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The CNBC Business Magazine profiles Ted Kennedy’s Boulder, Colorado-based company CEO Challenges , which offers golf and marathon challenges open only to top execs and which is now big into bikes.
CEO Challenges event are open to “any CEO, company president, or corporate chief officer of a company with annual gross revenue of at least $5m.”
The CNBC mag reports that "Silicon Valley is so gripped by the cycling craze that non-cyclists are signing up just to network on the hills that separate San Francisco Bay from the Pacific Ocean."
John Roberts, CEO of open-source software company SugarCRM, says: “You look for the same attributes that are needed in cycling. You’ve got endurance, strength, power and intensity – exactly what we look for in top managers. It’s also a very social sport – instead of doing 18 holes of golf with a couple of opponents, you ride with 30 people. As you’re going through the peloton], you can meet a lot of potential contacts.”
CNBC European Business Magazine plugs a whole load of top-end bike kit from the likes of Cannondale, Trek and Specialized but also plugs minnows like Planet-X of the UK.
Planet X also gets its own profile.
The mag says: "Planet X and sister brand On-One arose almost as anti-brands, shunning the customary model in the biking industry in which a large corporation knocks together a shiny bike, spends a fortune on marketing and then sells at a great mark-up through successive middlemen and finally a chain of bike shops. Planet X caters to triathletes and serious racers, while On-One is an edgy, single-speed ‘urban revolution’-style brand aimed at the courier community."
Planet X MD Dave Loughran reveals his goal is to reach the turnover needed so he can take part in a CEO Challenges triathlon.
