First, our apologies for the extended quiet period. For those of you who have been following us over the past year, you know that it's not like us to be so quiet for so long. Well, earlier this week some great news was announced that will hopefully help explain our silence:Garmin® acquires MetriGear, adding cycling power to fitness portfolio.You can access Garmin's press release
here. The decision to join the Garmin team was not a difficult one for us. Garmin brings incredible capabilities to the table and ensures that Vector will be delivered to market as we originally conceived: an easy-to-own and accurate power meter with the capability to offer unique insights to cyclists.
And while this path is clearly different than our original startup intent of building a company from the ground up, we now know that Vector has the ability to reach cyclists throughout the world in a way that we could never have achieved on our own. There was a moment of pause as we took in the gravity of the decision, but then smiles and whiteboard sessions quickly took over as we began to imagine all of the possibilities and long-term potential with the Vector platform as part of Garmin's fitness portfolio.
If you're reading this, chances are you've been supporting us from the sidelines for some time. It would be difficult to overstate our gratitude for your encouragement and enthusiasm. The emails and inquiries are often hilarious (intentionally, we believe!). They get passed around our team and offer great amusement as well as that extra boost of confidence that we sometimes need. Many of you know that this is a pretty complex product. We won't bore you with the details, but suffice it to say that it rivals the most complex stuff we (and some of our technology partners) have ever worked on. One of our favorite coded phrases that we use when we're wrestling with a particularly vexing issue is: "If it was easy...", meaning that if it was, it would have been launched a long time ago by another company, so just get on with it. But Vector is measuring forces as we expect, and when delivered by Garmin, it is going to be a solution that we all want to ride/race/train with and we'll have the confidence that a world-class company stands behind the product.
We just arrived back in the Bay Area from Interbike, where we spent a few days in our new employer's booth. We joked that the MetriGear Interbike booth this year was a "micro booth" - a small plastic box that fits nicely in our pocket and displays the multiple versions of improvements that we've made in our sensor system over the past year. Prep for a micro booth is a dream - all we had to do was wait for the glue gun to heat up! The response to a Garmin Vector at Interbike helped confirm that it will fit seamlessly into the Garmin fitness product portfolio.
We honestly wouldn't be sharing this news today if you hadn't raised your voice, typed that email, sent that Tweet, and told us that we were working on something that you were interested in checking out. Thank you. While it's too early to talk about the timing of a release for Vector, you can be sure that we are working as hard as ever to deliver with an expanded and amazingly capable group of people.
We hope to continue the dialogue and keep you updated along the way. How and in what way, we haven't quite figured out yet. But for now, it's time to get back to work on the Garmin Vector!
Thanks again.
Formerly, the MetriGear Team, and now proud members of the Garmin Team
