Yes, you did, didn't you, we seen you, of course you were there. So that’s it, question answered. But I’ll tell you my problem, as the winter season here rolls inexorably to its conclusion, and I start working on some new ideas to take this cycling holiday company into the 2012/13 season, (how quick it rolls doesn’t it) I foresee a problem with the perception of the term “cycling holiday”
When you live on a small island, you really only have one
source of information, well two, but the stimulus is provided by one and the
execution by the other. Two entirely different things, the same in the
intellectual sense but applied and delivered differently. The first of course
is you, the client, without which, I would not be here, the second is the
internet. You can see where this is going.
Let’s take you for
example, you make contact with me through the internet, you search for “cycling
holiday Gran Canaria” or a combination of those words or other words and Mr
Google looks for what’s close to hand, because Mr Google is cleverly lazy. So invariably
I do his job for him by positioning “cycling holiday Gran Canaria” or
variations of same close to his groping hand, so he shoves that down the
celestial chute to you as www.cyclegrancanaria.com, and you ‘re a step closer
to organizing your cycling holiday.
On the front page of that site, I bellow at you in red ink
to contact me by email, which you do, or some of you like to ring me on a
Sunday morning…I with my handy Blackberry can be responding to you in person
within minutes of you typing “cycling holiday Gran Canaria” in your search
engine. So far so good you might think.
And you’d be right, because a very very high percentage of
you that I talk to at that first meeting, I eventually see clunking through the
airport, all dehydrated and suspicious, until you see me, with my welcome
bottle of water for you. Yes all you non Cycle Gran Canaria clients, I actually
meet you at the airport with a cold bottle of water path, next year eh?
I have too, managed to a much higher degree this season to
actually get out riding with you, and I’ve seen the results of the new cycling
craze up close, painfully close. And here’s the thing, we could do a lot better
for you.
My typical client you see, is usually a decent rider, over
40, affluent, with wife/girlfriend or husband/boyfriend in tow, also riding,
you’re not terribly quick, none of you, but you’re mentally strong and steady
and you like your breaks. You like your breaks, presumably because that racing
career didn’t happen, not that you’re bothered, it’s hot and steep and you’re
clocking up meters on that expensive Garmin, and you’ve never been this high
before, and you don’t want to come down either, except for a break that is.
I don’t get too many Germans, all other models yes, but not
many Germans, so the idea of racing round at full chat and grimacing till the
next day is not for you.
So courtesy of my bike partners Free Motion, you’re bedeck a
fine bike, where there’s nothing squeaking or nothing to squeak about, the sun
is (invariably) shining, and the wind
only gets you out towards Ingenio or coming back from Soria. You head out into
the hills, hit the first climb either straight away or sometime later and your
5 tours are either pre-ordained or if you’re with me personally and you’re feeling
strong or you’re not, then we stretch the elastic out to the far north or bring
you in early to check the seals.
We’re lucky to have a fine hotel in Cordial Green Golf, that
for the most part is bike friendly, except for those crusty old faux rich by
the pool, who wish they were in the Seychelles, but can’t afford it and hence resent
all these satisfied sleek cyclists rolling by smugly in the afternoon heat.
At the culmination of a long hard week of great climbs and
blistering descents, we begin a series of long goodbyes, and people I’ve sworn
were cycling buddies just up and leave me, but the next day I start all over
again with a new bunch of dehydrated suspicious folk.
So there we are, is that it, is that what you want, are we
cycling holiday organizers or just facilitators to elements already there?!
