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Was up at the Tour of California on Saturday and noticed t-shirts with “Let Levi Ride” on them for the first time. Also saw them on display at my local bike shop on Sunday. Now, all issues of right or wrong, guilt or innocence aside, I love BikeSnobNYC’s observation (as always, tongue in cheek) that the Let Levi Ride campaign ought actually be for Levi’s teammate, Alberto Contador - the guy that actually won the Tour de France. I’ve got nothing against the guy, but why focus on the third place finisher, right?

If an online petition can actually have an effect on the ASO’s decision, isn’t the real injustice leaving the winner out?

(If you’ve never checked out the BikeSnob blog before, it’s definitely worth a visit. And with upwards of 100(!) comments to each of his almost daily posts, I’m not the only one who feels that way. Bring your sense of humor.)

Just heard the unfortunate news from someone on the rec.bicycles.tech newsgroup that Duke’s Cycle of Toronto was one of several businesses whose buildings were left gutted by a large fire that broke out early this morning. This is truly a great loss for the Toronto cyclists as Duke’s was a fixture in the community since 1914 under the same family ownership. I believe they were recently listed in Bicycle Retailer as one of the oldest bike shops in North America.

Duke’s was - and hopefully will return as - a premier bicycle shop. They are good people and I fondly remember dealing with them when I worked for a previous employer of mine. I missed an opportunity to visit the shop the last time I was in Toronto for business a few years ago.

Duke’s bike lines include Cannondale, Cervelo, Trek, Specialized and Kona.

I’m sure there will be some difficult times ahead for the owners and employees of Duke’s and we wish them nothing but the best at this challenging moment for this member of the industry family.

Ross Kerber, a journalist for the Boston Globe and fellow cyclist, wrote a nice obituary for Sheldon Brown that ran on Friday the 8th. I provides a good brief biography of the man and has a some fun tid-bits from Sheldon such as the one where he claimed that “Maoists” had purged him from the The Bicycle Repair Collective in Cambridge that he co-founded back in the 70’s.

It’s definitely worth the read and it is very satisfying that a big city paper like the Globe would dedicate the space to this “spine of the industry,” as Richard Fries is quoted as calling him in the piece. A lot of credit goes to Ross for this. I had the pleasure of riding the Tour of Lake Mead with him and a few others at the ‘07 Interbike and he truly is a friend of the industry and just as much of a bike nut as we are.

The article is titled “Homespun Wisdom.”

Just heard the sad news that bike community treasure Sheldon Brown passed away last night. He will be missed by scores of bikers, but he leaves quite a legacy behind online that will continue to inform and entertain cyclists everywhere.

Sheldon and me at Interbike 2007 after his interview.

I had the pleasure of meeting Sheldon at the 2007 Interbike for the first time. I had spoken to him before on the phone a few times over the years when I had a technical bike question and he was always very nice. Opinionated, to be sure, but nice. We both had a connection to Harris Cyclery: he famously worked there and they were my local bike shop and sponsored the team that I began bike racing with back in the early 90’s.

Leading up to Interbike 2007, one of my many responsibilities was lining up guests for our “Good Morning Interbike” show filmed in the Media Center and broadcast live over at the main Interbike website. GMI was fashioned after your typical morning news/talk show and had some recaps/previews of Interbike events and happenings and interviews with interesting industry folks.

I came up with the idea to have Sheldon on when I was doing some shop visits in the Boston area last Summer after Pedro’s Fest. Since I hadn’t been back to Harris since the mid-90’s, I made a point of stopping by. Sheldon would make the perfect guest, I thought to myself. He’s interesting, opinionated, loved by thousands of cyclists, and not too many people had had a chance to meet the man or hear him talk. An interview would be a great opportunity for people to get to know what the man himself - the man behind Sheldonbrown.com - was like.

The interview was great. Richard Fries, the host of GMI, knew Sheldon well, being a fellow New Englander, and had some fun with him. Richard had come up with the idea of playing a game with the last guest each morning called “Dead or Alive” where he would throw out ten bike-related topics and ask them to rate them dead or alive. Stuff like fixed-gear bikes, 29″ mountain bikes, road bikes, pro road racing, etc. As you can imagine, Sheldon was quick to opine on each. The photo below was his reaction to one such topic that he felt especially passionate about.

“3-speed internal hubs? Alive!!”

So where’s the video of this great segment, you ask? Well, I’m embarrassed to say that we had some challenges with some of the footage we shot at IB including, unfortunately, the GMI segment with Sheldon. Other priorities came up in the meantime, and getting it finished got pushed down the to-do list. Of course, now I will try to get that piece finished and get it posted as soon as possible. Stay tuned.. I’ll post when it’s ready. (To see the Day 2 episode of GMI which includes a Dead or Alive segment with with Sky Yeager and Tim Parr of Swobo, click here.)

Our thoughts here at Interbike go out to Sheldon and his family today. Thanks for sharing him with the rest of us!

Well, it’s official: we’ve formally announced plans for an OutDoor Demo on the East Coast in Providence, Rhode Island this coming October. Details are still forthcoming, but the basics are that it will be held at Roger Williams Park just south of downtown Providence.

The press release says just about all there is to say at this point, but I just wanted to add a few thoughts. It’s also a great excuse for a blog post…

As a former New Englander myself (Southern Connecticut native with 6 years spent in Worcester-Boston areas), I’m really glad that we have an event that will provide an opportunity to showcase some of the awesome regional bike culture that exists back east. I’m sure that there will be a bunch of great ideas for peripheral events during that week of the Demo. I’ve already heard talk of a cross race.

One event that you’ll read about in the press release that will not be happening - at least this first year - is a consumer demo day. The possibility of a consumer day at any of the Interbike events always generates alot of excitement and discussion, but we really feel that we need to fully serve the needs of the industry first before we try to open things up to the end users of all this great gear that we showcase. Key ingredients of this decision were both formal and informal surveys of manufacturers and retailers that did not give us a strong consensus that a consumer day was important or demanded at this point. Given the enormous additional logistical and infrastructure needs that having a consumer day would place on us and exhibitors to implement successfully, we decided to get through the first year as a trade-only event.

David Bernstein’s most recent edition of The Spokesmen industry podcast had an interesting discussion of the possibility of an ODD East just before the holidays. At that point it was just a small news item in BR&IN that mentioned that we were looking into the possibility. It’s fun to listen to them talk about Interbike and the stuff we’re doing.  They bounced around the pros and cons as they each saw them from their points of view in the industry.

The main thing to remember in all this is that our goal with this new event is to serve the needs of the East coast retailers by having an event in the OutDoor Demo mold as close to their backyards as possible. Vegas is really a suburb of Southern California so a shop can just fill a car full of staffers to drive to Interbike pretty easily. We hope that ODD East will make it easier for Northeast and Mid-Atlantic shops to give their staffs the same opportunities to see, ride, network and learn at an Interbike event.

Being Vegas, it was bound to happen. I should also not downplay the level of passion us bike people have this industry - this community - that we are a part of. I’ve met some of my best friends through cycling. Heck I even my wife on a training ride!

And being that Interbike is our largest gathering as a group, why not get married there? What better place is there to celebrate your happiest day than among 23,000 of your brothers in wheels?

So here it is, folks. On the night of day two of this past Interbike, Beth Reed and John Walton of Davis Wheel Works in Davis California got married. And not just during Interbike, but right there on the floor of the show in the Cervelo booth.

They wanted to be married in Las Vegas and being in the bike business, the though of being hitched at Interbike seemed an inspired idea. John’s associate at Davis Wheel Works, Kevin Gilley, a recently ordained Minister dressed in an Elvis outfit presided over ceremony.

As Cervélo dealers they requested to exchange their vows in Cervelo’s booth. Notable at the event were the couple’s “bridesmaids” which included: Gerard Vroomen and Phil White co-founders of Cervélo, Anthony McCrossin, on-air host of Cycling.TV, and a bevy of other Cervelo sales “beauties” to give the young couple the proper send-off. Check out the lovely dresses… Looks like they really had some fun with the event.

I heard from Anthony that the minister introduced the new married couple with words to the effect of “in the name of Merckx, Coppi, LeMond and Cipollini, I now pronounce you husband and wife.” How awesome is that?

And, of course, the camera crew from CTV was there to capture the happy moment. Click the image above or here to see the video.

On behalf of Interbike and the entire bike industry in attendance, I would like to wish the two of them all the best in their new life together. And as Greg LeMond signed on my Team Z jersey at the show, “Tailwinds forever!”

So here’s who’s showing up the booth as I write for this morning’s show:

Sky Yaeger and Tim Parr from Swobo. Fausto Pinarello of, um, Pinarello. Ned Overend representing Specialized. Axel Merckx is on his way, too.

At 9am for an extended edition of GMI, I have planned Jonathan Vaughters, Greg LeMond and then Mario Cipollini and Max Lelli.

Should be fun. Starts live at 8:30 Pacific time.

No time for photos tonight. I’m too tired after the long day (and night) to download the pictures off the camera and resize them and upload them tonight. I got some great ones, so I will definitely get to them.

Today was day one of the indoor tradeshow. We had the Bikes Belong-Interbike Koffee reception this morning. Gave away 1,000 stainless travel mugs (not disposable!) this morning. I hope someone saved one for me since I was in the Media Center for the beginning of programming there.

The first program each morning in Good Morning Interbike. We managed to line up all the guests for all 3 days ahead of time this year so I wouldn’t have to tackle people in the aisles and drag them over to booth 5175. This morning we had Sheldon Brown, Tim Rutledge of Redline Bicycles, and Mike Sinyard, founder and president of Specialized lined up. Mike was set to be the person who would open up the show with a countdown to the doors opening.

Everything’s all set with our Cycling.TV crew (all AWESOME guys, by the way) when 5 minutes till we go live, their distribution amp died. I didn’t know what one was, but now I do. Without one of them, the signal can’t get out to all the monitors we had throughout the show and lobby areas. We managed to get the live Internet stream working, but no one at the show could see us. Arrgh! We started the show late and did the show as normal with the countdown, but it lost it’s impact without the signal to the screens for retailers out in the lobby waiting to get in and in line getting their badges.

We go thigs straightened out about an hour later, but the damage was done. We still had a great day in the MC, but it wasn’t perfect.

Retailers showed up in droves and attendance numbers for the first day are up across the board over last year. And last year was up over the previous year. That made me fell better. Most importantly, the vibe was great. Lots of happy retailers and manufacturers.

Saw the usual cast of celebrities. Since I was walking around with James, a Cycling.TV cameraman, capturing video highlights of the show, I got to meet and interview a bunch of celebs including Dave Mirra, Magnus Backstedt, Nelson Vails, Stuart O’Grady, Alberto Contador and Gary Fisher, among others. All of them were really friendly and happy about being in town. Good people, these cyclists…

Other media companies’ programs in the Media Center had more celebs. I managed to catch Levi Leipheimer, Tom Danielson, and Steve Hegg on the couch in the MC.

Around 5pm I did a quick interview with the guys from BicycleRadio.com about how the show was going. They were camped out in the “lounge” area of the MC doing a special broadcast of their show. It’s different than the typical online bike shows. You should give Sean and the guys a listen.

It’s getting late. Wait a minute, it IS late (12:21am), so I have to wrap up. Before I go, I HAVE to mention Cross Vegas. Wow. What an event. The venue was in a soccer complex and was mostly hard grass fields with rolling hills and some paved paths. It was a really fast course. It seemed like half the Interbike attendees were out cheering on the racers and brought a party attitude. It was packed and everyone was having a great time. The guys at DBC that organized the race did, I think, a flawless job: great venue, great announcers (Richard Fries and Dave Towle), entertainment (Elvis held the lap cards and sang “Viva Cross Vegas” between the men’s and women’s races, and very strong fields of racers. A VERY welcome addition to Interbike week, if I may say so myself. Hats off to Chris and Brook and their team! And, I wan to add that an audience made up entirely of bike industry people makes for an electric atmosphere ate a bike race, let me tell you.
I guess against our better judgment, following the race, we decided to hit the famous Sinclair Imports party at the Mirage. It was a new venue at the Jet nightclub and was packed. It’s an invite only party that most of the Interbike celebrities show up to. The line was long, but our passes (we’re Interbike, after all) got us right in.

One surprise to most people at the party was the presence of a one Mario Cipollini. Not surprisingly, he was surrounded by a circle of women on the dance floor. He hasn’t made an appearance at the show yet, so this is the first sighting. I’ve been working with his partners at Max Lelli Bikes for a week or so on some promo stuff for him at the show, so I had the rare opportunity to act like a big shot and walk right up to his group and have them know who I was. I chatted with them for a bit about their time in the Media Center on Thursday morning and was introduced to Mario. “Hello, Rich. Nice to meet you.” he said. We’ll all get to see more of him tomorrow at about 9:30 for an interview in the MC and then in a presentation for his friend, and former pro himself, Max Lelli’s new bike line.

You should be able to catch it live on our website. If all goes well with our
technology, that is.

BTW, we have been having a slow go at encoding all our shows and highlight videos at the end of each day because of the busy schedule in the MC. The gear and crew have been focussed on recording and editing. Be patient because we got tons of great footage from the Demo and day one! It may be slow to get up, but it will be quality.

Cheers! See you on day two at the Sands!

Wow. I love Interbike. Yeah, yeah. I’m paid to say that. But it’s true. I’ve met so many great bike people in these 2 days of OutDoor Demo (not “Dirt” Demo anymore, guys) that I just met and that I’ve known for a while. There’s just a great vibe, energy and passion at Bootleg Canyon. Bike people = good people.

Trying to keep up the daily posts during the show. Just some quick snippets from my perspective as I walked the show with the guys from Cycling.TV filming highlights and interviews with product managers and athletes.

I brought my camera on the Tour of Lake Mead ride this morning, but was so busy trying to hang on to the lead group that I couldn’t use until the turnaround/rest spot (here you see 2 riders in front of the Mavic neutral support vehicle that looked after us today. That’s Lake Meda in the backgorund). 298 riders participated. I have to admit that I was dropped on the 6 mile descent from Bootleg Canyon to Lake Mead park. I could blame the compact drive crank on my Masi 3v, but, no, it was all me. Oh, and Wayne Stetina of Shimano and Max Lelli, ‘97 Corestates winner driving at the front. Thanks, guys!

I didn’t catch their names, but the staff from Fizik were one of the big hits that the Demo this year. Not only were they handing out refreshing Italian gelato, but they did it in style. They wore ice cream shop uniforms and had 50’s-era Italian tunes playing in the background. They were all smiles and good humor. Awesome job, Fizik! Hey, just realized that I never got a gelato for myself…

This is the great legend, Ned Overend, telling us about Specialized’s new bikes for Interbike.com. On the right is James form Cycling.TV. Ned is all signed up to race the Industry Cup on Thursday night. We’ll also be interviewing him in the Media Center for Good Morning Interbike that will be streamed out live over the internet starting Wednesday morning at 8:30am (Pacific time). Ned and John Tomac will be on GMI on Thursday morning.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is the Queen of the OutDoor Demo. Without Lauren, ODD doesn’t happen. She’s in charge of the whole shebang on site. You may hear from me and your account reps most of the time, but Lauren and her team make it all happen. And she does it all with a smile. Super job Lauren!

Back indoors at the Sands, setup was starting to wrap up for most exhibitors. I was excited to see that Colnago had their Roman temple booth that I’ve seen in photos from the European shows. Now, is that column Doric, Ionic or Corinthian. I’m guessing Doric.

This is Matt from Cycling.TV in the control room of the Media Center during setup. While walking around the Demo these 2 days, we ran into so many retailers that watch and are fans of CTV. I even had a guy photograph cameraman James as he filmed someone to take home to show his friends.

Visit our Media Center Live page for live video and archived clips from the show starting Wednesday morning at 8:30am (Pacific).

Courtesy of our good friends at Pyramid Beer, we’re pleased to invite all OutDoor Demo attendees and exhibitors to attend the Hammerfest Hour party.

On Monday from 4 - 6pm, cool off with a cold brew after a busy day at the Demo. Relax and catch up with your friends and peers and relive the rides of the day. Trade opinions and reviews on all the gear and bikes you put through the ringer earlier in the day.
And remember, the last shuttle back to the Sands leaves at 6:30pm sharp. Go back to your hotel and rest up for Tuesday morning’s Tour of Lake Mead ride. That’s right: get a ride in while you’re at Interbike! Call your favorite exhibitor to arrange a ride for the 4th annual edition of this ride out to beautiful Lake Mead National Recreation Area.

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