Bikes and Barbells

Peter from FringeSport here again. I am outside of Native Hostel in Austin, Texas. And the sale this week is on conditioning products- weight vests, sleds and sandbag trainers.

I've already waxed poetic about my love for sandbag trainers- and I'll talk about weight vests, and sleds, some other time.

I wanted to start off with a quick ask. We're in Austin, Texas, but we're very much a Texas-based company, although we've got customers all over the U.S and all over the world.

We here at Fringe have a lot of friends and family that have been very affected by Harvey. But, we're struggling a little bit to identify how ourselves, as Fringe, and our community, (you!), can help people who have been affected by Harvey.

If you've got ideas for how Fringe and our customers can help Harvey victims, please reply.

We put together some ways to help with Hurricane Harvey disaster relief and will add any ideas that you send to help people who are affected by Harvey.

Moving on.

I had a really interesting conversation just a few hours ago with David Foster of Klokov Equipment. They've recently come out with a interesting barbell and plates. And of course being in the space, I always stay very up-to-date on:

• What we're doing
• What our competition is doing
• What our customers and what our potential customers are doing out there.

One really interesting thing that I discussed with him is building amazing barbells, which we have a shared passion for. And how an awesome barbell is a prestige piece for a garage gymmer.

He talked about how somebody might have a $5-10K bicycle, and does that mean they are a world-class bike racer? Most of those $10K bikes are not going to world-class bike racers.

It got me to thinking and I was joking with him. Because, I'm kind of an interesting guy in a few ways.

One of them is, I don't have a ton of those prestige pieces in my life. David had specifically mentioned bikes and $10K bikes. And it just so happens that I rode my bike here to Native Hostel- which is a little bit about an hour away from my home. and I rode on this bike here that is at least 30 years old.

I actually stole it from my father.

Don't worry, he wasn't using it at the time.

He had bought it at a pawn shop at some point in the early 90s. When I went to college, I had a different bike. That bike got stolen and I went and raided the garage and knew that Pops hadn't been riding this bike in a couple of years and so I could probably take it.

I don't think I even asked him about it. I just think I knew that he hadn't ridden on the bike in a while and that he probably wouldn't notice if it disappeared.

So, Dad, if you're seeing this, sorry for stealing that bike from you.

But, it made me think when we're talking about prestige pieces, what is needed and what's not needed. Clearly, I'm pretty happy with this 30 year old bike.

When I think of prestige, I think about maybe the person driving the BMW. Let's say particularly the recent graduate driving the BMW car. Do they need that car?

Maybe, maybe not.

If they're a marketer, maybe they don't. If they're a real estate agent, maybe they do.

Back to barbells.

Can you make world-class lifts on a crappy bar? The answer is yeah. You absolutely can.

Why should you go with a better barbell?

By getting that better barbell, what you're doing is you're increasing the joy of lifting.

I know there's pain in lifting, and there's performance, and there's gains in lifting. But, I think there's also joy. I'm very happy when I'm challenging myself underneath a barbell.

One of the huge differences between a quality bar and a crappy bar, is safety of course.

But beyond that- it's joyful to lift on a really good barbell.

Again, the sale for this week at Fringe is gonna be on conditioning products. Sandbags, sleds, and weight vests, which I've been doing some weight vests training recently. It's really a good compliment to conditioning and to a few other aspects of training.

Finally I will reiterate my plea from further up the e-mail. If you've got some ideas about how our community can come together to help those that are suffering from Harvey, please reply. I love to hear from everybody and I try really hard to reply to every single person who e-mails me.

This has been Peter from Fringe Sport outside of Native Hostel in Austin, Texas.

Lift something heavy and kiss someone you love today.