I woke up on August 19 to read that indoor cycling enthusiast and specialized mechanic Jeff Wimmer was dead. Some of us have been in the business a long time and should expect that people around us will die; it’s part of growing old. Still, when someone as notable as Jeff Wimmer leaves us early, the enormous gap can’t be filled.
Jeff was what the cycling world calls a “wrench”. He fixed bikes, specifically indoor cycles. He taught for a while but, like a few other talented instructors, gravitated toward cycle construction, design and repair.
Jeff performed work for ICG and for me on several occasions, and I encouraged his employment in years-long contracts when I worked for Club One and Frog’s Fitness. Anyone who has taught indoor cycling classes long-term knows that the industry had much to learn in the early years about maintenance of a group fitness product. Until we rode indoor cycles, no group exercise equipment beyond the stereo and the microphone ever had to be maintained. Suddenly, we had bikes that needed servicing and quickly deteriorated if your club didn’t employ a wrench.
Jeff made a lot of us happy with well-tuned bikes that felt great — not to mention the many member complaints from which he spared us. If Jeff worked on the bikes, we knew every day we taught that the ride would be as smooth as new blacktop.
Jeff did far more than repair bikes; he refurbished them. I guess that’s called “green” these days. He created a business, Studio Cycles, for restoring and reselling indoor cycles, which enabled many customers to purchase top brands at a discount. Unlike top manufacturers, though, Jeff did all his own installations. He never shipped a bike and let someone else put it together. Those of us on the product side of the business know the importance of a quality installation. No matter how good the manufacturing is, if someone who doesn’t care about the bikes puts them together, there’s a good chance they’ll break down prematurely.
I feel the greatest contribution Jeff made to indoor cycling was what he did online. In all our industry, there’s no more prolific a blogger than Jeff was. The Internet features dozens of videos of Jeff discussing bike design and maintenance. He had a reputation for being merciless — but fair — in his evaluation of indoor cycles, and his positive endorsement could always be counted on to help promote bike sales.
The last contract I hired Jeff for involved an evaluation of a customer’s bikes that were in disrepair. True to his nature, Jeff was so upset with the obvious lack of maintenance that he sounded off to the customer onsite, creating a difficult situation for my colleagues, the customer and me. The thing is Jeff was right. The customer did need to be set straight about taking care of the equipment.
Jeff was passionate about bikes.
Riding the road can be dangerous, particularly if the equipment isn’t properly tuned. Obviously, danger is considerably reduced with indoor cycles. But the good feel of an indoor cycle is the main factor that enables us to share our passion for riding bikes with our students.
Jeff embodied the point I made in last week’s post. He was an artist. The maintenance and refurbishment of indoor cycles was more than his craft. You could tell from the way he spoke about Studio Cycles and his work. He approached every bike he fixed as a work of art. View his videos on YouTube; you’ll find them educational. Even more, they’re the legacy he created.
On a personal level, I didn’t know Jeff Wimmer well, but I will miss him. I’ll miss having him pop up at tradeshows to give me his opinion about… well, everything. I’ll miss hearing him tell me that we should have him review every one of our new bike designs before we ever bring a bike to market.
All of us at ICG® honor and respect what Jeff did for indoor cycling and will miss his passion, his blogs, his videos — and, mostly, his drive to help us create the perfect ride for our students.
Rest in peace, Jeff Wimmer. You were as authentic as it gets.
John's Note: sadly, this will be Jim's last post here at ICI/PRO. I heard from Joan Kent that Jim died Sunday of a heart attack. I'm not sure how to respond other than give everyone the chance to hear Jim Karanas one last time. What follows is my very first interview with Jim.
There is no way we can comprehend the tragedy of Jeff Wimmer's death, and it's left us searching for answers that might be difficult to ever find. In these darkest hours, the pain touches us all in the indoor cycling community, and I mourn this loss as if it were my own.
Jeff was the silent force behind the success of my studio in south Georgia. With a high jobless rate in this indigent community, Jeff donated many bikes over the years without question or expectation of anything in return. The white NXT's that fill our studio, given out of generosity and love, are a tribute to his memory. The legacy of his warmth, tenderness and talent will endure forever.
Barbara Hoots
———————————————————————————-
John's Note: Jeff Wimmer and his company StudioCycles was a fixture in Indoor Cycling pretty much from the very beginning. I remember him telling me how Johnny G used to purchase bicycle parts from Jeff, all the stuff that Johnny used to build the first prototypes of the Johnny G Spinner.
Jeff brought an incredible amount of passion and professionalism to Indoor Cycle maintenance and the refurbishing of used cycles.
I had the privilege of interviewing Jeff back in 2009. If you haven't heard Jeff before or would like to learn some of the early history of the Spinning program, it maybe fun for you to hear this.
Barbara Hoots wasn't the only person Jeff has helped. You can listen to Studio owner Michael Stadvec describe how Jeff's contribution of bikes made his event; The Tour de Pier a success, in this interview from last spring. I'm going to guess that Barbara and Michael weren't the only two people Jeff has helped over the years.
Thankfully it wasn't my wedding anniversary (Amy and my 25th is Sept 23rd) but the 5th anniversary of indoorcycleinstructor.com!
Wow – what a ride this has been. Everything started back on August 2nd 2008 with this post. Well actually all this probably started 6 months before I published that first post. I had become intrigued with the thought of starting an Internet radio show, after listening (and become addicted to) sales and marketing Podcasts while driving between customer locations.
As a travelling sales guy, I spent my days “interviewing” prospective customers. A typical 30 minute meeting would consist of me asking a series of questions of my prospect and then listening to their responses – but rarely was this reversed, where the person would be asking me questions. So I thought; why not create an Internet radio show / Podcast that featured interviews with experts and personalities connected to my real passion, Fitness & Indoor Cycling?
How tough and/or expensive could this be?
Well it wasn't as difficult as it may seem and I think I spent about $50.00 in total to get started. The whole Podcasting thing really came into its own around 2008. iTunes was firmly established as the Podcast feed reader – although there were dozens of similar services competing for this space (most are no-longer) – and at the time the iTunes store was one of the top five places on the Internet where people searched for content specific to their interest. So beyond Google and YouTube, the iTunes music store was the place to be.
Of course we needed a website. The open source, blogging software WordPress was becoming very attractive to Podcasters. It was most importantly free, easy to use and automatically created the special RSS feed that connected indoorcycleinstructor.com to The Indoor Cycle Instructor Podcast in iTunes.
So I bought a $30 headset mic, registered the domain $9.95 and signed up for some cheap hosting @ $5.95 a month. But nobody warned me about how much time I would need to invest in all of this 🙁
I've done some simple studies on how much actual time I invest to produce one 30 minute episode:
2-3 hours recruiting each guest for the show, spread over days, weeks or for a few – months or even year. The folks at RealRyder have the distinction of being the most elusive to date. I'm still working on a few that could eclipse them… stay tuned.
One+ hour consisting of a dozen emails and one (sometimes two) 30 minute pre-calls to sort out the topic and questions.
One hour for a late cancellation & rescheduling
60-90 minutes for the actual recording session
2 hours post production; editing to make each guest sound good (I swear I have removed at least a million “uhms”, “you knows”, lip smacks, sniffs, etc…), creating and uploading the MP3 files, creating the post and then promoting the episode.
272 episodes x apx 9 hours = around 2,400 hours!
But they've been totally worth every minute as long as you've enjoyed them!
When I started all of this I had a concern that we'd run out of things to discuss. After all this is just Indoor Cycling… what's there to talk about?
As it turns out a lot. As I look forward I see that we've just scratched the surface.
There's lots more coming during year 6 here at the Indoor Cycle Instructor Podcast
*Note to self – add calendar reminder for 9/23 so you don't miss that anniversary… and don't forget to find something special for Amy.
Improving support for our iPhone/iPad users > we've finally figured out how to configure the player to show and play on your iDevice 🙂
We're upgrading all of the Podcast and Audio Class Playlists this morning to a new HTML 5 player (the kind Apple will display) so you may find a player that doesn't work using your computer. Hope to have everything done in a few hours.
Congratulations to Cameron Chinatti and husband Jeremy – they're having a baby! OK, Cameron is having the baby… but I'll bet that Jeremy will be there to hold her hand, all the way to the end of their rollercoaster ride. I ride that will last about 22 years or so.
Of course you are – but what The ADS Group is looking for are Fitness Instructors Stars who have the drive and talent needed to create unique, specialised workout videos.
The ADS Group and U-Branded Productions are looking for professionalism, personality, energy, accuracy, and coaching abilities like this Instructor below.
The group’s Studio 120 is an award-winning boutique multimedia production house. Its engineers will work in studio or on location to ensure they capture the best imagery and sound for your fitness video. Studio services include but are not limited to:
Video Production
Audio Production
Interactive Development
DVD Authoring
CD/DVD Replication
Blu-Ray Disc
Streaming Media
Closed Captioning & Subtitling
Language Translation
Enter Now* by submitting your personal or professional fitness video for a chance to win a free studio production package that includes:
1 round trip ticket to Minneapolis, MN
Transportation
2-night hotel stay
1 1/2 day fitness video shoot
1000 replicated & packaged DVD
Participant’s video should include:
1.Introduction of why you think you are a fitness star.
2.Three minute demonstration of your specialized content.
Maybe you're the next Shaun T or Jillian Michaels who's just waiting to be discovered?
*This contest is not connected to ICI/PRO – it just looked like a neat opportunity for you 🙂
Congratulations to Cameron Chinatti and husband Jeremy – they're having a baby! OK, Cameron is having the baby… but I'll bet that Jeremy will be there to hold her hand, all the way to the end of their rollercoaster ride. I ride that will last about 22 years or so.