Here's something to think about:
If you're reading this at home, there's a good chance you're currently barefoot. The average, un-socked foot clocks in at about 94 degrees. With shoes and socks on, the dogs push the mercury upward another 20 degrees. During exercise, the number skyrockets, which creates an ideal feeding ground for two trillion bacteria, or about 12 percent of all the bacteria on your body.
If you wish to go take a shower before continuing on with this post, please feel free to do so.
Oh, and one other tidbit. The average person's feet produce a quarter of a cup of sweat every day. And that's without factoring in exercise.
Considering all this information, it would take a different kind of person to feel comfortable introducing him or herself as a champion of feet. Leading the revolution (and proud of it!) of how we treat our feet is Michael Foley, president of SockGuy, a company you have probably come across if you're at all serious about cycling. SockGuy makes all sorts of fun and creative designs for socks, several of which can be found in our catalog, so you know they must be good. They knocked our (old, stinky, boring) socks off!
Don't worry, Foley was a normal enough kid, dreaming of one day suiting up for an NFL team, as kids tend to do. On second thought, maybe that was just an early warning sign of things to come, you know, being drawn to sport called football.
And before he got into the business of socks, he founded BIKE magazine in 1993, which he saw grow into one of the most popular cycling magazines on the market before selling it in 1998. Must be pretty cool to be your own boss for most of your career.
"It's a challenge and a thrill to create something and then see where that can take you," said Foley in an e-mail interview. "Owning your own company is very exciting when it works. BUT it's also very stressful along the way. Building a successful company is like anything else, there are really good things about it and stressful things about it but overall I wouldn't have it any other way."
The idea for SockGuy actually came during Foley's early days at BIKE. For one of their first promotions, they sent out custom BIKE magazine socks, which ended up being a huge hit with advertisers and subscribers. "I knew that we had tapped into something with these fun but high quality, technical socks," said Foley. When BIKE was sold to a larger publishing company, Foley wanted a new startup project to work on, so he bought a tiny little sock company and started turning it into something real.
So where does one draw the line between a craze and a fetish for socks? Foley and his company have been tiptoeing that line for several years now, with plans to continue full steam ahead. "Everyone has a sock fetish today and were having a lot of fun feeding that fetish," said Foley. "The crazier the sock design the better it sells, or so it seems. We haven't even produced half the sock designs that we have completed in our design meetings yet."
Even if they do run out of design ideas, Foley notes the steady stream of suggestions from the company's loyal customers. "It's really fun and satisfying to make something thats been so well received by serious athletes and weekend warriors alike," he adds.
Although he doesn't have as much time as he would like for his mountain bike nowadays, Foley still hits the gym with his wife and has almost as much fun watching their 16-year-old son play sports as he did when he played them. He also recently began hiking and fits in a round of golf every now and then. His real passion, and this should come as no surprise, is socks.
"I know that sounds crazy," Foley says, "but if you're not passionate about what you do then you need to do something else." The commitment he and his company have to developing the best socks on the planet and the belief they share in their product has kept them at the forefront of an extremely competitive market.
So what's next in the world of socks? A sock with memory, believe it or not, he notes. "Ultimately it's about designing a sock with more comfort, better fit, and better performance for the high-end user. That's the goal. To create a sock that fits your individual foot perfectly and then remembers that fit to reduce foot fatigue and blisters."
Awesome! To go along with my previous post, now we'll have one less thing to complain about. And we'll look good, too! We at Terry hereby announce that we are joining Michael to, as he puts it, "not rest until everyone knows that their feet deserve better!"
Tailwinds,
Georgena
talktous@terrybicycles.com
www.terrybicycles.com