The end, or the beginning
13. May ’11
General
I’m in Sicily for the Cervélo distributor meeting. The presentations are nearing the end, and I know something nobody else in the room knows – these are my last tech presentations for Cervélo. Yesterday Phil explained to our Toronto staff that I will be leaving, today we will tell the staff here and then Phil will travel to Switzerland to tell our staff there. It feels weird not to tell the distributors in the room, but we want all our staff to hear it from us first, not read about it on the internet.
Telling the staff here is an interesting experience. There are quite a few shocked faces in the room! The rest of the weekend feels a little weird, hard to describe, but I am definitely glad when everybody is gone. Well, not everybody, Francesco and Sylvie are still there and we hang out in the spa. It’s good to take a day to relax after 15 years, and the next day Francesco and I even go for a ride. That’s what I look forward to most, traveling less and riding more.
What very few people know is that Phil and I have talked about starting a mountain bike company. I intend to take a few months off first and then start that in earnest. But now that I have reached this point, I have doubts. No doubts about needing some time off, that’s clear. But doubts about whether now is the best time to do it. Every day I now relax is a day the launch of a new mountain bike will be delayed by. So I decide it is better to finish the design first and get to the point where they can cut the molds. While they are cutting molds, I can’t do anything anyway so that’s a much better time to take off.
And so I go home and start working, I’ve enjoyed the luxury of being without a job for exactly 24 hours
Telling the staff here is an interesting experience. There are quite a few shocked faces in the room! The rest of the weekend feels a little weird, hard to describe, but I am definitely glad when everybody is gone. Well, not everybody, Francesco and Sylvie are still there and we hang out in the spa. It’s good to take a day to relax after 15 years, and the next day Francesco and I even go for a ride. That’s what I look forward to most, traveling less and riding more.
What very few people know is that Phil and I have talked about starting a mountain bike company. I intend to take a few months off first and then start that in earnest. But now that I have reached this point, I have doubts. No doubts about needing some time off, that’s clear. But doubts about whether now is the best time to do it. Every day I now relax is a day the launch of a new mountain bike will be delayed by. So I decide it is better to finish the design first and get to the point where they can cut the molds. While they are cutting molds, I can’t do anything anyway so that’s a much better time to take off.
And so I go home and start working, I’ve enjoyed the luxury of being without a job for exactly 24 hours