On The Pedals
By Jason Giacchino

The Annual Swing

It’s kind of funny how patterns develop around here as our planet makes its annual swing around the sun. By the time you read this article the cool nights of September will have become a reality, the days will have become noticeably shorter, and for many, the return to school will be just around the corner. Interestingly enough, I’m writing this column on a very hot and steamy afternoon in early August. Even though I’m knee deep in products awaiting testing while hammering away on my laptop, I’d like to take a moment to reflect upon how the calendar plays its part in determining the collective mind-set of this publication. It doesn’t require a call to the psychic-hotline to predict the flow of events around the MBT offices in these next few weeks.

August is typically our busiest time of year. All of the products that we enthusiastically requested in early spring have accumulated throughout the summer months while our editors were off frolicking on the trails. Now, almost as if driven by the looming hint of fall on the horizon, we scramble to wrap up the dozens of reports that were started and picked away at while summer was in full swing. Our September and October issues are usually rife with product (and bike) reviews as a direct result of mid-summer procrastination. One would suspect that November would equal another slowing down of the proverbial tempo but alas this is when the manufacturers kick it up a notch with the next model year releases. No sooner does the ink dry on the last of the 2007 tests do the 2008 model lines begin to churn. Assembling the December issue (Holiday Buyer’s Guide) is almost as stressful as doing our Christmas shopping (which awaits us when we’re done) then it’s off to the late winter/ early spring issues where being cooped up has us frothing at the mouth in anticipation for the warm weather to arrive.

It all adds up to a rhythm of its own; a pulse if you will. Our first few years in existence found each of us struggling to make sense of the flow and there were mistakes made in the process. On more than one occasion we requested test bikes just as the trails were becoming buried under three feet of white powder. We began bike builds when the temperature in the work shop hovered around 9 degrees. Just last season we were past due in returning a test bike and couldn’t even get the shop doors open to disassemble it on account of the snowfall that had accumulated the night before. On the flip side we actually turned down two models in early November as our season appeared to be over and done (we had a Blizzard in October) only to end the month of November in the high 50's. Many such lessons cannot be explained but rather have to be experienced first hand for lasting impact.

Methodically, we’re learning to iron out the rough spots of timing the bicycle calendar year with the seasonal madness we endure. Many of our contributors are full time college students as well which, obviously, adds more steam to the pressure cooker. We human beings are amazing creatures if, even for nothing else, only for our ability to juggle a finite resource like time as we do. I’ve talked about this before in previous installments and I’ll reiterate it again here: Thank goodness for laptops and PDAs! Moments once wasted sitting in traffic or waiting for lunch to arrive are now golden opportunities to jot down article ideas.

But I digress. With a few more weeks of August on the immediate horizon, we have loads of products to sample and assignments to hand out. The fruits of out labor will likely go unappreciated by it’s authors until deep into the Northeastern winter when after months of sitting in hibernation, we finally have a moment to go back and read what we wrote. In the mean time we’ll be making the most of this warm weather while we have it. Until next month, lunch is here.

Questions? Comments? Love letters? Send 'em to Editor@mountainbiketales.com.