A Cyclist's Life in Tenerife (Canary Islands)

In Spain, learning how to drive is like attending University lectures. In fact the theory lessons are so incredibly pedantic, it could be complete curriculum for a university subject entitled «Advanced Driving Theory». However, Spanish traffic control is not really concerned at all about safety, just semantics. They attempt to trick you with each and every question. The answers usually all technically correct, or there’s one blatantly wrong answer. It’s just a question of which one of the remaining questions is most correct. And it’s going to get worse say the instructors, because they’re going to introduce what they call «multi-multiplechoice»… that’s where you can choose answers a; b; c; a and b; b and c; and finally a and c. Anything to get you to fail. But that’s a whole other story…

To be eligable for the theory test, you must first pass a medical examination (except I’d hardly call it that). First they ask for your €35 in the reception. From there, a psychologist asks you to perform a quick physical dexterity test. Next, you’re trundled off to yet another room where they do a rapid eye test. Finally you get to see another Doctor in yet another room who supposedly signs the paper, granting you a clean bill of health. Hey presto, you’re done in under 3 minutes!

Except it didn’t go like that for me. In my case, this relatively straightforward procedure was has just been yet another delay. [Read more →]

Tags: Island Life, Mental Anguish, That's Business by Dr. Leslie Brown
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I’m sure you can think of a few reasons not to hire a rental bike in Tenerife, but here are 16 legimate reasons you should:

1. Reduce your carbon footprint!! Assuming you take an extra 15kg of bicycle equipment (bike + case) as checked-on luggage, you’ll save between 100~200kg of CO₂ emissions for a typical return journey (LGW – TFS is 5800km). To emphasise how much greenhouse gas this represents, 100kg of CO₂ gas occupies 50,930 litres at standard atmospheric pressure!! My calculation is based from various sources, statistics and news sources. 
2. We have all sizes available, and can offer a custom fit service.  
3. Our bikes are very well maintained, and also provide low-range gearing suited to mountainous terrain. 
4. Save € by not paying any excess baggage fees for the additional weight of your sporting equipment!
5. Save $ by not having to buy a dedicated bike case!
6. It’s obvioulsy more convenient to travel around without a loaded bulky bike case plus all that cycling equipment.
7. There’s no risk of being refused check-in at the airport through carrying too much luggage.
8. There’s also zero risk of airport ground-crew damaging your own bike during transport if you leave it at home.
9. Neither do you need to worry about someone stealing your own highly-prized expensive wonderbike while on holiday!  
10. There’s no need to spend ages packing your own bike, hence more time to ride on the first and last day!
11. Should anything go wrong with one of our bikes, we obviously provide free servicing, free spare parts and/or a replacement bike!
12. We offer a refund for each day that you aren’t able to ride due to mechanical failure.
13. There’s no need to clean the bike afterwards. Let us worry about it!
14. Your own super-light weight bike may not actually be as reliable as one of ours.
15. Make it seem more like a «family holiday» & gain bonus points with your spouse!
16. Help support our green eco-friendly business and the local economy.

Tags: Ride the Volcano!, Sales Pitch, That's Business by Dr. Leslie Brown
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I just finished helping with today’s «cosecha» way too early…

For those that don’t know, a cosecha is the local name for a grape harvest. The owner of small vineyards in Tenerife usually ask their extended family members to volunteer to harvest (cosechar) all the grapes in a single day. This day normally falls Saturday at the end of September. They’re usually offered some form of small compensation, but on our farm we like to provide a traditional lunch for everyone that participates.

This year there were 21 grape pickers, who collected a total of 68 full crates, for a total harvest of ~1200kg of premium black grapes. For comparison: last year, our farm produced 5000kg of grapes (some 280 crates)!! What caused this year’s disaster crop? Two things happened almost simultaneously:

1. Some time in mid-June, our vineyard contracted an abnormal sickness, causing many of the grapes to explode before reaching maturity. This was probably the result of an abnormal amount of light rain over this period, over which time the fungal virus spread. The farms that did not bother to spray their crop must now abandon this years harvest.
2. A severe calima also occurred at the end of July, temperatures skyrocketed to 40°C for 3 consecutive days, and this virtually dessicated the remaining grapes that hadn’t already contracted the fungal virus. I noted that only those grape bunches that were protected by shade seemed to survive.

Insurance companies refuse to insure small farms like ours for such occurences. Neither does the tax office nor the government recognise this year’s unofficial vineyard catastrophy; they never provided any financial aid to small-time growers. Sadly, this isn’t the case for bigger vinyeards (at least five times the size of ours), who are in a position to receive both substantial tax-cuts and other insurance benefits. Even today, many families still depend on their vineyards as a source of income. Unfortunately, even though the majority of grapes in Tenerife are still grown and supplied to wine cellars by small family-run cultivators, they are simply not supported by institutions who provide help to larger vineyards.

Tags: Island Life, News Reel, That's Business by Dr. Leslie Brown
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It takes a lot of time communicating the bike hire & equipment needs of my clients. Normally it takes between 3 & 5 emails to finally confirm everything -for example- the size of the type & size of bicycle they want to rent, thier name, contact number, height, the name + location of their hotel or apartment, dates of stay, dates of bike hire, number of days of bike rental, and any other questions they may have.

On my sister’s advice, I decided to create an online bicycle hire reservation form for specifying everything online, but like every new task, it always takes longer than you think. It’s a typical revenge effect: Setting up any automated system in the hopes of saving time, initially requires even more time to be invested!! It also sometimes requires further human involvement, to keep it in check!

The main glitch was that I wasn’t getting sent any data at all!! But there were lots of other bugs to fix too. This has taken hours and hoursto sort out (I had to learn new html form tags & some php code), so I hope this will eventually save some time. It’s now finally up and running…

Online bicycle hire reservation form now available here!

Tags: News Reel, Ride the Volcano!, That's Business by Dr. Leslie Brown
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During one of the lectures I attended at university, our popular Design & Materials Selection Proffessor, Bessim Ben-Nissan, once said:

«No one’s going to buy a kettle if it’s-a purple»

At the time, I thought that statement was an over-generalisation of people’s tastes. I remembered thinking: «Well I for one would definitely buy a purple kettle, if they were available». Not only because I happened to like the colour purple, but maybe even just to prove him wrong.

Its been nearly a decade since that lecture, and I’m yet to encounter a fully purple kettle. For years I went in search of one. You can find mauve kettle lids and lavender-coloured handles in most electrical retail shops, but NEVER, EVER, a genuine 100% purple coloured kettle. There’s an online shop called www.purplestore.com, who specialise in all manner of eclectic purple products. There’s a virtual smorgasboard of items, in fact the only common trait is that they’re only available in various shades of purple. The shop is devoted to purple. Nevertheless, you won’t see any purple kettles for sale.

Taking this slightly further, even if you go to another super-specialist retailer, www.purplekettlegifts.com, stocked with the most kitch American products you could ever hope to imagine, you still won’t find any purple kettles! In fact you won’t find any kettles for sale at all!! One gets the impression that they chose this rather eccentric name just for the sake of being totally unique.

[Read more →]

Tags: Island Life, Mental Anguish, That's Business, Vida Enigmática by Dr. Leslie Brown
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The first step in creating my online business was to start with a good quality website. I improved the content by taking spectacular photos, providing free information, maps, bike routes, altitude profiles & even filming several good quality cycling videos.

Despite advertising all this with google adwords, posting countless links on cycling forums, and creating numerous in-links from cycling holiday directories, it still was not receiving many visitors (between 30-50 per day). Moreover, web visitors do not always equate to cutomers! So I paid for one magazine advertisement in cyclingweekly.co.uk which I turned out to be a complete waste of £100. 😐

Obviously, the only way to get any internet business to work is to increase web traffic. The first thing any online shop needs is a good website design, preferably with interesting content and something to sell. But www.Tenerife-Training.net was still not receiving the level of exposure required to generate sufficent income.

Clearly something was not working. The idea of selling any product is effective & appropriate marketing. If no one knows you exist, how can you suceed? I realised that my niche is incredibly small & it would be extemely difficult. I knew I needed to target hard-core cyclists, and cyclo-tourists who have the most probablity of hiring a bike when they come to train & tour this island. How could I reach them all?

[Read more →]

Tags: That's Business by Dr. Leslie Brown
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Turning his passion for cycling into a business, one that showcases the beauty of the local scenery, is among the things that Australian expat Leslie is doing in Tenerife, Spain. He tells us what he likes and dislikes about living in Las Canarias and gives some tips on things like the local job market and learning the language.

Read the FULL interview with expatriate Doc Brown

Tags: Island Life, That's Business by Dr. Leslie Brown
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We really had fun making this. A special thanks to Iván – I couldn’t have done it without you man!

Tags: Island Life, News Reel, Ride the Volcano!, That's Business by Dr. Leslie Brown
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Interesting Internet Statistics:

Click here for a current traffic report of the global internet communications network!

Within the last decade it seems, the internet has grown to contain ~1 trillion pages. There is ~1 Petabyte of total information storage (a billion Gigabytes). What is the size of the internet?

Tags: Science Simplified, That's Business by Dr. Leslie Brown
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BARCELONA, Jan 2, 2004. This is a naming and branding epic.

Spanish candy maker Enric Bernat Fontlladosa died in Barcelona on December 27. He was 80 years old. Born to a family of candy makers, Bernat bought Granja Asturias S.A., a troubled Spanish confectioner, back in the 1950’s. He took the advice of an article in the December, 2003 issue of the Harvard Business Review written by Nirmalya Kumar, Director of the Centre for Marketing at the London Business School. Kumar makes the case for eliminating unprofitable brands and focusing on the clear winners. He points out that many corporations generate over 80% of their profits from fewer than 20% of their brands. And he explains how hard it is for companies to kill their unprofitable brands. 

Soon after he took over Granja Asturias, Bernat made the brave move of axing most of the company’s 200 products to focus on a line of caramel-filled lollipops. Bernat picked a strong brand name that would appeal to kids: Chupa Chups. It comes from the Spanish verb «chupar–to suck.» In English the product name might be «Sucky Suckers.» The lollipops went on sale in 1958, and ten years later his friend Salvador Dali designed the current logo which you can see in the picture. The festive display was an important part of the merchandising, and shopkeepers were told to keep it right next to the register, a fresh idea at the time.

Within five years, Chupa Chups were sold at 300,000 outlets in Spain, and Bernat renamed the company after its flagship brand. The Chupa Chups Group produces four billion lollipops a year which are sold in 40 flavors– including mango, chili and lychee–in 170 countries. Bernat’s three sons are now in charge, and Chupa Chups are the second biggest confectionary product brand in the world after Hall’s, with over $700 million in sales. And it all goes back to having the courage to kill off weak products and focus brand development on one good idea.

Tags: That's Business by Dr. Leslie Brown
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What is happening to the world? In short, most people refuse to ACT, because they’re be too busy justifying their need for a high standard of living, blaming goverments for the situation, & avoiding the underlying social & environmental crises. This sounds like an inescapable viscous cycle to me.

Yes its all been brought about by greedy 1st world nations. Blatant consumerism- which capitalises on the latest scientific advances and all the while fueled by governments who only think in short term economic gains. The first need is to communicate the problem. The next requirement is change. People are afraid of change, but to me it seems the world is changing for the worse anyway.

Anyone who has read Schumachers book «Small is beautful» will know that over the long term, what we are doing to planet Earth surely must be considered uneconomical. Are people so afraid of change now that they’re willing to bury their heads in the sand about the future repercussions? I think where we’re headed, the changes will be alot more daunting than the thought of giving up our most prized possessions. Chaos will be surely covered in one of my future articles, but who wants to live in a world without nature?

TRADITIONAL ECONOMIC WORKING PRINCIPLE:

• There is a general consensus that a fundamental source of weatlth is human labour
• Businesses & Governments maximise profit, consumption and therefore economic growth
• Employers maximise labour effort (bosses expect their «pound of flesh»)
• Employees minimise labour effort (to work is viewed as a sacrifice of one’s leisure and comfort; wages being a kind of compensation)

BUDDHIST ECONOMIC PRINCIPLE OF WORK:

• Work gives each person a chance to utilise and develop their [unique] faculties
• Work enables humans to overcome their ego-centredness by joining with other people in a common task
• Work provides the goods and services needed for a becoming existence [creativity activity is vital]

The former, in short, tries to maximise consumption by the optimal pattern of productive effort, while the latter tries to maximise human satisfactions by the optimal pattern of consumption. It is easy to see that the effort needed sustain a way of life which seeks to attain the optimal pattern of consumption is likely to be much smaller than the effort needed to sustain a drive for maximum consumption.

It is not wealth that stands in the way of liberation but the attachment to wealth; not the enjoment of pleasurable things but the craving for them.

But what can we actually do about it? Firstly, don’t replace things before we need to; repair them if necessary, use them until they can no longer be repaired. Yes, there is some real satisfaction to be gained by owning things that last through time. Do we need the latest 3G phone or mobile electronic device? A phone is a phone for Pete’s sake!

Tags: Mental Anguish, That's Business, Vida Enigmática by Dr. Leslie Brown
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Only a small percentage of my time is actually maintaining, cleaning & delivering bikes. The most common chores are inflating tyres, swapping pedals, adjusting rear derailleurs, cleaning chains, truing spokes, and preparing people’s toolkits before a ride.

You wouldn’t think this, but the overwhelming majority of my time is spent networking. Devising & publicising online marketing campaign strategies (especially during this low season). I also do all of the administration & financial work at the computer. Answering emails and keeping the books up to date. Its a full time job to maintain such a web presence. I’m wondering when I’ll be able to go for a bike ride… 😐

Tags: That's Business, Vida Enigmática by Dr. Leslie Brown
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My day normally starts anywhere between 6:00and 9:00am. I never set the alarm clock; for years its never been able to actually get me out of bed. When I’m motivated, I wake up earlier.

I usually go straight to the computer for 5-10 minutes to get the brain ticking over & see what needs to be done today and for the next few days. Then I go downstairs and make a decent coffee using the ubiquitous spanish cafetera method. There’s no such thing as a good Australian coffee, so I’m always grateful for that (prior to coming here I was a black tea drinker).

There’s usually sooooo many things to do, I need to manage my time so I begin by prioritising what needs to be done. I can’t trust my memory, so a great level of organisation becomes the key. I make a lists of everything; I make a list of other tasks grouped separately: Administration (answering e-mails and bookings), Bike Maintenance & Delivery, Updating Website Content & Maintenance, The rest of my time is devoted to marketing, publicity & financial side of running a business.

So what normally happens is,  I go back to work on one or all of these things until my stomach rumbles. Then I go and make myself some late breakfast and look at the view of the Atlantic ocean for usually less than a minute. Then I go back inside and work until I need to make another coffee. Repeat with lunch and dinner, and now you start to get the idea.

I’ve been so busy busy busy with the new website features & other things, I haven’t had time for any bike rides lately. I usually call it a day somewhere between 9:00 and 11:00pm. I must be putting in 80-90 hours plus of work each week, 7 days a week. It takes a lot of work to run a successful business. Quite honestly, there are not enough hours in the day, and its time to go to bed before I know it. Hopefully business will pick up again over the winter, and I won’t have to try so hard to convince cyclists all over the world «Hey, come to Tenerife, hire a road bike and ride up a mountain!»

Of course I do LOVE the job I have created for myself, but believe me its not easy. Canarians have a saying, which I only learned last week: «No es un moco de pavo». Believe it or not, but the direct translation is «Its not a turkey’s snot». What it actually means is that its a lot more difficult than it appears, and so it is with Tenerife-Training.

Tags: Island Life, That's Business by Dr. Leslie Brown
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