Friday, January 16, 2009

Serious About Cycling

All last year, jeans god Mike Ball's pro cycling team raced here and there around the world. His Rock Racing has hired the likes of Santiago Botero and Tyler Hamilton.

Apparently, this Mike believes you can't be too colorful or confident personally or professionally. He is not shy and his team shows up in a fleet of Cadillac Escalades. See the Darrell Parks' pic Mike Ball & his girls for a hint.

The team had an okay first year, with a real busy sked.

If you can't make it to England, Spain, Boulder or Colombia to watch, you can consider some amazing jerseys and cycling accessories.

By the bye, this seems to be the only team that intends to avoid any doping allegations. It has its own internal testing that runs through Scott Analytics.

Yet, wait...

In the more stereotypical world of pro sports comes a tale of spite and anger. Rider Braden Cooke is ready to sue the team and owner Mike, according to a piece in Cycling News. The boss says he'll only pay another six months out of pocket and they have to get sponsors to go beyond that. TBD

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Mike the Swapper

Arrrr. Damn. I can't use my airline points before the deadline. I'll lose 'em.

A Mike Ball is part of the solution for that. At LoyaltyMatch, they take a couple of bucks from the transaction to swap such airline and other corporate rewards points for goods or cash.

This is another Canadian MB, based in Waterloo, Ontario. The prez and founder, Brad Ball, may well be a brother.

Mike is CTO and chief architect. His online profile reads:
Mike has over 22 years experience building and leading high technology development companies. Mike was one of the architects of Bell Sympatico and Advantage Business Internet Solutions, served as VP Technology for SpiderTop Rich Media Internet Corporation, and is an accomplished game developer and author. He is a computer science graduate of Confederation College and a member of OACETT.
His pic is jolly and makes him look like he stepped off the dance floor.

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