216: the death of a disco dancer

or at least a Spot Brand whore...

Last week, the long slow divorce of my former sponsor was kinda finalized. My hope in writing this is really to be cathartic and get all this off my chest. I have no ill will toward the folks at Spot, and at the end of the day can only look back on my time with a smile. My hope is to not come off ungrateful, or bitter, because I’m not, but I feel like I need to get this out. Maybe the blog wasn’t the best place for this.

Who knows?

Sponsorship to me has always been representing sponsors whose goals and idea of cycling are similar to my own. I want to be associated with folks “who play the game right”, in short who get it.

Over the years I have been fortunate to be on some great teams, and in some great situations. My philosophy of sponsorship is to work with them and building relationship versus just hitting them up for free stuff or homie hook up prices, because I'm a snazzy dresser. I always get kinda fed up with attitude that I see some racers, both road and mountain bike, display : “I deserve this” “do you know who I am?” Frankly, we are all beer league softball players, and anything we get is just damn lucky.

I have always taken it as a great responsibility if a bike shop or company thought enough of me to support my riding and racing. I mean, I am just some dude. And before I had a blog, and a pink helmet, I was just some dude know one ever heard of.

Going back to 1991, when I got on my first team, Wooden Wheels, I remember how special I felt. I was privileged and honored to represent that shop. I rode for Wooden Wheels for a good 10 years. To this day we are the only team to win both the MAC CUP (1999, 2000), and the MASS Team Championship (2002).

When I got on Spot Brand, I was so stoked. I had submitted resumes to a few companies looking to take my racing in a different direction. Believe it or not, the some dude who never won an expert race got three pretty fine offers. Talking to the owners of Spot, Jessica and Michael, I felt pretty quickly that this was going to be the team for me. Thus the Spot Brand Whore was born.

I was proud to represent them; I respected their approach to business, what they believed in. Over the next 3 and half years, I built a strong relationship with them. Although we were on opposite coasts, I felt like we got what each of us was looking for...

They were pleased with the attention spot brand was getting from my racing, blog and other activities out east ( an area that wasn’t known as a Spot hot bed.) They’d send me prototypes, and I’d get to test them, and give feedback, I’d show up at a festival and catch up with those guys. When I was racing cross in Portland, they came down to see me race and hang out.

For me it didn't get any better.

Frankly, it was the sponsorship dream of a life time, punk rock couple, building single speed bikes, with a grassroots love of the game. It was never about results, it was about having a good time, about being there, about riding a lot. After two years of a very successful relationship, I made a proposal to expand the team. Michael and Jessica loved the idea and thus the whores were in full force.

True to my philosophy of team building, I picked up a number of riders who I knew and trusted, who "got it" and who I knew would bring good chemistry to the team, and perhaps most importantly who knew how to get along with my silliness. I was stoked to have Paul, Matt, Buddy, Bob, Andrew and Fitzy as my teammates.

About a year later, I got the call.

Jessica called me to let me know that Michael and she were splitting up, and they had decided to sell Spot Brand. I was sad for them, in my mind Michael and Jessica were about the coolest couple in the world, almost mythological to me. Jessica let me know that a good guy had bought the company and he would be contacting us shortly…

I loved Spot, and the opportunity they had provided me, if Jessica said it was good, I would soldier on. I sent a couple of emails to the new owner and weeks went by before I heard anything.

I’ll admit on one hand the wind was pretty much taken out of my sails. On the other hand in the face of two folks I held is super high regard getting a divorce, my little worries didn’t seem like too much. I am after all just some dude on a grassroots team.

I decided that it was my job to try and build a rapport with the new owner. Emails were sent, race reports sent, and weeks would go by with no word. We had a few conversations about what the team was, and what each party’s responsibility was. It was cordial, very professional, but at the end, no relationship.

The new owner expressed to me how he wanted to keep the team, how he realized what a benefit to the company we were, and that when the company was in a better place, he’d get us the jerseys we had agreed upon. When I got on the Fort Cross team he expressed that he didn’t want to lose the team to Fort. I thought that was very nice of him…

At the begining of the 2007 season the new owner sent us a round of t-shirts, which we were all stoked to have. We continued to represent and do what we do: Ride hard, Race our guts out and have fun. We continued to email race reports, and pictures, only now, unlike in the past when we’d get a reply, and acknowlegement, a joke from Michael and Jessica, we'd get only silence.

That was disheartening.

As the year progressed, anytime we needed something, Spot held up their end of the deal, and gave us homie hook up prices. This was appreciated. But there was no relationship.

Then we had two friends who had pretty awful customer service experiences with Spot. I could understand both sides of one issue, even if I wasn’t 100% okay with Spot’s stance, the other issue Spot clearly did not live up to their commitment. On the message boards, the company was taking hits for their service and not standing behind the brand name. Business decisions, I get that. But also I’ll admit I was a little disillusioned.

The past few seasons cross has become more important to me, and frankly is the basket that I now lay all my eggs. With that I did not push Spot for any additional commitment for 2008. My guess is that if one of the whores or I called up Spot, they’d still give us the homie hook up, as they did for Peaches last fall.

Last week Spot Brand re-launched their website, and all reference to the Mighty Spot Brand team, was removed. Much like a marriage without communication, our relationship had withered and as I see it now- ended. On one hand I am very sad by this, my time with Spot was very important to me. I feel guilty because many of my friends followed me from strong local programs to live the Spot dream with me, and now they are kinda high and dry. I feel bad, because for a while we really had something going.

The Spot Brand Whores are no more.

As I said at the outset of this entry, this is really far more cathartic than anything else, and I harbor no ill will to the new owners. I am sad, that what we did for Spot was undervalued by the new owners and that in the end the relationship that we worked so hard to build was allowed to wither and die.

Sponsorship is not an entitlement, or free ride. I never saw it as such. Frankly, I always saw it as a responsibility, and privilege. I think we approached it professionally, and in the end this was a business. Spot Brand was a pretty amazing thing for a number of years for me. It was a great relationship with Michael and Jessica, a couple of folks I loved to represent. I’ll always look back on those times with a smile.

Respect
faticus