Time to chill

Thanks to Sonja's dad, Eric, for the sweet pics from Portland.
I decided after Portland to call it a season and look ahead to next year. I could go to Treasure Island for another race but I want to hunker down and get my swim up to ITU par.
Before I do that though I'm taking a couple of weeks completely off to let the mind and body rejuvenate. I'm so used to rushing from training to work then back to training that life feels way easy now. I've got time to watch TV and chill out at night. I can even watch the VP debate tonight. I really haven't done anything in 10 days now so am feeling like quite the non athlete.
The ski sales are picking up this week so we've been busy shipping them out and get more listed online. It's hard to say how much the economic freefall has been affecting things. Dan Empfield from Slowtwitch.com wrote a good article on the economy's affect on bike manufacturers and retailers. He thinks that contrary to popular cycling opinion a bad economy will have a serious affect on things. He bases this largely on a Slowtwitch poll that found that 3% of respondents reported losing their house to the economy.
Skis seem largely similar to bikes. It's generally a middle class or high end clientele which are less affected by a downturn. But everyones still affected. It could be a boon to our business since we're a discount etailer and never sell skis at full retail. Perhaps instead of buying at full price people will hunt around for deals and find good ol' MileHighAthletic.com. Then again maybe the people who usually buy from us will decide to stick with their current pair of skis for another year. It's difficult for us to notice any effect since we're so new and growing rapidly. If sales are up 50% it's difficult to know if they'd be up 60% if things were better. Old time businesses can tell much better since adjustments in their sales can be more closely attributed to the economy.
I've been doing some work on bikeBounce.com and the good news is it's now FREE. I figured a way (I won't bore you with the details) of making it free and still being able to make it profitable. We've had more people sign up this week so that's a good sign, hopefully people will like it and spread the word.
That's it for now, time to watch the VP debate.