Whew! I am fried to a crisp. The "real" show started yesterday, w/ about a gazillion ShopFolk crowdin'[ into the Sands Expo Center to wander the vast expanse of new bike goodness. I had appointments w/ Seven Cycles (who is actually shipping their amazing new carbon bikes) and Pearl Izumi and spent the rest of the day trying to systematically covering the literlayy hundreds of booths chock-fulla bikestuff madness. Pearl has trimmed down their line, re-done the chamois' in their shorts (again!) and the colors looked great. I looked @ Craft and Endura stuff as well........sinc ei'm seriously considering replacing Castelli as our main PI alternative. I looked at so much stuff it'll take me 3 days of mental downloading and messenger bag unloading to get a handle on. I talked to Titus, Ellesworth and Intense today, as the search for a new high-end MTN bike line continues. I met w/ Rolf and Mavic as well and musta talked to 25 other representatives at booths large and small.
As we don't invision major changes in the shops' list o' wares for '08 my main focus was to try and see everything and find some cool stuff. The list of potential cool stuff was a little shorter that in years past....not sure if that's me or the industry....but fear not - there will be things to talk about when I get back to the shop!
Fav Racer Danielle, her husband Scott, Betsy-from-QBP and I grabbed some dinner @ my fav mex place here in town (it's along the canel in Venice, 'natch!) and then headed out to the big "Cross Vegas " race last night. Man........100 pro 'cross racers battlin' it out under the lights and the full moon w/ Elvis and beer and burritos and rock-n-roll and a buncha bike fools whoopin' it up and ringing cowbells! What a hoot! There's a big crit tonight but it's 4-5 miles down the strip from my hotel, I'm low on taxi-cash and I hafta get up @ 4:00am to cathc my plane so...............maybe not, eh?
So, another Interbike in the rear view. I have no idea how many this makes.......maybe 15-20? It's still so cool to see how vital the industry is, but there is a little fatigue in my gut over the silly posturing of the various "cliques"........it seems that 90 % of the folks here were either flying the colors of the "Messenger Dudes" the "Freeride Tribe", the 'Serious Roadie" or the "BMX Rat". Just normal folk that love bikes seemed to be in the minority.
Maybe it's just cause those folks don't have a uniform, huh?
Anyway...........stop by the shop startin' on Saturday and I'll have lotsa catalogs and pix of new stuff.
Man.........I need to go for a ride!
MC
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