September
28, 1999
... Convinced that America's
children have suffered enough from scraped knees and bad
teachers, Joules invented a teaching method that parents
swear by. But in a corporate twist that will send the
conspiracy theorists into a frenzy, major bike
manufacturers have so far rejected Joules' attempts to
distribute his patented instructional video, "Pedal
Magic."
The reason? Deathly fear of a
worldwide drop in training wheel sales.
"Reginald's video is quite
impressive, and it's very effective," said a
merchandising executive with Bell Sports, which sells
millions of helmets and bike accessories each year. The
executive loved "Pedal Magic," and fellow
employees at the company used it to teach their children
how to ride in a matter of minutes. Then the executive,
who asked not to be named, showed it to the wrong division
of the company.
"We sell sets of training
wheels into the seven figures," he said.
"Everything in that video would be contradictory to
selling training wheels. The people in that division told
me I should burn the tape."
... Showing around his video was
something like showing the oil industry a car that never
needs fuel, or showing Microsoft a computer that runs
without software ... Skeptics should know the system is
not some ethereal New Age confidence-builder -- winning a
U.S. patent involved proving Joules was relying on
scientific principles of operant conditioning, centripetal
force, probability theory...
May 11, 2000
... Last fall, I wrote about
Reginald Joules and his promising system for teaching kids
to ride bikes without the familial frustration that has
parents yelling and children crying -- and vice versa --
for decades. But at the time his "Pedal Magic"
method was merely an abstract concept endorsed by
others...
After watching the Pedal Magic
video and mastering Joules' patented system for learning
balance, this week she became the terror of central Denver
parking lots in a matter of minutes, and without the
customary tears or helmet tossings.
Our experience matched that of
many Pedal Magic buyers who have tried the method and
written in to rave about it after reading about Joules in
The Post last year...
Last year, Joules was still
having trouble finding mass-market outlets for his video.
Bicycle manufacturing executives said his ideas worked
well but that the $20 video threatened their millions of
dollars in sales of training wheels...
Self-Propulsion owner Portia
Masterson said Joules' retail and Internet sales are
growing each year through terrific word of mouth.
"I've seen the openness to using the video
increase," she said...
The latest success at Masterson's
store was an 8-year-old girl who was very athletic but
afraid of riding a bike. Using the video, Masterson said,
the girl learned in one morning and rode 12 miles with her
father the same day... |
