Rocket Science Sports Goes Running!

Rocket Science Sports has made it's inaugural appearance to the running community at this year's Austin Marathon Expo.


If one could plan weather for an expo and following race, it could not have been more perfect than this past weekends. As all the vendors piled into the Palmer Event Center on Friday the weather was cool and dry. Saturday during the expo it became cold and rainy, which is what most vendors secretly wish for because it helps drive the crowd inside to shop, and keeps them in. Saturday just before closing the expo the sky opened up, the sun came out and was perfect for loading up the trailers and vans. Wow!


The whole thing was made possible by RunTex who has recently picked up our products including our race belts, our gear bags and some custom timing chip straps we made with their logo on them. We set up right in the middle of all the action and it was go go go all day!

Nick Sullivan who is our dealer in Loveland Colorado (3XFast) came down to our lovely town and ran a very respectable 1:56 half on our course which was pretty hilly. Way to go Nick! Sorry you had to return to cold and gloomy weather after enjoying our early spring.


I wanted to give a big thanks to Kim Larson of Tri-DC Magazine for sending some of her friends by to meet me from TriTeamZ. Everyone was very attentive to my product demonstrations and get an A+ for product support. Kim, you can be proud. I hope I did well at making them feel welcome in Austin.

Cheers!

Training Camp Part II

Sunday morning started very early with a lot of squawking, meowing and knocking. Have I gone nuts? No. The squawking I’m referring to is from the geese that hang out at the pond near the cabin I was staying at. For some reason they don’t have any respect for people sleeping and randomly let out collective fits of noise through the night. The meowing would be the very friendly black cat that would show up the door whenever we got in. Each night we’d let it in and it would curl up on the couch and stay cozy and quiet all night. For some reason it decided to play all night, howl and knock something around that sounded like a refrigerator. Kitty was evasive the first two times I tried to coax it outside so I could get some sleep. Persistence paid off the third time though. However that unfortunately wasn’t all I was in store for. Starting at around 6am a woodpecker starting pecking the heck out of our log cabin. At least it was on my cabin mate Brandon’s side. Smart guy brought earplugs while I expected to be away from all those loud city noises. I guess I was.

Bleary eyed I packed my stuff and dragged my bones out to the team car Brandon hijacked to get us to our offsite cabins. It was a cold morning, frost covered everything. We went back to meet with the rest of the team and have breakfast at our favorite hang out, the Hiker Hostel. After feasting on pancakes, eggs, grits, oatmeal, fruit, biscuits and coffee, the team kitted up and headed out to R-Ranch to meet with a local group headed up by the owner of Dahlonega Wheel Works, Jon Dalman.

Meeting up with the locals at R Ranch

The ONLY semi flat stretch in the area. Well maybe not, but it sure seems that way.

We did a relatively small loop back around to the R-Ranch again, maybe a little over an hour and that’s where I broke off. It was either that or continue on to do 6 gap which this Austinite could not have trained enough for in a year, especially with my work schedule, and at their pace! Don’t get me wrong, Austin has its share of hills, but they aren’t bunched all together in a relentless onslaught of climbs of these lengths like they are here.

Neels Gap - 3,094 ft
Jacks Gap - 2,958 ft
Unicoi Gap - 2,941 ft
Hogpen Gap - 3,454 ft
Wolfpen Gap - 3,320 ft
Woody Gap - 3,159 ft

When I got back to the Hiker Hostel I had enough time to defrost, break my bike down and pack it, eat, and then off I went to be dropped off at the MARTA. This is Atlanta’s Rail system that would take me from the north side of the city down to the south side airport. I think it was Bill Cosby who said something about there being a show in every car, but maybe he was talking about New York? Regardless of locale I was treated to a 3 part show, all seemingly to have been carefully orchestrated so that at no time was there a lull of boredom between stops. The best of which was a guy wearing clearly new clothes and decent shoes claiming to be homeless and asking everyone for money. That show came to a stop when one elderly woman came on board and called the guy out. “You’re not homeless!” she said with disdain, “I know your grandmother and she would not be happy with what you’re doing!” The cat played it cool until the next stop and then he quickly exited stage left.

All in all the trip was fantastic. If I haven’t said so already I think that Toshiba-Santo Pro Cycling Team presented by Herbalife is an amazing squad with great talent and an equally dedicated director and staff. Rocket Science Sports is proud to be a supplier for the team and we look forward to a very successful season.

Cheers!

Training Camp

Rocket Science Sports is a proud supplier of the team with our Elite Bags and Rocket Bottles. The guys on the team are blown away by the bag's design and are excited to start using them.


On Thursday Feb. 7th I arrived in Dahlonega Georgia for the Toshiba-Santo Pro Cycling Team presented by Herbalife training camp. Dahlonega is an insanely hilly area. Mostly all the climbs are at least 2-5 times longer than most in Austin and are all squashed together giving no rest for the out of shape Austinite (me).

Friday morning we went out for a leisurely stroll in the hills. The first few hills went by without a hitch on my part. Yeah, I've been training real hard for the for the past three weeks! So I guess it wasn't much of a surprise that my lungs gave out and I removed myself from the group. As I drifted backwards I thought I'd just pull to the side waive my hand and have the team car pick me up. So I turn around and the vehicle that I was hearing behind us went around me and sped off. It wasn't the team car! Where's the car? Oh no! Where's the team car! I looked up the road and already the group was around the next bend and I was breathing like a fish out of water. All I could do was keep on the main road and hope they wouldn't turn off or the team car would come rolling up. As things would have it, Mike Gann came back for me when they realized they were short a duckling. I guess I wasn't too far behind because we caught up with them pretty quick because they had stopped for a nature break. Lucky me!

So as we all got rolling again Mike alerted me to the option of making a right turn and getting back to the base camp. I took it. I'm not crazy. After checking my computer when I got back I could see that I was in working at 94% of my max heart rate for most of my hour ride. I can't wait to get back to Austin, it's going to be soo easy after this!

Saturday was a big day of handing out team kits, taking individual and group pictures and interviews of the athletes by VeloNews and Road magazines. Ravi then dragged the guys back and forth over some very scenic climbs and decents so we could get some cool pictures of the guys in action. For the action shots all the bikes were fitted with our Rocket Bottles. It was a proud moment. I didn't get any riding in this day. I am looking forward to giving it another shot on Sunday. Maybe I'll be brave enough to talk about it later.

Keith Norris, 2007 U-23 National Crit Champion

BTW, the guys were staying at a place called the Hiker Hostel. If hostels are graded by stars, this one is a 5 star for sure. It's very clean, beautiful and has some awesome amenities including a hot tub and a great backyard deck with a nice fire pit. If you are ever in the area and looking for a place to stay you've gotta give this place a shot. Super friendly hosts Josh and his wife Leigh are the best. They'll take good care of you.

I'll try to get out another update soon. Cheers!

Busy February

It looks like a very busy month for us at Rocket Science Sports.

Already our first shipment of Rocket Bags has come in, sold out and we have people banging our doors down for more. Updates on export traffic and shipping dates now has our next Rocket Bag delivery slated for February 28th at our warehouse in Austin.

If you hadn't seen all the buzz over the last week we had our Rocket Bottle mentioned in the New Tech section of CyclingNews.com with some questions about the integrity of the data. This obviously started quite a stir on popular forums, especially Slowtwitch.com. This has kept me pretty busy over the weekend responding to questions directly relating to our bottles, as well as dealer orders. This design makes a lot of sense for the price point and I expect sales to drastically increase over this spring and summer. Does your shop have stock? Take advantage of the buzz. We'll be working on getting the Rocket Bottle more attention soon.

This Thursday I leave for the pro training camp for Team Toshiba-Santo presented by Herbalife. We are providing them with Rocket Bottles for exclusive use during their time trial events and our Elite Bags for carrying their gear. I am looking forward to meeting the team, staff and other sponsors. I am not so much looking forward to suffering on my bicycle in the cold and the mountains trying to keep up with the guys on any of their training rides. Well, that's not entirely true, it's the suffering that really makes it memorable. I have made an honest effort to get in some kind of shape so I can keep up with them for at least the first few miles. :)

One of the days immediately following my return from the camp I may also be taking a trip down to A&M University's wind tunnel. Source Endurance is holding a time trial clinic Feb. 11-13th and will do some wind tunnel work with John Cobb. I don't know if we'll be able to do any specific tests with our bottles unless any of the individuals who paid for the clinic want some comparisons, but I hope to gain additional knowledge about wind tunnel testing (Marcin is the guru and I just want to try and be a little more like him). I'm sure it doesn't hurt to hang out with people like John Cobb, Dave Wenger and the other guys from Source Endurance either. Maybe I'll also gain some instant endurance or efficiency by being there. I can dream can't I?

Among everything else I've been working on plans to attend the Austin Marathon Expo and promote our products in the RunTex booth Feb. 15th and 16th . This will be our first time showing our products to a running specific crowd, so I'm hoping to learn a lot from the experience. We'll be selling our Elite Bags, RJ Bags, Chip Straps (RunTex custom logo), Race Belts and possibly some Rocket Bottles. Guess you didn't know Rocket Bottles can shave time off of your running did you! Just kidding. No, they don't make you run faster but I've been told by runners that our bottles have a comfortable shape to hang on to and the dimpled surface makes them very grippy. BTW, if any of you are coming down for the event please come by and say howdy.

Cheers!