The bicycle industry’s epically huge, fluorescently lit, yearly hype-fest is an assault on the senses.
That’s Jim’s pull quote from the show and like him I struggled to spend more than 2 hours at a time walking the floor. Interbike oversold the event in a new venue and crammed as many booths into it as possible with spillover tented in the Mandalay Bay parking lot. The sensory processing disorder I experienced, only stopped when I left the convention center or a food bill got my attention for being, “Really that much for breakfast? Really?!!”
For vendors and retailers, it was a success. But for the media an exercise in what Tim Gunn would say, “Edit,” to find a relevant story. Rather than fill SD cards with gigs of shiny bike things, I focused on a few new products, CrossVegas, and the Mobile Social.
At the cross race, Jim and I shot together and he learned to not wear jeans to such an event. The joy in seeing CrossVegas for the first time almost made the chafing tolerable, he declared as the night wound down. Almost.
Click through to Wired for Jim’s take on fat, gravel, and cross. We agreed that Steve Hed’s bike was one of the most interesting. While Bike Hugger doesn’t have awards, it was the best in show by far.
I have an interview with Steve about that bike and will share it later this week with more of what I liked.
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