Marketing Kona bikes is a tough life

TredzTalk managed to pin down Kona’s European marketing main man Russell Carty to find out what goes on in his typical month:

This is supposed to be the “quiet” time of year, but not for me. We are already well through planning next year [Kona’s 2008 bikes] and it is going to be another busy one! The past few weeks I have also done some travelling too.

I was in Whistler a few weeks back. We organised a Bikepark meeting there and it was great. All our European parks came out and met with our North American parks and we had a great time. We were on the mountain, riding loads and we have some wild nights in the bar too - no more Snapps Leogang!

After Whistler I had a week to recover and then I collected Chopper (Grant Fielder), one of our Clump riders from Nice airport and we headed to Bergamo in Italy where Grant was one of the star riders. We had a fun weekend partying and loads of people showed even with all the rain.

I was then off to the UK for a wedding, my first time back to Blighty for about a year I think? Really wanted a nice fry-up, but typical afterwards I wish I hadn’t had it....

After that I was back to Monaco for a few days. Oh, did I say that is where Kona Europe is based? Yeah it’s a hard life out here, you know hanging with famous race car drivers, the rich and the famous… but you know someone has to do it.

Anyway I decided I hadn’t had enough travelling so I packed the van and drove from Monaco up to Holland with Bart from the office for the Bike Motion show in Utrecht. It was a long drive, nearly 14 hours. We made it eventually and had a great Mexican and it was time to sleep. The show went well, cool to hang out with the Dutch guys.

Bart and I then drove the long 14 hours back to Monaco and then two days later I did the 8 hour drive up to Munich! Did I tell you I live driving? Actually I don’t really but… So I made it to Munich, got to head up there with one of my buddies who used to live there and was going to show me the proper nightlife! We got to stop off on the way to visit more of my buddies at Burton Europe and of course pick up some new snowboard gear for the coming winter.

Then it was onto Bike & Freeride Magazine in Munich and then straight onto the New World Disorder 7 Premier organised by Tarek Rasoul. It was really cool to see a lot of old friends - Kona Clump Rider Robbie Bourdon was there, along with Kyle Strait and Cedric Gracia. We had a great party and made it to bed around 4:30am… I have never felt so hung over the next day…

So then it was another long drive back to Monaco and back to the office, I was here the rest of the week and started to get ill so had to spend my weekend off in bed….

But back into the office now and raring to go! Off this weekend to Sweden to see my Girlfriend which will be a nice relaxing time and then getting ready to visit Japan to a large festival event organised by our Japanese distributor. Heading out there with Fabien Barel and Grant Fielder, it’s going to be a blast!