So, the day after the truck got fixed, I was in and around St. Petersburg. My first stop was just north in Dunedin. Sports fans will know that that is where the Toronto Blue Jays have their spring training. And it just happened to be the last day of spring training. So I caught their game against the Houston Astros. Depsite playing baseball for a few years, it’s never been my most favourite sport. But my dearly departed Grandpa Goodman was a die hard Jays fan, so I went partially for him. It was an exciting game and the Jays actually won 8-3. Gorgeous day.

Afterwards I drove to Orlando. My aunt Judy happened to be there for business, so the next day (Friday), after making a few sales calls on the coast (near Cape Canaveral where NASA is hq’ed), I met her and her friend/co-worker at their funny hotel. It was a castle theme, right down to the “Knight’s breakfast” and funny theme music playing throughout the hotel- even in the room if you wanted. Anyway, we went and had lunch at a Bahamian-themed restaurant and then I took them to an outlet mall. Americans are all about the outlet mall. They are everywhere and have some really reputable stores (Polo, Banana Republic, Nike, etc.). My aunt was able to find some shoes to fit her gargantuan feet (an unfortunate Coates family trait) and I worked on my tan a bit as it was an outdoor mall.

We then went back to her hotel and met up with her boss and some other co-workers. A few of them tried out the hiker in the parking lot. Not the most athletic bunch, and yet they took to the hiker like few I have seen. They instantly got it and had some fun. One was a little drunk and I was worried he was going to take a spill, but he stayed upright. We then went back to the same restaurant we went to for lunch cuz my aunt enjoyed it so much. It was much better at night. Live band, great lighting, lots of people- in short, felt like the islands. There were 7 of us and we ordered a bunch of food and booze, but somehow the bill got screwed up and it only came to $170! The owner of the company was picking up the tab and he was pleased! I didn’t feel so bad that he insisted on paying for me as well. I bid my adieu to them after that.

Next morning I made my way up to Gainesville, where the University of Florida is. Really nice campus. Huge. I liked being back in a University town- reminded me of Hamilton. In a good way Then I went to Jacksonville. Got to spend an hour on the beach at the end of the day. Figured it would be my last glimpse of the beach on this trip. Glad I did it because it clouded over after dinner and has been crappy ever since.

Next morning I went back to Hilton Head, SC to meet with a lady named Carol and her special needs daughter Sally. They had seen me riding around when I was first there, but we couldn’t schedule a demonstration until now. Anyway, Sally got intimidated by the hiker and wouldn’t ride it. Too bad because I think it may have been a good solution for her. Carol rode it and thought it may have been a bit too advanced for Sally at this stage, but I’m hoping in the future we can see Sally on a hiker.

I then made the drive to Atlanta. Beautiful city. Extremely hilly, which I loved. I wish I had had more time to explore it, but I got some great pictures. One road I took even had a single-lane covered bridge, right out of Beetlejuice. Very cool. Met with a few bike shops there, but the hills were a bit of a concern. Don’t think hiker will be a good fit for that city, unfortunately. Drove to Greenville, SC last night.

Saw two recumbent and trike-only shops today. Got a lot of good information about the sub-culture. And it was nice to visit with people who are really into other types of human powered vehicles. Hope for good things with those two shops.

The big highlight of my day was going to the BMW Spartanburg plant. That is where all X5s, Z4s, and the new X6 are made. They have a great museum there as well. Until last year they were doing guided tours of the plant, so I was a bit disappointed. BUT, as I was about to leave, a woman comes up to me and asks if I would like to be a guinea pig while she trains some new guides. I said sure and got a 1.5 hr tour through the plant. It was amazing. I’ve been in my dad’s manufacturing plants before, but never an assembly plant as advanced as this. It is such an art form, from painting to installing the components to final testing. Definitely something to aspire to with hiker some day. Welding robots are something to behold!

I am in Durham, NC tonight. Weather has cleared up a bit. Off to the Washington, DC area tomorrow. Gotta make one more stop. Then home on Thursday. Looking forward to it, but not at the same time. It doesn’t really feel like it’s been 5 weeks since I left. I know I have changed so much, but Newmarket won’t have. Which depresses me a bit because I don’t want to get sucked back into the small-towness and daily routine of it. I want to keep up the enthusiasm I have.

Anyway, I’ll write a wrap-up email when I get back home.

-Andrew-

As I am leaving the Golden Arches, I almost walk into a big, blue Cadillac DTS (the biggest one they make and still one of the biggest cars on the road) in the handicap space. Which got me thinking- if you are still able to navigate a monstrous car like that around, do you really need the handicap space? But maybe s/he shouldn’t actually be driving that big car around. Scary either way

-Andrew-

But I should start from where I left off.

So I made it to Naples from Miami. I was supposed to meet up with a friend of friend in Miami on Friday for lunch, but she had to cancel on me at the last minute. I had never met her before, so it wasn’t a huge disappointment, but it would have been nice to. Anyway, I drove across a toll road nicknamed “Alligator Alley.” It runs through the everglades, which is a big swamp filled with, you guessed it, gators! There is a 10ft fence running along either side of the road to keep the gators off of it, I guess. I got stuck in a HUGE construction traffic jam. I moved a total of 5 km in almost an hour and it was all because 2 lanes were going into 1. In Toronto, that would’ve happened in a fraction of the time. I guess Floridians aren’t used to traffic.

Didn’t spend much time in Naples before heading up to Fort Myers. Spent Easter there. It rained, so I could only see a few bike shops on Saturday morning. Went to an Easter Sunday service at another Episcopalian church. This one was a lot more orthodox, shall I say. Lots of talk of being a sinner and not fit in the eyes of God. Not really my bag. I googled the Episcopal church when I got home and found out that they are somewhere between Catholics and Protestants. I guess that’s why it seemed more formal than I am used to in the Unitarian Church.

I got a message from my dad on Sunday that a friend of ours, funnily enough named Coates (no relation), was in Fort Myers visiting her parents. Christine had ridden an earlier hiker a year or so ago, so I called her up and went to see her. Her parents live in a nice gated golf community (her dad owns a GM dealership in St. Thomas) that is perfect for hiker. Both her and her dad rode the hiker. And both of them almost flipped it! I always forget to mention that that can happen and some people get going too quickly and then try to turn it on a dime. No one was hurt, thankfully, but they learned quickly! Christine was impressed with how far it had come. Good to get feedback from her and her father, who is our target buyer at 60 and fit.

Visited some bike shops in the afternoon then drove to Sarasota. I am definitely not getting to spend much time in any of these cities and as a result not enjoying them as much. I do try to at least drive through the downtown beach areas. The water seems nice and blue, but the Gulf cities don’t feel the same as the Atlantic cities. Maybe I’m just comparing everything to my beloved Palm Beach, but there isn’t as strong a sense of community.

I stayed north of Sarasota in a place called Bradenton. It’s a bit of hole. There is a big tennis academy there and at first I wondered why the owner, Nick Bolletieri, would have decided to open it there. I’m guessing cheap land! Didn’t get to see the academy- hoping to one day, while I’m still young, to spend a week there brushing up on my game. Add it to the to-do list!

And now to the “what a day” part. This morning as I’m pulling away from the hotel, my truck starts to hesitate. It had been doing it before I left, but I chalked it up to being cold or maybe some ice in the fuel line. As soon as I hit the warm weather it went away. It has been “cold” here the last few nights…getting down to about 10 C. Well, that was enough for the Avalanche to start acting up again. The engine light came on, starting flashing. Usually if I give her a good run on the highway for 15 minutes it is fine. Not this time.

I made it as far as Clearwater- maybe half an hour away- and decided to take her to a GM dealer. Thankfully it was a big one and they had time to look at it within the hour. As my dad suspected, it was a bad 02 sensor. You all know my lack of technical knowledge, but basically it senses the mixture of air to gasoline from the exhaust and tells the engine if it needs to make adjustments. I guess the bad sensor was telling the engine either more gas or less gas so that 2 of the 8 cylinders were misfiring. Which also ruined the spark plugs. Anyway, 4.5 hours later and, funnily enough, $450, I was back on the road.

Not a huge deal that I wasted the day, other than my frustration, because I had about a days grace before I meet my aunt Judy in Orlando on Friday. So I’m pretty much back on schedule…with no time to work on my tan! Oh well.

In and around St. Petersburg/Clearwater tomorrow before heading to Orlando in the evening. Some promising bike shops to see- and by that I mean ones that carry some expensive recumbent and trike lines already and would be more inclined to add hiker to the mix.

-Andrew-

Anyway, two short additions, both heard on the radio:

1) After a song finishes playing, the DJ comes on and says, “Some people are so stupid, and a lot of them live in south Florida…”

2) The song “Move Along” by the All American Rejects finishes playing, and the DJ says, “I played that for Larry, who isn’t doing well today. He called and asked me to play that song because it is his favourite song, so much so that he put it as his ringtone, but no one ever calls him, so he never gets to hear it!”  Poor loser Larry.

My parents arrived on Monday. It was great to see them. We went for lunch on a sunny patio before checking into our hotel. It’s seemed like a hundred days (instead of 14) since I’ve been in nice accommodations. We have had a suite with a kitchen and separate bedroom for the rents. It’s been a nice preview to what a 1-bedroom apartment in TO may feel like. In the evening we had some green beer to celebrate St. Patrick.

Tuesday I took them up to Palm Beach. As my Dad said, “It’s like trying to describe the Rocky Mountains to someone- can’t be done.” They were as stunned as I as to the display of wealth in that city. It was a very windy day and my mom spent a mere hour and a half getting sandblasted before we picked her up. Meanwhile, my dad and I had a meeting with the ad girl at the Palm Beach Daily News/Palm Beach Life. The former is the newspaper and the latter is a glossy magazine that comes out in December and February (during the height of the season there). We will probably advertise in the magazine next December, as the season is wrapping up here in the next few weeks (as in people go back to NYC for the summer). Good meeting.

Yesterday we went to Miami and it was an eventful day. South Beach is not as glamourous as I thought it would be. Mind you I wasn’t there at night, but it just wasn’t as great as I had imagined. We dropped my mom off at the beach again and went to visit from bike shops. In the first one, Kate Hudson was there with her son, Ryder, buying a bike helmet. I immediately recognized her, both because I’m just good with faces, and I catered her movie “How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days” a few summers ago. As we left, I alerted my dad to the fact and he said to run back to the truck and grab a brochure. As I came running back, he was opening the door for her and Ryder and struck up a conversation about Muskoka because her family has had a place there for years. I mentioned the movie connection and then she asked what we were doing here. Dad talked about the hiker and gave her a card. She was pleasant and very down to earth. Who knows what will come of it, but my mom sure was jealous!

Then my dad and I went south, to Coral Gables, and visited a bike shop in a mall there. First time I’ve ever seen one in a mall. Got a good reception. The owner just moved to Atlanta to open up a second location, and as he’s the decision maker, I am going to add a stop in Atlanta on the way home. Hope it pans out.

Drove back to South Beach (for those of you who don’t know, it’s an island off of the mainland. Most of the touristy parts of Florida are. You have to cross what’s called the Intracoastal Waterway to Palm Beach, Boca Raton, Fort Lauderdale, Miami Beach, etc…) and picked up my mom. Just as she was getting into the truck, a bunch of cops run towards our area with guns and they cordon off the street. Then the police and news choppers are overhead. We see a cop doing CPR on someone and then are ushered down the street. Turns out a homeless man shot another homeless man. As of last night, the victim was in critical condition. My mom was literally 30 ft away from where it happened and 30 seconds from being right by them.

Had lunch on a sidewalk cafe along Ocean Dr. and watched the commotion. Drove back to Fort Lauderdale, in rush hour, and had a quiet night in.

Today we were in and around Lauderdale. My dad and I shot some video and stills near the yachts on the waterways. They call Fort Lauderdale the “Venice of America” because it has all these canals running throughout the city where the most magnificent homes and yachts are. Got some great photos. As were shooting our last few, a guy walks up to us and starts asking questions about the hiker. Turns out he works for a wealthy Canadian from Montreal who sells jets. His boss likes toys and to go the race track and thought the hiker would be a great way to get around the track. Hope his boss thinks so!

A freak rain shower happened around lunch and then the sun came back somewhat. My mom was by the pool at the hotel when it happened. After lunch we dropped her off at a huge outdoor mall called Sawgrass Mills and then my dad took a golf lesson. What was supposed to be 30 minutes turned into an hour and fifteen! But he learned a lot about his swing and got to hit some balls. Then we went to a bike shop that touts itself as the largest recumbent shop on the east coast. It wasn’t all that spectacular, but they did have a lot of recumbents and trikes. The guy seemed impressed and gave us the name of the guy who runs an online recumbent magazine. Left the bike shop guy some information with plans to talk next week.

It’s my parents 25th anniversary next week, so my sisters and I got them a gift certificate to a swanky restaurant in town. Dropped them off at 8 and am going to meet them for a drink at 10:45. They have an early flight home tomorrow, so hopefully it is JUST one drink

It’s been a great trip with them. Nice to have someone to talk to again. My mom probably didn’t get as much sun as she would have liked, but what can you do? It sure beats rainy Toronto. And my dad has been able to ride his hiker in the warm weather and doing some sales, which he says is his favourite thing in business.

Upon consultation, we have decided to shorten my trip a bit and only concentrate on visiting the bike shops that we have a high chance of succeeding with. We would like to get about 5 dealers lined up in the state of Florida and maybe 1 in each of Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia. As a result, I plan to be home in about two weeks. I am looking forward to not living out of a suitcase and being able to cook real food again. I’m not homesick, but being on the road is a bit trying.

I don’t know whether I’ll be as thrilled about the west side of Florida as I have been with the east, but I’ll find out tomorrow when I drove over to Naples. The Gold Coast has been good to me, and us, and I hope the Gulf of Mexico will be as well.

-Andrew-

P.S. I have created a photo album on facebook and here is the link: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2287564&l=db821&id=48905657

I may or may not have seen Donald Trump driving a white Rolls-Royce Phantom in Palm Beach today. It was a very large man (as in big and tall, not fat) in a golf shirt with blonde hair driving. There was a dark haired woman in the passenger seat, possibly Melania. What leads me to believe it actually may have been him is the car- as nice as they are in Palm Beach, I have only seen 3 Phantoms. And he is rich enough ($500K a pop) and ostentatious enough to drive a bright white Phantom around. Anyway, that’s my story and I’m choosing to believe it was him

Another interesting development- the Robb Report contacted my dad out of the blue to ask us if we wanted to be a part of a special section in the June issue about Luxury Health and Fitness products. It will be a paid advertorial, but all the same it was pretty cool to me that they think the hiker is interesting enough to be included on their pages. For all of you who do not know what the Robb Report is, its a magazine devoted to luxury products, services, and stories. What makes it all the more meaningful to me is that I can still remember discovering the magazine in high school, shelling out the $10 for the Best of the Best issue, and pouring over the pages for months afterwards. Now hiker may be one of those pages- a WOW moment for me.

My parents arrive on Monday for the week. Will be nice to see them. Just chillaxin’ in the sun this weekend. Got burnt on the beach today, but that was to be expected. May seek out some more shade tomorrow. What’s more startling to me is that I’ve taken to Palm Beach, much like Hilton Head. I feel comfortable, and dare I say it, at home here. I know the streets and have my little routine of shops I visit (grocery stores and sandwich places, not Chanel and Prada people). Once again, I’m surprised at how easily I COULD assimilate into an American society. I’ll be sad to go back south to Fort Lauderdale on Monday- a much more touristy place without all the nice Aston Martins to oggle over (mind you, I am becoming de-sensitized to all the luxury cars- I’m more surprised to see a minivan than a Bentley).

-Andrew-

1) I walked down Worth Ave. yesterday to look at some of the shops. Diamonds the size of my thumb, thousand dollar vases, and all the usual designer houses. As I walk into a courtyard, a pudgy middle-aged man dressed entirely in pink (hat, lacoste polo, shorts) and an older woman walk out and he has a voice like Ross the Intern from Jay Leno. It dawned on me- the women need someone to shop with as their husbands are either closing the next deal, don’t want to, or are dead! And who better than a gay man who sounds like, dresses like, and I can only assume has the taste of, a woman?

Afterwards, I decided to have a “Palm Beach” lunch. I sat outside at an italian restaurant one street over from Worth Ave. and very much in the heart of society there. I had a cool salad of lump crab meat, julienned lettuce, roasted corn, and avacado. And a glass of Pinot Grigio that cost almost as much as my salad, but when in Rome… Anyway, I had a great spot to people watch as I enjoyed my lunch.

About halfway through, I see, once again, a middle aged, femme-looking guy helping an old woman with a cane walk. They come into the restaurant and are seated right in front of me. In a great place for me to eavesdrop (or creep, for all you facebookers). The woman has ENORMOUS diamonds on her ring finger. A solitaire that was probably worth my undergrad tuition and incidentals, PLUS a year at law school, surrounded by even more sparkling eternity band(s). Her hair was coloured (which always confuses me as to how old the woman actually is) and she was dressed for a nice afternoon out. They immediately “cheers” with their Pellegrino (he didn’t want any wine, but I could tell from the tone of her voice that she would have preferred a liquid lunch) and she makes some comment as to how nice it is to be having lunch together. I couldn’t quite figure out the “why’ they were having lunch. He was at least half her age. At first I thought “gigolo”, but after awhile I could only assume he was gay. They talked about art a great deal; mostly statue, at which she told a story about how friends of hers have two expensive ones installed somewhere in their new house (don’t know where…I wasn’t eavesdropping THAT much!), and he seemed impressed. I then started to wonder if he was a professional Palm Beach old-lady schmoozer. Go to the salon together, get taken to lunch, maybe some free swag while shopping, and then move onto the next one when you’ve worn out your welcome. I’ve heard of a lot worse. Anyway, it was interesting to watch and make up scenarios.

2) On the other end of the spectrum, I’ve been having a hard time finding a decent supermarket to shop at. My hotel is in sort of a business park area with not a lot of retail. And I haven’t seen a supermarket on Palm Beach island. So I find a Foodland a little ways from my hotel. I didn’t have high hopes, but when I walked in, I could have been in Bridgetown! The reggae music was blaring, and I mean blaring, over the loudspeakers and when I walked by the fish counter, two caribbean women were fighting over who got served first. It was so odd. I’ve seen a lot of latinos, but not caribbeans. But in a country of 250,000,000, I’m bound to find everything I guess!

-Andrew-

What a difference a day makes. Haha, or even from morning to afternoon it seems for me. My mood has been up and down a lot lately. Sometimes I feel great, like I have a handle on this business thing, and then a wave of sulleness will take over and I feel like I’m in way over my head.

2 days ago I had a great meeting with a bike shop just south of Palm Beach in a place called Lake Worth. The guy, a Cuban named Roberto, was so excited about the hiker from the get-go. He just kept looking at it from different angles and seeing the different ways he could market it to his customers. A trailer, a rickshaw attachment (he has a license to transport people, funnily enough), different colours, even put animal heads on it. Some of his ideas were a little out there, but I was so happy to get a whole-heartedly positive reception. He wants us to send him some literature and hype it over over the next month or two and then bring one in for his customers. I was happy to oblige.

Our strategy has always been two-pronged: sign up bike shops to be dealers as well as ride around and talk to people on the street. The second part of it has proved to be more difficult. I am not lying when I say 90% of people who drive by me swivel their head as they go by. Because of that, I have ordered a sign to put in place of my bike flag that gives our website (a new one: tryhiker.com that is linked to our actual site) so that drivers can remember it/write it down and visit the sight later if they are really interested.But it’s the people on that street that I am having a hard time connecting with. Fellow cyclists either smile or nod and people walking tend to do the same, but there are no forthcoming questions. Part of the problem I think is that I am in a very wealthy area (Palm Beach is one of the wealthiest communities in the world) and people tend to walk around dressed to the 9′s so they aren’t in the sports/rec frame of mind and/or wouldn’t dream of sullying their gucci to try a new trike. I need to figure out a way to get at them in a more conducive context. But short of planning an event at a country club, it is difficult for me to do that right now. So my mission is to get an article written. That way when these Palm Beach-ites are leafing through their community paper, hoping to see their picture included on the society page, they can take the time to really process the hiker and its attributes. So we hope, anway.

I rode about 35-40 kilometres today. A bit sore tonight, but my back has adjusted to the seat. Like I mentioned earlier, the streets of Palm Beach are paved with gold. I must have seen a dozen Bentley’s today, a couple Rolls-Royces, and the plebian Mercedes and Lexi. I have never been in a place with such a high concentration of wealth. And real wealth. Muskoka in the summer is pretty ritzy, but not like this. I mean come on, the main street is called Worth Ave! The homes, or rather palaces, are enormous and very ornate. If I can just find a way to get people to notice the hiker, this place will be a gold mine for us.

The weather hasn’t been that great. Pretty cloudy today. Rained yesterday. The sun is supposed to show itself in the next few days. As a result, I haven’t nearly the burn I was hoping for I have been a good boy in wearing SPF 30, but I want some GD sun damage!

I took a bunch of pictures today but forgot the camera in the truck. I’ll hopefully post some tomorrow.Until then….

-Andrew-

“You go there, man, and you’ll sell fitty fo sho.”

While I would have loved to sell “fitty,” I didn’t have time to go the campus. But one day I know I’ll sell that many…and maybe even fitty-wun!

-Andrew-