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In my Sea Otter coverage, I really tried to stay away from the well-traveled territory of most of the cycling media, magazines and blogs: cool new gear. I know, “isn’t that what Interbike is all about?” Well, I could debate that, but, regardless, I can’t compete with Lennard Zinn and James Huang on their own turf. I can talk gear and tech all day and love a good Zinn tech article as much as the next bike geek, but I think I’d do better carving my own niche. I intended for this to be topics and subjects of interest to the industry including interesting new programs, how companies are using Web 2.0, advocacy, etc. I hope these have been of some interest. 

So forgive me if this next video interview seems a bit tech heavy. While I think the tough and tiny GoPro is a cool gadget, I really only started to take interest in it after considering all the social media possibilities that it opens up. Think sharing point-of-view videos of your commute, trail, race course or group ride. GoPro have apparently sold a lot of cameras, but I don’t think the potential for sharing has been really exploited. 

We’ll be getting a few cameras here for our office soon to film our rides, waves, powder, sails, rock climbs, etc. to share. I’d love to hear of some interesting uses for one of these.

 

 

After finishing this interview, I ran into the folks at Vholdr who make their own helmet/bike/gear-mounted POV camera. Look for that interview shortly.

For more info on GoPro, visit www.goprocamera.com 

Ran into Guitar Ted of twentynineinches.com fame at a press event at Sea Otter and thought I’d tap his passion for 29′ers for IBTimes. Here he is with a brief roundup of the latest and greatest in big wheels. 

 

Ge t more of Ted at:

www.twentynineinches.com

www.g-tedproductions.blogspot.com

More video from Sea Otter. This time I had the pleasure of sitting with Krista Rettig of Trek Bicycles. Krista is the brand manager for their women’s division and Sea Otter was her first duty back on the job following maternity leave. The tent we were sitting under was for their new “Women Who Ride” club program that they were launching in a few days time. From the jackets we’re wearing, you can see that the weather was turning a bit more Sea Otter-like on day two. Day three would bring a high of 52F.

The new club is designed to encourage women to overcome real or perceived challenges to riding by being a part of an online community of fellow women cyclists. Members can share stories and successes and follow the blogs of 5 women selected from a writing contest to describe their journeys in cycling.

Programs to encourage greater women’s participation in cycling are important to me not only as the father of a girl, but as the husband of a Cat 2 racer (semi-retired) who credits a women-only, season-long race series as getting her started in racing. If it weren’t for her racing, we never would have met on that Tuesday night training ride.

Along with their “One World, Two Wheels” advocacy program (which I called “Two Wheels, One Planet” in the interview), this new effort shows Trek’s continuing commitment to getting more people riding.

You can read more about the club here: www.trekbikes.com/women

Man, doing the video thing is alot more work than just posting. Finally after some quality time in the Sea Otter Media Center, I’ve got something to show. I interviewed Pedro’s current GM and soon to be CEO, Chris Zigmont, about their efforts to be green and a socially responsible company. Good stuff from a passionate member of our industry. Also includes news about the management buyout of Pedro’s back from Swix. (Please excuse my noobi-ness as an on-camera interviewer…) More videos to come.

Elaborate April Fools hoax with BikeBiz.com, the San Jose Business Journal and Specialized all in on it? See BikeBiz’s news flash on the historic announcement on the Northern California bike company here.

The dead giveaway is the quote from supposed GM VP, “Flora Lopi” - an anagram of the words April fool.

Carlton at BikeBiz sent his news flash out just after midnight in the UK, so he’s safe, but what about the SJBJ sending there’s out on the 31st? Did they jump the gun or did they fall for it (like I was for a bit I’ll admit)?

If it were true, that would be quite the little family of brands: GMC, Buick, Pontiac, Hummer, Specialized…

At least we got an Interbike mention circulating out there.

Update: Looks like the hoax is more elaborate: the url given for the SJBC is fake. A certain bike blogger has been pretty sneaky. Nice job…

In another of my non-original posts here, I’m going to reference and plug another’s work again here in scooping this story. This article is right up our alley here at Interbike since it’s a great bike industry B2B story that is playing in the national non-endemic media. If there’s any way we can help promote or facilitate more of that for our industry members, we’re all over it. This is a little late - I was hoping to get this out last Friday when I first heard about it, but well, sometimes life just gets in the way of blogging. Still worth mentioning, though, in case our little site reaches some corner of the world that Bike Biz UK’s does not…

The article that appears on Business Week’s website is titled: “SRAM - A Bike Parts Tour de Force.” Stan Day, the co-founder of SRAM along with his brother and a friend, is the focus of the piece. Obviously written from a non-endemic point of view, there is still plenty of interesting background information about the company (I finally know where the name SRAM came from).

Not to call anyone out here, but there is an intriguing quote from a product manager at one of the major bike manufacturers about SRAM’s place in the OEM market:

“They are not really credible yet.”

While I understand that, from a sales standpoint, Shimano still dwarfs them, I don’t see how SRAM could not be considered a credible player at this point. Now I’m just a marketing guy and have no experience wearing a product manager’s shoes, but I’ve seen plenty of great brands spec’d by people I know and have great respect for with SRAM OEM componentry. [Shimano: I still love my Dura Ace pedals and shoes ] Plus, they’ve got a beer vending machine in the office! Instant cred right there.

By the way, we’re big fans of BikeBiz UK here. Carlton Reid - a great friend of the industry, and burgeoning internet cycling media mogul - got wind of this Business Week article about SRAM’s emergence as a player in the bicycle components game. Definitely worth the read. Check it out here.

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!

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