At CES, I was walking by the Haier booth when who would call out my name but Hilary Crowley, my favourite booth girl from Interbike? She’s worked the bicycle trade show the past couple years for Bianchi. But she’s not all show and no go! She’s got plenty of racing cred on a bike, and in fact her team is sponsored by Bianchi. This year they’re running those special edition Bianchis in Ducati motorcycle team red colour.
Her carbon model is the same frame as the 928 T-Cube that I’ve been eyeing for myself. Myself, I have a serious jones for Bianchi’s traditional celeste paint, but last week Bianchi presented the new Barloworld team bikes. Those bikes are celeste with red accents, and I’d kill to get a 49cm frame. Hilary is working CES for Haier, a Chinese electronics manufacturer. They had a special edition laptop with Intel Core 2 Duo processor that was in that œfashion show on Tuesday. I would have preferred Hilary as the model for the Haier laptop, because (a) I know her (b) she’s got a nicer bike than me and (c) she’s not a guy. Male models always seem silly to me anyways. Hilary gave me some serious bike envy. She also gave me a friendly smooch. Did I mention she’s waaayyy better than the Haier runway model?
Update: The Bianchi rep just emailed me this image of the Barloworld Team bike.