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Book News: Free Press Publishing Book about Trek Founder and His Son

Written by Bikerumor Staff
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one last great thing freepress richard john burke trek bicyclesFree Press has announced publication in November 2012 of the book One Last Great Thing: A Story of a Father and a Son, a Story of a Life and a Legacy in both hardback and ebook format. The book is written by John Burke, current president of Trek Bicycle Corporation and son of Trek co-founder Richard “The Big Guy” Burke. The Big Guy called his son John his best friend, and they did many things together besides building Trek into a world leader in bicycles, such as run the Boston Marathon and attend the Tour de France.

The Big Guy was touched and loved by many, and before his passing away in 2008 due to complications from heart surgery in 2008, said he believed he was destined to do one last great thing. Son John has fulfilled that fate by writing this powerful, honest, and inspiring homage to his father, taking “readers deep into the history of Trek and his father’s role in the success of the company” and showing “how his father taught and trained him, and instilled in him the confidence and desire to be a leader.”

The hardback copy will retail for $19.99 in your favorite book store or will be available online through retailers such as Amazon. A portion of profits from sales of this book will be donated by John Burke to charity.
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animallover
animallover
12 years ago

Oh JB, you have such an ego and such a blind bunch of morons over there at Trek…

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Ajax
Ajax
12 years ago

I’m never ever going to buy a Trek. Thanks John Burke for being as a** and dropping the only bike brand from a man with twice the honor and integrity than yourself. That man is Greg Lemond.

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nate
nate
12 years ago

Wow! A little bitter guys?. A guy writes a book about the legacy his dad left (which is quite extensive by the way, scholarships at Marquette, extensive philanthropy in the Milwaukee area,,,not to mention Trek’s advocacy push) and all you can do is trash on him? It’s not like he wrote the thing overnight in response to the Lance debacle. Could Trek have handled things differently w/ Lemond? Absolutely. The flip side is, if you’re in a business relationship and you start trashing on your partners, they’re going to get pissed off and want you out of the arrangement.

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professed
professed
12 years ago

Sorry but never a Trek for me either. Trek treated Le Mond with such disrespect when all he was doing was exposing THE TRUTH.

Now its all out they hide and say they did nothing wrong?
Are they still sponsoring the biggest sporting drug pedaller of all time?

think about it….

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MaLóL
MaLóL
12 years ago

They destroyed Lemond bikes and also Gary Ficher and also Klein Bikes… These guys are just a bunch of a**holes, very clearly.

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Andrew
Andrew
12 years ago

Not sure the Kleins and Fishers were the same situation.

What would a Klein of today have to offer?

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Chris
Chris
12 years ago

Fisher is still a big part of the company, and probably compensated to do little more than travel and ride his bike, Klein financially benefitted, he said as much. LeMond effed himself when he undercut local dealers and sold the bikes to customs himself. NO dealer w going to continue selling his bikes when that got out. Ask yourself why all of Greg’s business ventures fail? Off the bike he can’t get out of his own way.

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King County
King County
12 years ago

Trek has horrible business practices. I hope they go out of business. From an industry standpoint, they are the worst company to get involved with.

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Mike C
Mike C
12 years ago

@professed “Are they still sponsoring the biggest sporting drug pedaller of all time?”

If you’re talking about Lance, no they dropped him Oct 17, two days ago… as announced by Trek and reported here on Bikerumor…

Gary Fisher is still part of the company, has his own line of bikes withing the Trek brand, The Gary Fisher collection, and as a result of the deal a couple years ago, is distributed in ten times the shops his bikes used to be. If you ask him, he’ll tell you he’s thrilled about the situation…

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Erich
Erich
12 years ago

Sweet, as we’re all drinking deep of the Haterade this morning, let me weigh in on a few things. First, this seems like the 100% wrong time to be releasing anything about Trek’s mythos, unless this is some weirdly-timed release to deflect attention from the Armstrong debacle.

Second, I will not be buying this book for any reason other than the fact that John Burke has all the personality of a houseplant. I don’t doubt his deep love and respect for his father, but every video and speech I ever saw him give at Trek-U or elsewhere were so profoundly vanilla that it’s hard to believe he’s not a robot. I mean, this is the humorless guy who requested we take down a silly, non-critical, Armstrong image meme off our shop blog. I’m not convinced he has any ability to tell an engaging or relatable story. He’s like a Mitt Romney who loves business AND, ostensibly, bikes.

Finally, to end it on an up note. I have heard countless stories about the kindness, humor and generosity of Dick Burke from people who knew him from the early days of Trek, right up until his death. Despite some complaints here, I disagree with assertion that Trek is bad to get into business with. I found them, especially their inside and outside reps, to be truthful, accommodating and easy to deal with. Then again, we were a huge Trek dealer with only 1 other major-ish line, so perhaps the story is different for mixed-line and smaller retailers. I’m out of the bike-selling angle of the business now, and frankly, I’ve never been happier.

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Erik
Erik
12 years ago

Trek have always treated me right. The chainstays broke on my Remedy and it was my fault and I was hoping they would offer me a crash replacement, but they got me a new frame free of charge. The local rep even called me a few weeks later and ask me how everything was. To me that was great. Specialized on the other hand when my fork and shock kept going out on my 09 Enduro……Never again!

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kyle
kyle
12 years ago

@MIke C, he was making the point that they dropped lance.

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MeroMasta
MeroMasta
12 years ago

There must be a sale on Haterade today.

Personally, I won’t buy the book. Just not that interested in the story.

As for all the “Trek dissed Greg Lemond” thing, seriously, read up on what happened. GL was buying A LOT of bike at his discounted price and turning around and selling them for less than the dealers were selling them for. That alone is grounds for terminating any business contract.

Then, when his brand wasn’t selling that well, because dealers weren’t buying his bikes due to him, he turns around and starts blaming LA for his problems. Of course he was right about LA, but wasn’t there rumors saying that GL also doped (especially after coming back from his near death experience)?

As someone above wrote, GL only has GL to blame for his bikes not being made anymore. Don’t blame Trek and their “horrible business practices” (I wonder what you would call Specialized’s practices), blame GL for not being self-destructive. If anything, Trek tried to work with GL as much as they could, even after GL sued them the first time. Trek is no saint, but come one guys, it’s nowhere near how you guys put it.

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Steve M
Steve M
12 years ago

A “portion” of the profits will go to charity? I suspect that will be a very very small number.

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Wes in VA
Wes in VA
11 years ago

Look, bag on Trek and how they treated Lance or Lemond all you want. Call John Burke names if you feel like it (he does indeed seem to possibly be a robot), but when it comes to saying something like “I suspect that will be a very very small number” (relating to how much of the book’s profits will go to charity), that’s baloney. Trek has poured a LOT of money into bike advocacy. $10 for every full suspension bike they sell goes to IMBA. $1 for every helmet goes to Bicycle Friendly Communities. They sponsor the IMBA Trail Care Crew. They’ve helped dealers attend the National Bike Summit. They’ve put their money where their mouth is when it comes to supporting cycling in every way to the tune of 100’s of thousands of dollars. I’ll wager that they’ve poured more money into bike advocacy than any company in the history of cycling, and way more than their closest competitors.

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