Spreading the Word

• I set up the new trainer in the cold corner of the apartment, right next to the balcony door -- the one with the bone-chilling drafts and midnight rattling. The bicycle sure does look great there: all earth tones, complementing the wood floor and taupe walls. The Brooks saddle almost matches the drapes, in fact. But instead of actually riding, I spent the afternoon thinking about all forms of propaganda.

  Posters for the shop. Posters for the UCVC. Posters for the HPTT. Knowing nothing about marketing, and sporting a reasonably anachronistic, luddite sensibility -- I'm convinced that after word-of-mouth, the next logical step for alerting the community to the presence and importance of these various institutions, events, and organizations (barring a town crier) is the printing of beautiful leaflets.

  In the case of the Velo Club... it's as much as fostering and nurturing a spike in interest as well as establishing a culture of perpetual recruitment. For some odd reason, the organization is a well kept secret, hiding right out in the open, for at least once a week someone will roll into the shop enquiring about (a) group rides (b) the local racing scene or (c) how to *start* a campus bicycle club. So sure... jerseys for the masses will help. And t-shirts. And regular group rides. And team meetings. And evangelical, highly aggressive recruiting tactics. And a prettier, consistently updated website. But for my money, pretty posters are worth a thousand words. But then again, this is coming from someone who runs another Hyde Park well kept secret.