keeps names swirling in the eyeballs of decision makers when it comes to choose who to shoot or scribble the next catalogue, or

John Lawlor (film maker) – It seems that riders, journo’s, etc have to work even harder than before to publicize themselves. Before new social media, it would suffice for those in each profession to simply do their jobs. i.e., a racer would race, a photographer would photograph. It seems now it’s everyone’s job to self-promote.

Of course there is the use of Twitter as a sounding board to advertise your interests. Like the KnowItAllLittleBastard at school who knows the answer so badly that he hoovers above his seat with his arm thrust into the air like something from above is tugging him by his snot filled fingernails, Tweets hustle for your attention. Companies and people can use it to draw attention to the great things they have done. Websites can wave madly that they have a five minute exclusive over another website for a press release, companies can tell you about things they have just released to the press, and athletes can tell you about the things they helped their sponsors release to the press and the places this doing has appeared. But it is free. There are no advertising costs and you don’t need to be in with the cool kids to get noticed. Twitter allows you to spout off and shout about yourself or your interests, spreading the word and get more noticed than your competitor who is too busy training for the upcoming season or dialing in the geometry and spec for next years bikes.

So what does this mean? So far the effect of these social media networks is unquantifiable aside from the objective rationality of counting the number of users. However the more subjective matter of social media networks to influence and change buyer habits is yet to be fully understood. One thing is for sure, in the age old climate of looking for the easiest and cheapest marketing and advertising means possible then such social media networks are seen as worth the gamble. They are free, very easy and quick to use, and besides, everyone else is doing it, so it can’t be wrong can it.

There is still questions about the affects of being over saturated by information, the question of losing quality when quantity rules supreme in the increasing data smog of information, how we are becoming more ADHD in our consumption habits of information, how the democratization of information in the media is leaving a void in objective reality, and how incredible little tools like a fully function video camera as small as a cigarette packet and a global TV channel which is entirely user generated is squandering true creativity and value. Until next time…

It has been busy and not so busy recently. In between riding the heck out of the amazing two week stretch of unbroken blue bird days and heroic riding conditions, I have managed to scribble a few bits and bobs for a bunch of web based media. First up was the coaching critique I wrote for this here blog got taken by NSMB.com. Well received and lots of feedback. Bad coaching videos have no place. Watch this space.

Then a behind the scenes scope of the Renthal factory was published on VitalMTB.com . I worked with super rad shooter, lover of machinery and man’s stuff, and sideburn extraordinaire, Grant Robinson.

Then a week later a similar behind the scenes audio/slideshow of the Orange factory appeared on VitalMTB.com. Again, Grant Robinson was the shooter whilst I held a little dictaphone in the direction of the noises and words of wisdom. I love this one because it is so rugged and raw. You have Ashley Ball’s thick Yorkshire accent and the machinery just hammering common sense home. Proper manufacturing. Go check it out.

I was interviewed by the legend that is Ryan Leech about yoga on NSMB.COM. Ryan has become a fully qualified yoga instructor on top of being the most amazing advocate for biking in Canada and being probably the nicest dudes on the planet. I used the interview as a chance to try and get Ryan to swear but it didn’t work. I attended his yoga class last weekend and his knowledge and experience of biking really helped because he worked a little on stretching out the tight hips and thighs that bikers generally get. I’ll be going each week now. Check out the info for classes HERE.

Then yesterday my new weekly column for BikeMag.com went live. What better way to make sense and use of Twitter than to just fire it back at itself? The UK 29er meltdown was a perfect week to start and the column seems to be popular so far. Let’s see how well it goes when there is nothing but LOLs and “Havin chips 4 tea tonight #loveit” tweets. Check it out HERE. By the way, I have to give credit to Squirrel’s (known as Ryan Labar to his mother) amazing quick illustration.

Find me hovering @sebastiankemp

I have a bit of an enforced media amnesty happening about my Big Mountains Adventure to Nepal last month. I hope to have that cleared up soon enough but for now here is an excerpt from my diary in Nepal. It contains nothing groundbreaking, but you know that already if you have checked this blog before.

Vancouver to Beijing: Air China is like a boot stomping on my face. No on-demand entertainment system for an eleven hour flight. Best choice of four flicks was Transformers 3. Subsequently I read a good proportion of my bad choice airport purchase, Booky Wook 2, the overly verbose bunch of bollocks about Russel Brand.

Dinner comes around and I’m offered shrimp or chicken. Chicken seems like the least dangerous option even though I know that the food on airplanes has a pretty impressive half-life. I open my well wrapped food parcel and discover that it is clearly shrimp. When I ask the stewardess to change it she scowls, shrugs and tells me they are all out of chicken. I’m frankly a little astonished as she hasn’t moved more than one row and we are sitting near the front of the cabin so I don’t quite see how it could be finished yet. It clearly isn’t the case and I’m not even that bothered about what I eat, it’s the thought that counts. After ten minutes she come back, drops the chicken on the tray in front of me. She turns away then remembers something. She leans in and moves to take the shrimp away from me. I stop her and shake my head. If she is going to be a turd about it then I’m going to keep the shrimp just to spite her. The booze trolley seems to never come around again.

Beijing: Massive space. Vast. Beyond necessary. Despite the space the officials here have no idea about effectively managing queues because instead of neat lines we are herded into piles. A sign tells me that there is strictly no semen smuggling and no one is allowed to be found in possession of semen. I wonder how they are going to search for this.

Beijing to Delhi: I didn’t think things could get any worse than the first flight but they do. This time there is zero entertainment for seven hours. Yup, not a single screen playing anything. seven hours feels longer than eleven. I read most of Booky Wook 2. I feel like I’m developing Stockholm Syndrome because I’m almost starting to like it.

Delhi airport: It is a joke getting bags through here. It is like this is the first time they have ever had to deal with bags going through their airport. Passports are taken, money exchanged, promises made, promises broken and we are told to line up half a dozen times only to get to the front and be told it is the wrong queue. Two hours to get a boarding pass to allow us to get out of Delhi. We are getting tired now.

Delhi to Kathmandu: Best flight yet. On-demand entertainment. Good food. Good movie. Clean cabin. Only a 90 minute flight. Shame.

Kathmandu: Early morning arrival despite losing a day and adding years of stress on the journey. Getting entry visa is easy. It does take four chaps to process the visa through. One to check your form, one to take money, one to stick visa in passport, and one to sign it. This wouldn’t be half as ridiculous if it wasn’t for the fact that they all sit next to one another in a cubicle that should only fit two people.

It is warm and smoggy. No view of mountains. Eat a delightful lunch and then ride into the city. High speed traffic surfing. Seeing gaps open and close. Dodging, preempting, judging, sliding into spaces that appear and disappear. Hooting, honking, beeping. Non-stop sound. Not aggressive, just communication.

We slide off the road and onto a square where deities, erotic art, pagodas, wood carvings, hustlers and crowds abound. There is even the living goddess in residence. We push out bikes further in until the crowd squeezes every last gap closed. Good vibes though. I’ve never felt so calm in a storm. I’ve never seen a wild storm seem so calm. Smiles and no malice. Almost trapped. Escape. Hit the road again. Must be rush hour because the traffic chaos is doubled. It’s the most invigorating ride I’ve ever had.

Go out for a meal. Halfway through I start to feel what it must be like to start to trip or come up on some sort of wild drug. There is a distance to reality. I still hold conversations but there is a disconnect with my eyes. They are slow to focus as I pan across the room. Maybe it is the fatigue of travel, it has been two and half days since I slept. This is a first world problem.

Day whatever (still in Kathmandu): Up early, too early. Hit road for Shivapuri National Park. Easy ride down. Smells fragrant and pungent like Jamaica. Feels warmer than I expected. Much warmer.

Go to Bhaktapur Square for lunch at 4pm. Old town, old markets, old architecture, old agriculture. Even in the wild queues and down alleys there is a marvelous welcoming vibe, and not just for our dollar. Open, warm, no malice, no sneers. Lights and candles and tea lights lit for Ox day. Serpents pool, 55 window palace, shitting dogs and architecture designed by royal family to increase procreation. The whole  of the buildings exterior are made of erotic carvings that was meant to inspire people to give it and get it. Not much more than a few boobs though. I’ve seen more erotic art in The Sun newspaper.

Sunrise over the Himalayas: As the rising sun begins to illuminate the sky and chase stars across an indigo ocean, the Himalayas come into view. At first a silhouette of jagged peaks atop a sentinels back stretch from East to West. It appears as if the Himalayas are a giant breaking wave. A geological tsunami rising far out to sea. The mountains are still far away – two days walk we are told. I have no idea how far you can walk in two days. Then as the suns lifts more, but still isn’t visible, the peaks of snow capped mountains light up as if from within. The building wave looks more ferocious and foreboding as if the lit peaks are the white caps of a breaking wave.

We spend the day whizzing through villages blowing minds with wheelies.

Toilet culture: I’d expected the worse. Long drops with no paper, super squats, flys etc. But in fact it’s very modern in a lot of places. They have even developed a bathroom combo that I would like to have in my own home: The Shoilet. A shower head above the toilet means you can get clean as you do the dirty. Killing two birds with one stone.