About Blue Marble...

Some of you have known us since the early years, when the offices were in our apartments, the bike workshop was the towpath of an industrial canal on the edge of Paris, and all trips, including Austria and Portugal, started and finished with train rides out from and back to Paris. The days before route sheets, back when we kept track of your travel projects by remembering to tell each other about them. Usually.

But Blue Marble has grown. Though most of the old names are still around in one connection or another, there are many new ones. So, allow us to introduce ourselves.



History...

Blue Marble was founded in 1986. Perhaps “evolved” would be a better word. Or “hatched.” And the date is somewhat artificial. We came up with the idea for the type of trip we run, and operated our first trial trips, in the early 80's. Conversely, the company was not incorporated until 1989. So there are a lot of different start dates, depending on how you define “start.” The first Biking Transcontinental itinerary under the Blue Marble name ran in 1986, however, so that seems as good a date as any.

Despite being relatively unknown to the travel industry or to other North American cycle trip outfitters (we do not target the usual clientele of wealthy 60-year-olds), we are one of North America's largest European bike trip outfitters. At least if you measure in rider-weeks. If you measure in revenue, the people charging $4,000 per 4-night "week" for the same trips are bigger.

Our marketing has always been our weak point, and remains so. In fact, it essentially relies on our regular riders telling other people about us. Nearly 3/4ths of our recent riders have been either alums or the friends they brought along. A note to you wonderful folk: please accept our heartfelt thanks! We don't like to sell ourselves, because we never know if the people we convince to go will find our trips right for them. When they don't, we feel terrible (plus, we have to listen to them whine). It is much more fun to go with people who know what they are getting into: you, and the friends who travel with you! We only hope that we can continue to bring you as much as you have brought us over the years....



About Us, Personally...

The Early Years

At the beginning, Blue Marble consisted of a few pioneering souls: Nicolas Clifford, Brigitte Bruneau, Ethan Gelber, and Jacqueline Sirven.

Nicolas grew up in Greenwich Village, New York, son of William Clifford, a wine journalist and sometime cookbook editor. He acquired an undergraduate degree in Economics, and then an MBA from Wharton with a specialty in Transportation Management, before abandoning civil society for the world of cycle travel. His current role at Blue Marble is logistics manager (he meshes the trips and the trains), and CFO (he refuses funding for the latest wacko idea from one of the others, so don't hold your breath on Ethan's “Sri Lanka Biking” project). He also leads trips: about 2 month's worth each year.

Ethan grew up on Manhattan's Upper West Side, in the era before that was a trendy place to be. He has an undergraduate degree from Yale, in a major of his own creation, “French Studies.” Most of what Ethan does falls into the category of “of his own creation.” He also got a master’s in diplomacy from Columbia, but it hasn't really helped. Ethan still leads trips when he feels like biking in Europe on a budget that permits him to eat. Otherwise, after a year in what's left of Sri Lanka, soaking up the local culture (no pun intended), he is now living sometimes in Australia, currently wintering in Maine, with spouse, Jane, and their bouncing baby boy, Rohan. He writes guidebooks (recent contracts were for “Lonely Planet”), consults for a variety of NGOs, and has a “day job” working for an Australian charity.... A busy, connected guy. He can be reached at: hub@bikeabout.org

Within the first few years of our existence, we were joined by two others: Padraic Kennedy, who first travelled with us as a rider, and has been doing so as a trip coordinator for over a decade since. Also Ron Kurtz (of the “full Ron”), who came home after his trip with us, married his sweetheart Carol at a Flintstones theme park, and opened our Canadian commercial office a year later, in 1992.

"Professor" Padraic

Padraic (his name is pronounced like Patrick: Padraic is the Irish spelling) started with Blue Marble as a rider, and realized mid-trip that he was better at running things than we were. So he started to do so the next year. In 2002 he married his longtime sweetheart, Alison. They became acquainted in 1995 on our Denmark trip, and the rest is (as they say) history. Appropriate enough, since Padraic holds a PhD in same, and is now a professor, teaching at York College. They are parents of two boys, Harry and Iain. He has long had a hand in our Austrian trips. Padraic can be reached at: bikepad@verizon.net

"Trip Coordinator" Padraic

Ron is an Anglo-Quebecer, born and raised in Montréal in a German family. He has an MBA from York University with a specialty in marketing. Ron has a real job outside of Blue Marble, and Carol does most of the day-to-day work in the Canadian office. She is from the Maritimes (New Brunswick, to be precise), and is a trained accountant. Which is why Brigitte, trained in Chinese, did our accounting, and Carol, trained in accounting, does marketing. If you haven't figured this out by now, Blue Marble has provided most of us a way to escape our destinies, which we were all manifestly trying to do. This is their wedding photo, dated 1991. Ron looks, er, “svelte” compared to more recent photos. Mysteriously, however, Carol still looks much the same. Ron & Carol have two boys: Connor, and Owen. They can be reached via our Canada office, canada@bluemarble.org.

There have been many other important names added over the years, and a number of introductions are in order. We'll make them by geographic location.


The U.S. Office (Ron and Carol are the Canadian Office)

Our U.S. office moved to downtown Philadelphia on April Fools Day, 2002. We had been in Morristown, New Jersey (a colonial town about an hour west of Manhattan), since 1994. Prior to 1994 in Portland, Maine; before that in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.... So this latest move could be described as returning to our Pennsylvania roots. But that would give us way too much credit for sentimentality. Let's just say we've gone mad for cheese steaks and scrapple, it sounds so much more reasonable.... And we are delighted to finally be in a place where you can get a good meal at midnight!

Laura Malone was the first full-time (solo) manager of the U.S. office, in Morristown. She grew up in a suburb of Chicago. Her professional background was in publishing (with an undergraduate degree in English and music), and later in computer programming (needed to make a living). She travelled with us on a trip in Spain in 1993, decided that the making-a-living-thing was overrated, and that we were more fun than computer programming. Unfortunately for her, we were so delighted to have someone who knew how to at least turn a computer on that she has been our I.T. person ever since. She and Nicolas were married in 1997, in a bar in New Orleans, before the city was given up to rising water and snakes. They claim that they were both sober at the time. Remarkably, witnesses do not dispute this account. They now have two daughters, Mathilde and Elise, born in 2004 and 2006, respectively. Laura can be reached at laura@bluemarble.org, and she consults her e.mail once a year, whether she has any messages or not.

Lesley Good joined us in the US office in 1997. She is British, but grew up largely in the Middle East and Africa. Prior jobs included assisting a famous rock photographer and being a field manager for the Girl Scouts. These positions did NOT require ANY of the same skills. And if they did, she is not talking. Lesley and husband, John, have a long-term goal of returning to (his) family roots in Arkansas, now that all four of their children have taken wing. They want the space to tend to a menagerie of pets (such as the late, great, Floyd the Potbellied Pig, pictured here). We thought the idea behind empty-nest moves was to escape a noisy home filled with chewed furniture and random food lying around....well, at least they'll need fewer phones. In the mean time, you will still come across her distinctive phone voice -- pending their move (mooted years ago now), she continues to keep things approximately moving in the U.S. office. Lesley can be reached at: lesleyag@msn.com.

“Be afraid. Be VERY afraid.”

Tim Suba is another of our multi-trip clients who was sucked in joined the Blue Marble team. His checkered past includes a stint as a beer truck driver in Far Rockaway (NYC), as an MBA student at Washington University's Olin School, and for more than a decade as some type of sales/marketing guy for Anheuser-Busch, Inc. (he claims to have been the model for the original Budman -- though he also claims to have invented the “question mark”). More recently he was some type of sales/marketing guy for Coca-Cola USA. He was lured back to the beverage world in '03, this time with Gambrinus (Corona), but continues to make “special guest star” appearances. His latest move involves more beverages, this time based in Colorado. Tim can be reached at: timsuba@aol.com.

The Paris Office

We opened our Paris office in 1992 (and installed heat in 1997). It occupies the ground floor of an old building in the center of the city, midway between the Louvre and the Pompidou Center, and within walking distance of both. Before 1992, we ran our trips out of an apartment rented for the purpose; a 6th floor walk-up next to the Pantheon, on the left bank. This became impractical as the number of people who needed to actually visit the place increased. It was also illegal, and our landlord was getting testy.

Our building is a national historic monument, because some of its bits are among the oldest stones in Paris. The foundations were probably laid in the 12th century. The basement, where many of the bikes are kept, was part of an old tunnel which lead from the Louvre (a royal palace at that time, not a museum) to a mansion in the Marais, the neighborhood adjacent ours to the east. A branch of the tunnel forked off in our basement, and lead under the Seine to an alternate escape hatch on the left bank -- one of the world's very first underwater tunnels! The building's ground floor, where our office is, dates from the 13th century, and the upper floors were rebuilt subsequently, probably in the 15th or the 16th.

Despite (or maybe because of) its age, the building is not particularly pretty: it was cheaply built as a hôtel de passe (the type of hotel where rooms rent by the hour). The neighborhood was one of the only ones to escape Baron Hausmann's reconstruction in the Napoleonic era, and it has always been (relatively) poor. Victor Hugo's “Court of Miracles,” vividly described in “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” as the epicenter of Paris' medieval squalor, is only three blocks away. Today the neighborhood is the last in Paris' historic center to still have a meaningful working class component, though it is gentrifying.

Michel Corvelyn, with us since 1997, is our “mechanical genius.” Once a semi-pro cycle racer (he has raced in such classics as the Paris - Roubaix and the Liège - Bastogne - Liège), he designs bike prototypes, which serve as models for the ones we have built for our trips. He is also our ace mechanic, and a craftsman of just about everything else, too. In fact, he has extensively and beautifully renovated the apartments we make available as rentals. He is also a very nice man, though his French is likely to be too fast and too colloquial for most of you. He is seen here with one of his creations, the Bike Chariot.

The Road Show

That leaves the trip coordinators. Tim, Padraic, Ethan and Nicolas have been previously introduced.

Richard Bankowitz had travelled as a passenger on our trips since 1997, visiting no fewer than 15 of our itineraries. He finally abandoned any semblence of trying to get any work done, gave up his day job (was that wise?), and signed on for an extended sabbatical leading trips in 2005. After a wonderful first summer, he promised to leave his career routinely, but we saw him only as a passenger in ‘06 and ‘07. '08, Richard? An east coaster originally, more recently from Chicago, Richard moved to Philadelphia in 2006 (as all good people eventually do), to be closer to our glass and steel headquarters. Besides being an MD, he has an MBA, a certificate in advanced feng shui, and an affinity for eastern philosophy (not to mention Austrian white wines). He speaks versions of French, Italian and German which invariably astound the locals. Notwithstanding rumors to the contrary, he is neither a Hapsburg heir, nor a serious candidate for the presidency. He can be reached at bankowitz@rcn.com.

Jeff Kralik has a past career as a teacher, of French and of history, and a sometime basketball coach. He is also an amateur cycle racer, and an amateur German speaker. He, too, now lives in Philadelphia, where he is attending U. Penn as a grad student and TA in “something involving linguistics,” and working for the foundation that funds his studies. He is otherwise supported by his son Nathan, born in 2003, with help from wife Tammy (a doctor at Children’s Hospital). He has been leading trips with us since 1994, and tries to get in a few a year. He is also co-responsible, with Laura, for the design of the famous Blue Marble biking jersey. He can be reached at jkralik@dolphin.upenn.edu, and is happy to discuss sponsorship deals for future jersey runs.

Carlos Correa joined us in 2005, leading trips in France, Switzerland, and Italy. He has since added Spain and Portugal to the mix, which makes some intuitive sense when your realize his native language is Spanish. We’re surprised we didn’t think of it sooner! When not on the bike, he can be found working on his PhD in Economics (sustainable development, broadly speaking) in New York City. Married his favorite Blue Marble guest, Karen Moscow in 2007, and Carlos Jr. is expected before the start of the '08 season! A native Colombian, Carlos entered the world of bicycle touring with 3 years of bike instruction, an impressive fluency in three languages, and experience as an Ultimate Frisbee competitor under his belt. And the prerequisite: an “appreciation of a well-prepared meal with a cup of wine....”

Kevin Little is a biomedical researcher in Montréal, though when we met him he was working as a bartender in a Dublin pub. He had the good sense to initially hide from us that he was not a total goof -- we only found out about his PhD aspirations once it was too late. He's currently living in New Zealand with wife Claude and daughters, Clara and Leonie, “playing at being a researcher.” He speaks good French, and Italian, and has been with us in three seasons. Kevin can be reached at: kevin.little@mail.mcgill.ca

Jed Buckner is, well, Jed Buckner. A Colorado mountain town type, he climbs rocks and cycles up Rockies for fun (?!). Somehow managed to pick up Spanish, French, Portuguese and Italian along the way. He worked with us full-time for two seasons, then moved to the North Shore of Maui, Hawaii, where he and his wife ran a B&B. They got the important work done: teaching their three children (including a pair of twins) to surf. Then they moved back to Colorado, and are filling ATM machines in the Rockies. Jed can be reached at: jedjustjed@yahoo.com

Sue Sterling hails from Toronto, leads trips for us in French, German and Italian, and has in the past helped out in the Paris office. She has had a host of jobs with the underlying theme of “using languages,” and did so with us for two seasons. In recent years, Sue’s “day job” has involved representing a winery back in Canada. She comes to visit periodically with samples :-). Sue can be reached at: ss925@rogers.com

Break Battlee (the misspelling is intentional — he doesn't want to come up on Google, for fear of being associated with us) is Australian. He came to us in 1999 via Canada, where he was studying snow -- um, French -- at the Université de Chicoutimi. He has run trips in Spanish, French, Italian and Danish, the last of which he does not actually speak. But then his English also leaves something to be desired, so we take what we can get. Brek is commonly agreed to be one of the nicest people on the planet. We're not sure what he does in the off-season -- we suspect that he operates a chain of bordellos, but the jury is still out...

Lyn Donelson wanted to be a professional wrestler at one time, his inspiration being the late great Ravishing Rick Rude, but around the age of 8 he discovered his real passion in life was bass fishing. His long term career goals resembled hosting his own Sunday morning fishing show, alongside the likes of Babe Winkleman and Al Linder. Which in hindsight, he says, was completely ridiculous and unrealistic, which is why he came to work at Blue Marble. His stories of wild adventures in sexy places are usually true but often exaggerated, a skill he learned growing up in Iowa where hog futures and corn yield aren't the only things discussed around the grain elevator or livestock sale barn. He can be reached at: lyndonelson@yahoo.com.

Jimi Thomson is Canadian (born in one of the frozen prairie provinces, but beat a hasty retreat to BC a while ago). More recently, he has been a resident of the Swiss and French Alps, the only place in Europe where he can experience that biting Winnipeg wind he so loves. Jimi has worked as a professional ski guide for over 10 years (and still has this as a sometime winter occupation). He has been with us since 1999, during which time he has managed to become best friends with every single person in Tuscany. Only been arrested and expelled from one country during this stint. Jimi can be reached at: jimithomson@hotmail.com

Chris Barrett stumbled into Blue Marble's Paris office in 2007, hunting dirt to worship and trees to hug around French organic farms. He failed, but hours later was collecting bicycles by the Spanish Atlantic and, before catching his breath, was running over small children with a baggage trolley in Domodossola. Rumor has it he's been globetrotting recently, but we assume he is just lost, avoiding a career in his studied international trade politics. We guess he's currently somewhere between his native Australia and any number of distant lands, but remains contactable via email: chrisabarrett@hotmail.com

For two seasons our support and logistics were handled by a Baggage Master extraordinaire, Tony Gentry. Discussing his work, he once laconically commented, “There's easier ways to kill a man [sic].” He speaks in a North Carolina drawl remarkable for the fact that it reduces his word-per-minute count to about 3. He was a water sports instructor at a resort in Saipan, then went to Japan to hunt down a Japanese celebrity to whom resort visitors were sure he was related. Sounds like “stalking” to us.... He has since taught English there (and, more remarkably, French, which he is still trying to learn himself). He has also worked as a bouncer for the Japanese mafia, whom he described as only slightly less dangerous than his girlfriend. We love seeing Tony, who continues to put in appearances when he needs a Europe fix. And we always wish him the best of luck, though he seems to make his own. Perhaps his language students will need it more: they may wind up as the only Japanese English speakers with precisely that accent. There is no risk that they will ever learn French.... Tony's e-mail is: tonygentry@hotmail.com.

No list would be complete without mentioning Ross Dukes, who established the “Baggage Boy” (his title) position some years back (“Baggage Master” is the official title). It is quite rationally the most highly-paid at Blue Marble. A little like Michel, Ross can do anything, or at least is willing to try. A big guy from Sault Ste-Marie, Canadian side, Ross can eat several half chickens or carry 8 suitcases with equal ease. Ross was most recently spotted working on the Algoma Central Railway as a short-order cook. He didn't seem to be quite sure why, and none of us know where the Algoma Central goes. All the same, since he created the Baggage Master position, we will always fondly associate it with him.

There are others, but these are the ones you are most likely to come across, so we'll spare you the details.

Some of us in the doorway of the Paris office. From left:

Brek, Sue, Tony, Brigitte, Michel, Nicolas, Jacqueline, Laura