Fraser Cartmell Ironman triathlete » media

A visit to Trek plus a visit from SRAM

Fraser — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 05:30:10 +0000

Before I raced at Racine 70.3 last weekend I spent an exciting few days in Madison staying with our legendary Trek/K-Swiss team mechanic Mark Andrews and his family …. it was exciting on at least two fronts:

1. I was getting given my brand new Trek Speed Concept - here is a preview of the bike I did for SRAM whilst in Racine

2. I got to go hang out with Mark at work and get a tour of the Trek factory HQ at Waterloo: very very cool!!

Trek as a bike company is unique in that they still produce all of their top end frames right there on site at the company HQ and don’t have them mass built in the far east of Asia or elsewhere. They can therefore maintain the absolute highest of standards in their frame production and ensure that the quality of craftmanship and care are unquestionably second to none. Furthermore it means that there is constant development and continued improvement in the whole production process – from the initial sheets of carbon (it really was like holding a big sheet of paper!) to the application of the final coat of paint. For me, as someone who studied Engineering at University and loves learning about a process, it was a fascinating few hours.

Just to prove I was in fact there ….

The front line of Trek racing at the moment … hopefully have a Trek/K-Swiss uniform up there soon enough?!

Where all the fast stuff gets built – Trek Race Teams Workshop … including a US Championship RadioShack frame on the far right and other frames in various states of completion.

And last but by no means least – my new Speed Concept. – SRAM – who equip our bikes with groupsets – came and visited me prior to racing at the Racine 70.3 and did a quick interview talking about the bike and the rest of my season ahead.

Read about it here.

LA to Stirling to Kent

Fraser — Thu, 27 May 2010 19:07:56 +0000

I won’t try to make any excuses for the lack of blog posts … what with spending the weekend in Los Angeles for the Trek Speed Concept lauch and trying my best to go some rounds with Mr Jetlag back home here in Stirling it’s been an interesting but fun few days. I’m all set now for a w/e in Kent, racing at the trigrandprix event. It’s solid looking field, so I’m ready to get going. The highlights from the long w/e in LA are something like this:

Hanging out with the boys - L to R - Matt Lieto, Joe Gambles, myself and Michi Raelert

Friday – arrive in LA …. get a bear hug from Michael Raelert outside baggage in LAX! Mark, the Trek mechanic repsonsible for our awesome new bikes drove us back to our hotel and we checked out Starbucks. (Extra hot venti latte). Evening meal with the whole gang where I did my best to keep the eyelids open past 9pm (only just succeeded).

Saturday – Watch Chris Lieto, Chrissie Wellington, Macca go round the Tour of California Time Trial course (I think we were happy to watch and not participate given how technical it looked!). Spent the afternoon at the launch of the new Trek Speed Concept at the Walt Disney Concert Hall alongside the other guys on the the team… it was incredible to see Trek really go full gas behind a bike solely designed for triathlon … it’s exciting times ahead! We watched the Pro riders hit it out hard around the TT course all avo – the difference in speed between those ‘just going thro motions’ and the General Classifcation riders was much more obvious than I thought it would be. Finish off in the evening at the roof top bar!! of our hotel to chat with the assembled international media and magazine editors.

Tour watching with Julie and Joe

Sunday – watched the final stage of the Tour outside of the K Swiss offices in Westlake. – We got to catch up with all the staff there which was good fun … I might have sneaked a pair of new shoes or two out on that visit!

Monday – Hang out in LA on my own waiting for my evening flight home (extra legroom and a headrest like none I have had before - made for a much comfier 10hrs aboard let me tell you) – started walking about but opted for a easy jog around the streets to take in most of the sights. -Skyscrapers galore!

walking about downtown LA - me and myself!

Wattie Ink, Trek and K Swiss news

Fraser — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 21:27:04 +0000

First up, and something that is exciting to announce, is that I have started working with Wattie for all things sponsor and marketing – I met Sean at our Trek/K-Swiss team camp back in Feb and it’s been great to to be officially accpeted into the gang. – My good pals Joe and Lesley have already been working with him for some time and it seems like a fun setup. Hopefully we’ll have some news to report in the near future, but for now I’m chuffed to be on board.

A little belated and behind time (ie April Fools time!) but I want to post a couple video clips that give some (lighthearted!) insight into Trek and K Swiss. Chris Lieto could well give up his day job as a world class triathlete … but I doubt I will be sitting ‘clipper’ in the chair again anytime soon. Laugh out loud – I did!

And finally for now I want to add in this montage of Trek/K Swiss athletes (aswell as other K Swiss guys n gals) who competed at the Cali 70.3 a couple w/e’s back – mostly as it also shows a nice insight into the K Swiss brand and has our ‘head boy’ Eric talking passionately about the partnerships behind our new team.

So, it’s Friday night and I will be getting into the swing of training here in the Shire again over the w/e. Rumour has it Gav will be back from Stellenbosch soon once it gets warm enough - given the mercury will touch 18C I reckon he’ll be back soon…

A final few Abu Dhabi pictures

Fraser — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 15:08:18 +0000

A week has gone by since we got home from the middle east, (time flies) and I am well on my way to being recovered and ready to tackle the next phase of training. However, there are a few more pics here that I have to remind myself of the antics last w/e in the desert heat.

Finished … and glad to nip in front of Fred Van Lierde (Belgium) in the last K of the run …

Exiting the water in the joint lead (again with Fred from Belgium!) at the end of the first swim lap

Running out of the water after the swim was complete – we never seem to look too good at swim exit do we?

Somewhere out on the bike course on my new Trek TTX – I couldn’t tell you where though. Do the shadows look a little too close to you too??

Abu Dhabi Triathlon video

Fraser — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 14:38:46 +0000

Another funky little Abu Dhabi race video compilation from Wattie who was out there helping us Trek/K Swiss athletes out – many thanks buddy, especially for changing my flat in T1 40 minutes prior to the gun firing. I wasn’t flapping at all. Promise!?!

Pre Abu Dhabi!

Fraser — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 08:30:35 +0000

It’s nearly race day … and boy has it been a few days of hanging around an waiting for it to arrive. I’m not much of a fan of emersing yourself amongst you’re rivals and competitors for days on end before an event, but there wasn’t much choice for this race. It was a long travel and we all needed to get here early, so here we are all under the one roof!

Myself and fellow team members Joe, Julie and Heather share some of our thoughts before race day ……

On Wednesday Blair and I headed into town to have a little look around … we didn’t see much to be honest, and here we are on our way inside a shopping centre, where we ended up killing time watching a movie. Hmm … couldnt have done that at home could we?!?

And finally … this morning we all had to climb onto buses with our bikes! to get down to the race start and rack our bikes before race day tomorrow morning. We figured a little ‘team shot’ could work out nice.

We race at 6.20am tomorrow (Saturday) morning, which is 2.20am at home. If all things go to plan, then have a think of me on the run course from around 8ish onwards …

I’m nervous, but excited too. It’s a unique distance, but ultimately I can learn a ton from it and take it forward for racing Ironman later in the year. That’s the plan. I’ll try stick to it

Final day at camp

Fraser — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 06:47:08 +0000

Riding out along the Pacific Coast Highway with the guys yesterday. Today everything got wrapped up – quite literally, as my new Madonne road bike has been boxed up and will be winging its way to Stirling without me having ridden it yet. It has been a cracking few days; leaving me super amped and excited about the season ahead as part of this fantastic new team!

Team mug shots outside K Swiss headquarters where we have been hanging out for the past 5 days. I am very excited about getting aboard the new Speed Concept bike once they are ready for us later in the Spring. F.A.S.T!!

The press conference at the new K Swiss store in Santa Monica on Friday night.

Another pic from our ride along the coast on Sunday.

Another day at Trek and K-Swiss camp

Fraser — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 02:15:45 +0000

Today we rode LONG – ‘5hrs, 150k and hilly’ long – here is me with Ironman 70.3 World Champion Mikie Raelert before we started outside K-Swiss HQ. – Note the loss of hair?!?

All day long we had this crazy van rigged up with a fancy flash system to get cracking shots of us whilst riding. I have been utterly blown away by the level of prefessionalism and support afforded to us during our days here in Santa Monica. The attention to detail has been absolute as we get used to our new gear and bikes and it has been such an eye opener to be a part of it all.

For me, K Swiss is a brand new experience,`and so I have been trying to get as much detail as I can regarding the shoes in particular. The range of footwear is large, and with more exciting models around the corner, there is a lot to learn, hence my expression! Again, note the hair being present!

For some reason, ‘team captain’ Chris Lieto had a set of clippers at the hotel, and he was determined to use them on us all. It was either have a short back and sides or lose it all …. i opted for the former. I’ll be finding a proper hairdresser asap.

My new race rig at the foot of one of the climbs we tackled on the ride today – an 11k monster off the Pacific Coast Highway favoured by a certain Lance when he is in the area apparently. It was a great climb – blew the cobwebs as we had a little playful competition – and the bike felt superb, which is a great indication of the fit.

One of the photoshoots we did yesterday – the ‘Brits’ as we were termed. It’s been lots of fun for sure. More to come…

triathlonteam.org – our biggest fan!

Fraser — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 08:48:46 +0000

Some light hearted fun here from a friend of Nikola, which I think each of us with a site associated with triathlonteam finds pretty entertaining (lack of Italian notwithstanding!) and uniqie!

Back page of The Herald by Doug Gillon

Fraser — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 20:37:49 +0000

The football season has finished and Wimbledon or the Ashes haven’t yet begun, so what is a sportsdesk to do?

Why, donate a whole page to a minority sport!

I was back page of The Herald newspaper by Doug Gillon today, which is a great bit of publicity for me, and triathlon as a whole here in Scotland.