Trek Travel Wrap

Trek Travel Day Four

Another one in the books VBA. This one seriously rocked. Could it be that RCV man has a slight case of low grade triathlon burnout? Or is it simply a case of new territory, new terrain and new SWAT ops? Regardless of the diagnosis, the past four days, embedded with the Trek Travel group on their inaugural tour of the Santa Barbara wine country, was by all measures, another successful RCV sortie. So while I sit at LAX awaiting SWA flight 88 home, let's take a quick look in the rear view mirror to see what where we've been and what we've done, shall we?

The mission was twofold; One, capture the tour, and all its rides, rests, reveries, restaurants, rocks, rolls and road rashes in order to create a tour promo-piece for Trek Travel. This, of course, to aid and abet in the pending partnership. Two, capture and create a sample SBWCRCV (Santa Barbara Wine Country Real Course Video as if you didn't already get it) for the Madison/Chicago Trek Multi-Rider Centers and to demo at their big (as to rival Interbike, but only for Trek and their thousands of domestic dealers) show in Madison this August. Whew, that's all!

So how'd we do, you ask? Fine, I think. It is always hard to tell what the video will end up looking like after compression and encoding, but I think I got most of the highlights and strong interviews with all the participants. It is doubly difficult to access RCV footage as the Shake/SmoothCam process can do drastic damage to resolution in the pixel color space, so I have learned over the years to hold the superlatives until I have had a chance to look at rendered footage in the studio. That being said, I think it will be furdy puckin good, producing an effective RCV sample for the world to see and enjoy, not to mention ride and train with.

I even got in a ride today!!!! Checked out of the swanky Santa Ynez Inn at 0500 and drove to Ojai. Stuffed the backpack with gear and headed out to meet the group at Rincon. Once we were ceremoniously re-united, I attached the Gorilla-pod to my helmet and affixed the new Sony HD cam atop, after quickly realizing that the handlebar mount that I had envisioned (for monitoring purposes mainly) was creating WAY too much shake. And we then proceeded to ride back to Ojai after an initial 7 miles or so along Hwy 1. Along the beach and on the Ventura River Bike Trail for 25 miles, back to Ojai. I haven't looked at that footage either, and since my flight gets in at 9:45, meaning a midnight ferry, and I have an 0700 spin class in the House of Pain tomorrow morning, I might not get a peek till Thursday night.

So stay tuned VBA, I'll post some of today's iPhone pix tomorrow, and video samples as they roll off the G5. Gonna take a week or so to Kung Fu the promo, and remember we have a FloScan piece to slide in there as well as the Madison GPS tweek and the mastering of The Triathlon Coach DVD.

And please remember RCV fans, no matter the fever or ills that beset the RCVman in his valiant and never ending quest to bring you the finest cycling entertainment available......YOU GOT THE CURE!

Pix: The all new and improved RCVman HD Helmet cam ready to roll.
My beautiful Trek Madrone awaits the "Yah" command on PCH.
Ventura Beach at sunrise.
Another road stretch in Santa Barbara County. Very cool ridin'.