Can you believe it? The World Championships are here—next week! Our Team Captain Gary Schmitt has done a divine job getting three additional members of the team ready to go over and kick their way into history. This year four American racers—-next year forty!!

A big HiFive to Gary, Mike, Jeff, and Jill! Lest your tires be full and your belly not!

One of our main objectives while we are there is to get Hannu’s autograph on some part of Jill’s body. The other goal is to invite the IKSA and every racer from every country to come to the US in 2009 and participate in our first ever North American World Cup Kicking Event.

We will most likely hold the event towards the end of August 2009 after the European World Championships are held. We are making contact right now with major sponsorship and perhaps a city venue that we can add to our other three choices—-Chicago, IL–Boulder, CO, and Rockaway Beach, OR. Send your requests to moses@footbikeusa.com.

So mark your calendar and smooth out that kick! We hope to see you soon! And if Lance is still reading our posts—-we have a scooter with your name on it! Well sort of, the ‘L’ came out looking like a ‘T’—-if that is okay with you.

And yes YOU can throw a sticker on our frame for some last minute sponsorship and advertising in Europe!!! Hey, are there any Starbucks in Kamperzeedijk…………..??

FBUSA.com and Team FootbikeUSA Racing

This might be the new catch phrase for our petroleum starved nation. Our eye in the sky ‘MikeyEye’ saw this little blurb attached to an advertisement for some nifty roller skates. Yup—Active Transportation!

Of course we started to think about commuting on our roller skates when somebody said, “WAIT—-we can use our Footbike’s for Active Transportation!!”

Alright, we are not being totally sarcastic, but in the early days of our experience with the Footbike, we figured that the extent of our Active Transportation would be to go and get more DingDongs at the grocery store. We felt connected to our machines from a fitness and fun factor—–not for hauling the laundry 9 blocks!!

But times have changed, our fitness and comfort level on the Footbike is increasing every day. The cost of running the car is increasing everyday, our determination to ‘kick’ our errands on the back of a Footbike is increasing everyday. In fact, we will announce shortly the offer of a lifetime. You can drive, drag, or drop your car or truck to Footbike HQ and we will trade you a brand new Footbike at no additional cost!!

So if you have it, why not just commute or run errands on your pogostick? Because we are not talking about pogosticks here!! How about on your skates? Speaking of which, one of our newest riders calls her Footbike a ‘giant roller skate’—we thought that was really cool—–because it is almost like riding one giant roller skate!! The idea here is that we have the beauty of being able to step off of our scooter and walk during our commute. And walking is great Active Transportation!!

So get a front rack, get a pack, get a ten gallon hat, and get a trailer and duct tape that thing to the back of your scooter and get busy! You can always lose the rack, the pack, that hat, and the trailer when gas drops back down to $1.89 a gallon.

Active Transportation= Just Kick It!

Okay. You might be wondering what the heck Angelina Jolie and the cost of fuel have in common. Maybe I am trying to draw the line between what WE have in common with Angelina—and what WE have in common with the high cost of fuel?!

After a week of conversations with our friends overseas, we have been challenged to come up with an answer to this question. If any of you can help with the answer, then we have a shiny new Pink Footbike waiting for you. Ready??

The Question:

Prices for food, fuel, products and using the public pay toilet are increasing ALL OVER THE PLANET. Why is it that ‘The Americans’ think that the prices for these things need to go DOWN just for them??

The Answer:

Not that it should be obvious, but there was no way that I could answer that question. Plus I felt the pressure of speaking for 306 million Americans.

We have pondered and fought over the answer and the resolve here at HQ. And we think we know what to do about it. We are going to stick to our mission statement of delivering a Footbike to everyone in North America, and we are going to do it by going against the grain and showing the world that ‘We Americans’ can get it done regardless of the obstacles presented.

Instead of raising our prices, we are going to LOWER our prices! Why?? Because we built our own bandwagon, and we are out pulling it around everyday. So it is going to go like this:

Street Model—Blue or Red = $309.00 and FREE SHIPPING
Track Model—White or Pink = $369.00 and FREE SHIPPING
Trail Model—-Grey or Green = $399.00 and FREE SHIPPING

So how do you like them apples? A quality product at a quality price—-just for the Americans.
(and also any Canadians that can help with freight—-we are coming to a city near you soon!)

Ohyea—–the riddle. Angelina doesn’t have to buy fuel for her car, and if you own a Footbike—you won’t either!

JustKickIt!!
Moses FBUSA

Thanks to our friends at Google, we have been introduced to a great resource of information on the realities of kicking for distance.

Check out http://kickblogger.livejournal.com/.

John V. has been recording his distance kicks since he first got on a performance scooter in Fall of 2000. Check it out and add it to your collection of kicking tales from J. Delzer and also A. Bekkerman that you can find via a little Google.

With this information, and tips you can read on this site from Schmitt, Dymond and Jung—-YOU will have all of the real life facts and figures on what it takes to kick that scooter for distance.

For those of you that are starting to lay down the miles, make a note that all of these kickers have been at it for more than 10 years in this relatively knew sport. Take the time to research, practice, and practice some more before you decide you are going to be the next 100mile record holder. And then we want to hear about it when you do, or what you do!

For those folks that want to share their story, but hate leaving the comfort of their Google or Yahoo accounts—-come check these out.

http://groups.google.com/group/usa-footbiking
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/USA footbiking
http://mogoscooter.blogspot.com/

And don’t forget about The Cafe here at FBUSA. We are sharing the experiences from all types of people, from all over the world. And for the next person that can contact us via the forum with a real life Effendi in their possession—-we will gladly trade you an authentic medium mogo scooter t-shirt for that machine!

Just Kick It!

We have spent the last few days speaking with professional trainers and athletes on the benefits of high performance scooter training. In many conversations we are reminded about our own enthusiasm and eagerness to ‘cover that 25 mile loop we always do on our bike’. In most cases we have learned that this results in an extra sore set of hamstrings, as well as most of the other muscles that are in the body!

The moral of the story is to clock your outings in minutes to help avoid the temptation of thinking that you need to cover 20 miles to ’see this thing work’. Keep it simple, pick your route, keep it flat as you learn, and get a grip on your personal stride. Find that 30-45 minute route that ends in your driveway or workplace and go do it.

For those destined to train, and refine, and get their scooters past the 26 mile mark against a stopwatch? Well, we will be here to help show you the way. Our resources are the best, and we aim to bring more of them together right here.

Remember, start slow and get to know your scooter. You will both be happier in the end.

Just Kick It!

This is a quick note to all of the kickers in North America that have aspired to take their scooters, and their skills, to the World Championships in August.

Thijza Brouwer of the IKSA and the Nederlandse Autoped Federatie has just notified us that any kickers coming from outside of Europe to compete, will have all of their race fee’s covered by the association!

Thijza and the IKSA and NAF have been working hard with us to develop the first World Cup race here in the United States for 2009.

Rally up, tune your scooters, get back to training, and we will see you in Kampen and Kamperzeedijk in the community of Zwartewaterland!!

Let’s Go!!