A guest post by Casey Fittz:
I've
been working at Velo Orange for the past two years as the Product
Design Engineer. In that time Chris has allowed me to bottle up some of
my bike industry related rants in the form of blog posts and publish
them. I've recently decided that it is time for my stay at VO to draw to
a close and Chris is allowing me to opine on the blog one last time
before I go. In case you're interested in my other manifestos, here is
why I think that people need to relax about name brand steel tubing sets, the next 'perfect wheel size', and CNC'd parts. In general, I think that some people need to relax, and I only say this because over time I've realized that I need to relax.
Before
I go any further I need to make it perfectly clear that I love
bicycles, I love cycling in any form, and I love the cycling community.
I've been working with bikes for a little while now. I started out as a
shop rat in high school, and worked in shops on through my undergraduate
studies. I then moved on to working with Velo Orange, and quite
suddenly found myself wholly consumed by the bike industry. The jump
from cycling as a hobby to a career was a hard one. It's one thing to
manage a hobby, mostly you just do it when you have time, but when your
job is your hobby things get confusing. Worst of all I quickly found
myself riding very little. After a full day of thinking about bikes and
looking at bikes going on a ride wasn't my gut instinct anymore. This is
certainly an old and tired story, I know plenty of people in the
cycling industry who rarely ride anymore. Likewise, I know people in the
music industry who rarely go to shows anymore. Not everyone has this
problem, I've met people in the industry who can manage things just fine
and they love their jobs and biking. I respect those people a lot.
I've
spent a lot of the past two years trying to figure out what happened,
why I got so burnt out on the bike industry, and how to get back to just
enjoying bikes. These are some of the things that I have found. First
of all, talking about bikes is not the same as riding bikes. Just
because you love riding bikes doesn't necessarily mean that you love
talking about them, and vise-versa. Furthermore, talking about bikes
does not satisfy the same needs that riding them does. It can be easy to
confuse or equate the two. Just go ride your bike.
Secondly,
bikes are fun. Bikes, in general, are fun, regardless of how or where
you ride them. There are some people running around saying 'fun biking
looks like _____' or worse yet, 'you cannot enjoy cycling unless you
know _____ much about it'. They're wrong, if you enjoy bikes then you
enjoy bikes, it doesn't matter how much you know about them or what you
like about them. It's easy for me to forget that. In the industry you
have this constant need to cater to your "market base". Which is always
this hyper-specific idealization of some small fractal of the industry.
It still amazes me the number of emails that we get where we are
criticized for the smallest deviance in product style. Some of our
customers feel betrayed because we decided to do something slightly
different than usual. Despite what some people may think, we at VO world
headquarters are not a bunch of erudite French cycling pedants. We like
the French cycling aesthetic, and we design parts that we like. The
French cycling aesthetic is just one facet of our interests. We are
trying to make products that we would like to see available, and
products that we think you would like to see. If we come out with
something that doesn't necessarily fit your style, that's fine, maybe we
didn't design this part for you. Sometimes we didn't design it with any
one user base in mind, we just like to change it up every now and then.
In general we're trying to have fun, and we want to make products that
our customers find fun.
Hobbies
or interests or jobs can quickly change their face if you push them too
far, or expect them to singularly fulfill you on every level. Old
French cycling aesthetic is great, I also love cyclo-touring, mountain
biking, commuting, backpacking, and rock climbing. Likewise, Chris has
spent a lot of his life climbing and mountaineering as well as sailing
and building boats. I agree with what Yvon Chouinard has to say about
this: “I've always thought of myself as an 80 percenter. I like to throw
myself passionately into a sport or activity until I reach about an 80
percent proficiency level. To go beyond that requires an obsession that
doesn't appeal to me. Once I reach 80 percent level I like to go off and
do something totally different...” I think that after the 80% mark
things can get weird, and a little bit lonely. After Chris's recent blog post about running and riding
we have been talking a lot about the importance of doing physical
activities other than cycling in order to maintain well rounded physical
health. I'd go as far as to say that this idea also applies to more
than physical health.
The
cycling world is full of so much marketing nonsense, and plenty of
people shouting that their nonsense is right and everyone else's is
wrong. Don't let me or anyone else tell you what is fun for you, there's
no reason to view any of our standpoints on cycling as the gospel. We
don't even intend it that way. We're just trying to share what we
personally like. At the end of the day, the one thing we all agree on is
that it's fun to ride bikes, so lets do that the most.
There
is another guest blog post coming written by Michael Ross which I found
to be a very enjoyable read. In it he touches on the intrinsic human
need to move through space(communicate through space, if you will), and
how bikes satisfy this. I couldn't agree more about this. Bikes also act
as an important social platform for communication between other humans,
and I don't mean to detract from that. However, I think that as a
vehicle for social interaction cycling is no different than any other hobby. In that sense it is no different than football, fancy cars, or amateur radio.
These hobbies are important, and their respective niches are also
important as vehicles for us to relate socially. Regardless, I am
convinced that when it comes to enjoyment, cycling excels in the riding.
There are not many things more freeing and life affirming as riding on a
bike. Seriously, just go move your body around in space, for no reason
at all, other than to remind yourself that you exist. That's where the
joy in cycling is.
At
the risk of sounding too much like a company shill, I have to say that
I've had a really good time here at VO. Chris has assembled a great team
of people who really care about what they do. Chris in particular is
never afraid to try new things, and I think that will always be one of
the best aspects of VO. Our customers have also been great, most of them
even let me get away with some crazy ideas.
I've had a pretty big project under wraps for a while now. I was hoping
to have the prototype here to show you before I left, but it looks like
its not going to be in for another month. I'm very excited about it,
and I'm sure some of you will really enjoy it. I'm also sure some of our
customers are going to be a little offended, but that's fun too.
TL;DR - Ride your bikes!
Casey Fittz
9 comments:
WOW!! that is exactly what happened to me. I also was involved in cycling from highschool. Same story. Worked as a design engineer (at Batavus bicycles in the Netherlands) and burned out in 1 year. Took me a while to get back in. Started a framebuilding business thinking that was the sollution. It wasn't. Burned out again. Now am very happy and riding a bicycle often and having a lot of fun while working in the petrochemical industry.
Thank you for your words!!
Caspar Drenth (the Netherlands)
Good stuff. Reminds me of a couple other brands: have fun, ride what you like & don't take yourself or others so seriously.
Enjoy the journey.
brilliant post. lots to think about. thank you and good luck.
Making your passion a job is always fraught with danger and more often than not a mistake. Unfortunately, the internet often magnifies tiny differences between ideas and people, rather than bringing them together. Balance in all things. Thanks for your thoughts.
Anon 12:16 makes some excellent points. I'm wondering whether all businesses have elements like this to some extent but that bicycling attracts a greater portion of passionate idealists due to the machine's elegance and the element of youth in promoting physical activity. Regardless, you seem to have a healthy take on it all and have made a mark by mixing things up. Chris seems like a great boss.
I'm still riding the same bike frame I bought new in 1991. And it wasn't the greatest then even. But it's fun, and it does what I want it to, and it has undergone at least a half-dozen metamorphoses, none of which entirely matches any particular market niche. Whenever I need a recharge, I strip the bike down to its bare essentials and buy a different kind of tire, and it is reborn. Kind of like what you're doing.
Bon voyage, and keep breaking the rules!
Thanks, Casey. There are indeed things worth pouring oneself 100% behind, like seeking truth and learning to love, but those pursuits are on a higher plane than hobbies like biking. What is truly great is how hobbies can undergird those higher pursuits! I've certainly learned a lot about love and fraternity biking with my dad and other men.
Lots of widsom in this posting. Sorry to see you go. Good luck in your future endeavors Casey.
Wow, I just got into cycling and Casey's post have been a real enjoyment. Same thing happened to be in the golf biz. Play turned into work, that lead to not playing! I wish you the greatest of success. If you know where i can get that bar you designed...PLEASE let me know. Ride on, and thank you.
More Casey's Crazy Bars should arrive in a week or so.
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