If you can imagine a chocoholic spending a week in Hershey, PA, that was my experience at Interbike. (Actually, Hershey could be a good trip for me, too. Watch for a blog on that someday.) Not only is Interbike a great opportunity to network, speak with potential sponsors, and catch up with current sponsors, it’s a great place to drool and gawk. And I did my share of all of it.
I flew up on Tuesday with the Trisports.com crew and went straight to the Outdoor Demo. This is where Hershey lines up everything they make and you get to taste it. (Man, I really need to get to PA.) I brought my MTB shoes and helmet and got in a good workout on some of the latest bikes yet to hit the market, including 29er hardtails, 5” travel trail bikes, and most everything in between. I got to join up and ride with good friend and fellow coach Trevor Glavin. I could finally beat Trevor up the climb on our last circuit. Ok, he was on a 9” travel, 40+ pound DH bike, but I didn’t hold that against him. Bootleg Canyon is a great place to ride.
Wednesday was the start of the actual Interbike show at the Sands Convention Center in Las Vegas. This is where vendors showed off all the new 2010 stuff and the changes in their lines. Lots of new stuff out there: Zipp’s new Super-9 disk yields aerodynamic and stiffness increases over their standard and sub-9 disks. Check out the CycleOps Joule computer that works with PowerTap. Hammer Nutrition is coming out with a new gel flavor—Montana Huckleberry. Wow! Get your hands on some. Litespeed has carbon now! SRAM’s new XX mountain groupset leaves everything else out there in the dust, quite literally. And TYR now has a wetsuit to add to its unbelievable Sayonara speedsuit.
Genuine Innovations, GEC’s camp sag sponsor for CO2, was there celebrating 20yrs in the industry. Marty, the head cheese there, is not only a super-fast cyclist and triathlete, but is genuinely one of the nicest guys in the world. That they make the best inflation products in the world is a bonus.
Jill flew in on Thursday and we finished the week in vacation mode. I needed the vacation after that week, and we had a great time.
Brian
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