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Sep
24
OutDoor Demo Day Two
Filed Under Attendee News, Cycling, Events, Exhibitor News, Gear, Industry News, Interbike, OutDoor Demo, Photos, Rides | Comments Off
Day two of the OutDoor Demo started in the most glorious way that any day could: with a beautiful bike ride with over 300 of your closest industry friends. Left the hotel at 6am to head out to Boulder City with an awesome Felt AR2 (with new Dura Ace group) in the back seat. Ride started easy with police rolling closure and then turned onto the insanely fast downhill to Lake Mead Park. Happy to say i wasn.t dropped on the descent like last year. Stayed with the lead Wayne Stetina (of Shimano) group to the turn around at the lake. They just spun around and headed right back but I stopped to have a drink and mingle with other riders on the ride. Good times. Refreshments at the turn around courtesy of Hutchinson Tires.
Camelbak was serving up their Elixir hydration drinks to attendees in a fun loungy tent with great music all day.
One of the big stars of this year’s show will definitely be the new electronic Dura-Ace. While we were setting up to film a video presentation of the new group by Shimano’s Wayne Stetina, Zap and the guys from Road Bike Action stopped by for a demo. Prediction: the (very) cool sound that the front derailleur makes when shifting to the big ring will be one of the reasons people will buy it. It sounds like a high tech Star Wars sound effect and just screams “I’m riding electronic Dura Ace” to your riding buddies(for you geeks out there, think AT-AT leg moving sound in Empire Strikes Back). Big crowds in the booth at the Demo for eDura-Ace.
You’ll see tons of photos of the new DA group all over, but I had never seen one of the control panel under the bars. Monitors battery life and allows you to trim the derailleur ala normal barrel adjusters.
The DA group is great, but the SRAM Hammer schmidt was awesome. Really wasn’t expecting to be be floored by it but was convinced after a test ride. The planetary drive system (don’t ask) allows for 2 “virtual” chainrings with just one small cog. What you get is near instant shifting even under pressure. Shift speed and eases felt like shifting to a smaller cog in back. The small cog allows for much better ground clearance. You have to check this out if you haven’t seen it yet.
Michael Zellman of SRAM showing off the new SRAM wheels for our camera crew. Look for our videos soon on the site.
Wandered the show floor at the Sands for a while doing final setup at the Media Center. Saw all the exhibitors doing their final building and decorating of booths. Noticed that Campagnolo have a totally new (and huge ) booth this year. Met with Cervelo guys and they said they will be having a big product launch ceremony in their booth today at 9:30.
Good Morning Interbike show kicks things off this miorning at 8:30. If all goes well with our systems, it should be live on interbike.com’s Media Center Live page for all to see around the world.
Gotta go to the Sands now. I’ll leave you with the Michelin man (did you know his name is Bib?) welcoming all to the show. Hope you enjoy following along back home if you’re not here!
Sep
18
And Now a Word From Our Sponsors
Filed Under Exhibitor News, Gear, Interbike, Photos | Comments Off
Just wanted to send a little blog love to a few of the great sponsors of our little get together.
Hincapie Sportswear has been making our jerseys now for at least the last 4 years. The jerseys are really first class in materials and quality of the sublimation with really sharp vibrant colors and Richa dn his team there translate our art director Ray’s designs beautifully. I’ll be wearing one on the Lake Mead ride on Tuesday. I highly recommend them if you need custom apparel for your shop or team.
This is the second year that Park Tool has made these custom laser etched IB-2 multi tools for us. I’ve used these as schwag when doing retailer visits or at events like Sea Otter. They’re always well received and have saved a ride for me more than once.
I think I have a fetish for bags. Don’t know where it comes from, but I can really appreciate a well made bag like the one’s that Crumpler custom embroidered for us. Every self-respecting member of the bike industry has a collection of messenger bags in their closet and Crumpler makes some awesome updates to the standard designs. This first one is the Seedybar as modeled by Robert.
The model below takes the cake for the best name of any bag in history: The Dreadful Embarrassment. Don’t ask ’cause I don’t know. Sweet bag, though. Love the oversized IB logo.
Brian here is showing off the Beer Back (along with the super slick flex-fit ball caps made by AfterburnerFX)
And how could we call ourselves a member of the bike industry and not have socks in our schwag arsenal? Sock Guy makes ours and they are one-size fits all. I was skeptical, but they fit great on both my 13’s and Julie’s 8.5’s. No more worrying about how many smalls or XXL’s to order…
Again, thanks to all our awesome sponsors. We’re really lucky to have some of the best quality products from some of the top companies in the industry on our side like these. There are many others, but just wanted to take a moment to highlight some of our product and staff sponsors. Thanks!
And to all our other friends from other companies in the bike industry, we love you too.
Aug
9
Bikes at the Outdoor Retailer Show
Filed Under Exhibitor News, Gear, Industry News, Interbike, Photos | 4 Comments
I’m here in Salt Lake City working one of Interbike’s sister shows, Outdoor Retailer. OR is bigger in physical size than Interbike (about 20%) and about the same percentage less in people. It’s a huge show that fills every – and I mean every – nook and cranny of the Salt Palace Convention Center. The show’s gotten so big that we’ve had to expand across the street into the Energy Solutions Arena where the Utah Jazz pro basketball team plays.
Filling all this space along with all the climbing, hiking, kayaking, camping, trail running, canoeing retailers and manufacturers are a lot of bikes. Not surprisingly, many of these outdoor industry people are bikers themselves so having a bike category in their line of products is logical. Here are a few of the bikes and bike-related sights that I’ve seen since the show opened yesterday.
First up is the scene outside the show. Clif Bar had their bio-diesel bus out front with a bunch of bikes lined up.
I’ve been wanting to check out Gramicci since they recently announced that they were going to release a line of urban-friendly bike wear. This morning I stopped by their booth to see what they had planned. They are an established outdoor industry brand founded in Southern California and are known for garment died worn and weathered look. “Live free, love nature, Never the Norm” is a line from the catalog I picked up. Their bike line fits right in with casual styles that don’t hint at their bike functionality. They’ve incorporated some high-tech materials to enhance the function, but have focused on making sure they don’t feel synthetic. Nice looking.
Gramicci had 3 bikes on display that were decorated by artists that they were auctioning off for a non-profit group. They also had a helmet to go along with each.
A few pieces from their “Urban Rider” line. The t-shirt is a cotton-poly mix for super soft touch but has some wicking ability. The chamois inserts are removable so you don’t need to walk around all day in it once you’re off the bike:
And for the ladies:
Here’s a performance cycling example from the show floor in the Timex booth. Speaking of performance, I was introduced to two guys from Training Peaks Software. They write the software for Timex’s training gear and their programs are used by pros including George Hincapie and Levi Leipheimer among others.
A Surly in the Pacific Outdoor Equipment booth. Stopped to chat with Greg from POE and he filled me in on the company’s gear and ethos. Their welded fabric technology really makes their packs, bags and panniers unique and sleek looking. When I asked if they were planning to be at Interbike this year, he said that a lot of people here at the OR show have been telling him that they need to be there. I agree.
At the Smartwool booth they had a bunch of bike wheels decorating their booth with this cool coaster from New Belgium Brewing Co. inserted in the spokes:
And this is Krista from the Salt Lake City Bicycle Collective. They are handling the bike parking for the show this year. I met her at the OR Industry party last night where the band Rusted Root played. She said that she will be heading out to Interbike this year for the first time. Make sure to welcome her if you run into her in Vegas!
You can follow the news of the show at the online version of the OR Show Daily.
Jun
25
Wired Mag: Bikes as Geek Tech
Filed Under Exhibitor News, Gear, Industry News, Interbike | 3 Comments
I love Wired Magazine. Love the tech, the science, the design, the snarkiness and the utter geek-coolness that permeates each issue. And Wired seems to love bikes, too. They do an inordinate amount of bike-related stories for a techie magazine and attend Interbike each year. I did a search for ‘bike‘ at their website and got over 4800 links to articles. Love that bikes fit right in with iPhones, Drobos, Star Wars fanboy movie reviews, geoengineering solutions to climate change and Wii’s.
In the spirit of the magazine’s review style, here’s the July 2008 issue of Wired that just arrived in the mail:
Wired: They dedicate two whole pages to bikes: the first to Specialized’s Tarmac SL2 (‘Olympic Gear’), and the second to a test of four cyclo-cross bikes: the Moots Psychlo-X, Cannondale’s XTJ, the Specialized S-Works Tricross and Redline’s Conquest Pro. Are you guys planning to be at Cross Vegas his year?
Tired: They get the colors of the world champion rainbow stripes flowing through the article right, but they get the order wrong. Nice gesture guys, but it’s blue – red – black – yellow – green. I stand corrected: Mark from Wired commented (below) that the colors are actually intended to represent the Olympic ring colors which are the same but in the printed order. Sorry!
The feature doesn’t seem to be online yet since the issue’s still fresh, so pick up a copy at your newsstand.
Jun
13
Are Bike Shops Selling the Bikes New Bikers Want?
Filed Under Deep Thoughts, Gear, Green Efforts, Interbike | 14 Comments
Great new article (actually, a “Special Report”) in the latest BRAIN that came in a couple of days ago. Matt Wiebe’s story is titled “Alternative Retail Channels Cater to New Cyclists.” It’s a very well written article that brings up some great points for retailers – and manufacturers – some things to chew on. Make sure you read it when it arrives in the mail – it doesn’t seem to exist on BRAIN’s website.
Matt begins with an observation that is probably a very widely held assumption across the industry and biking community currently:
A perfect storm is building of people who cannot afford gas, who realize they have to change their lifestyle to save the planet and believe bikes are the answer.
We’ve all witnessed it: the train in the morning is overflowing with bikes, buses are turning bikers away because the Sportworks on the front is full, and retailers are seeing more people dusting off old bikes and bringing them in for service to start riding to work. More and more politicians and celebrities are being photographed on their bikes and Barack Obama just granted a private meeting with bike industry leaders last night. These are new riders from the proverbial 161 million non-riders we’ve all been trying to reach, right?
As Matt goes on to write, though, the “storm wind should be blowing these new consumers into the nation’s bike shops … but it’s not happening.”
Tim Parr of Swobo supports that statement early in the article by saying, “these new customers cannot find the product they want because it’s not an enthusiast’s bike.” Bicycle dealers are great at serving the needs of enthusiasts but not so much the needs of these new bikers.
I think we can all agree with Matt’s line that “the enthusiast market is not where the growth and excitement is now.”
In addition, alternative retailers and retail channels have sprung up to serve this new, market. These include surf and skate shops, apparel boutiques and – brace yourself – internet direct sales. That last one is a taste of a topic for a whole other post: how retailers are still not fully embracing the internet to grow their businesses and how certain manufacturers are “holding back” retailers from taking advantage of the internet. Talk about a hot button issue…
So what are these bikes that these “neo-bikers” are looking for? How about the urban fixie trend? We’ve all read enough BikeSnobNYC posts and have seen fixies turn up under suburban teens farther and farther away from the city centers where the category was born to know that these are huge. While a few manufacturers have stepped up with models to serve this market (and their dealers with product), for the most part, consumers are forced to look to alternative channels to get what they want. The fixie trend is also bringing with it an opportunity that the bike industry has longed for for eons: a lifestyle market, the likes of which the surf and skate industries have enjoyed since the dawn of their sports. Non-enthusiasts are not going to – or even thinking about – bike shops for this.
Another type of bike that the neo-biker is not finding is a $300-$500 “just-a-bike” bike. Many bike shops have been profiting from $8,000 custom road bike sales over the last 10 years or so and can’t serve the needs of the neo-biker. I can remember my dad balking at paying the $800 for a mountain bike that the shop salesperson proposed years ago when I convinced him to try cycling. He told me that $300 was about what he wanted to pay for a bike to ride around town. We enthusiasts and industry members would consider $800 about right for an entry-level bike. How many people are turned away by the higher than expected prices for bikes.
I don’t want to give away the whole article before you have a chance to read it, but I tend to agree with Matt on so many of these aspects that contribute to the challenge that bike shops apparently are facing in addressing this surge of new riders. From manufacturers increasingly encouraging dealers to make larger commitments to their brands that in turn causes the dealers to lose the ability to change quickly with the market place to non-cycling brands like RVCA (and here from a non-bike blog) and Paul Frank making inroads into the bike market through their networks of non-traditional bike retailers, there are some great points to think about.
What I have seen in my limited exposure to this market is that on the train every day that I commute, I see alot of inappropriate bikes being used. Obviously, they’re all bikes and it’s great that they are being ridden, but I think we can do better for these neo-bikers.
I don’t know, am I wrong?
Apr
24
Sea Otter Video – GoPro Helmet Cameras
Filed Under Exhibitor News, Gear, Video | Comments Off
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
Mar
4
SRAM: “We Are Porsche” in Business Week
Filed Under Exhibitor News, Gear, Industry News, Interbike | 5 Comments
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.
Aug
24
Tech Clinics and Seminars at Interbike 2007
Filed Under Attendee News, Exhibitor News, Gear, Interbike | Comments Off
Since I am having some technical difficulties with the main Interbike site’s Tech Clinic schedule page, I thought that I’d help promote them here at InterbikeTimes. I really wish I had time to sit in on all of these. Especially the Cervelo/FSA seminar on “Shop issues with carbon fiber. Maybe we will finally and definitively learn whether to grease carbon seatposts or not…
Here’s hoping you find the time to attend some of these great sessions organized by some of the best manufacturers in the industry. From what I hear over the cube walls here at the office, there may still be more in the works…
TECH SEMINARS
American Classic Hub and Wheel Technical Seminar
Casanova Room 607
Thursday: 10:30 – 12:00
SRAM, Rockshox, Avid, and Truvativ Technical Seminar
Casanova Room 601
Thursday: 8:00 – 9:30
Friday: 10:30 – 12:00
Hayes Disc Brake Technical Seminar
Casanova Room 505
Thursday: 10:30 – 12:00
Friday: 8:00 – 9:30
Manitou Technical Seminar
Casanova Room 505
Wednesday: 10:30 – 12:00
Thursday: 8:00 – 9:30
Friday: 10:30 – 12:00
Cervelo and Full Speed Ahead: Shop Issues with Carbon Fiber Frames and Components
Casanova Room 504
Wednesday: 10:30- 12:00
Thursday: 10:30 – 12:00
Friday: 10:30 – 12:00
Full Speed Ahead: Care and Feeding of FSA Components
Casanova Room 503
Wednesday: 10:30 – 12:00
Thursday: 10:30 – 12:00
Friday: 10:30 – 12:00
Fox Racing Shox 2008 Technical Overview
Casanova Room 606
Wednesday: 10:30 – 12:00
Thursday: 10:30 – 12:00
Shimano Technical Seminar
Casanova Room 603-605
Wednesday: 1:00 – 2:30, 4:00 – 5:30
Thursday: 8:00 – 9:30, 11:00 – 12:30, 3:00 – 4:30
Friday: 8:00 – 9:30, 11:00 – 12:30
Mar
2
About 10pm here on a Thursday night. Just bouncing around the cycling corner of the net from one blog to another. Discovering some good new sites as well as a few wacky ones that I’ll refrain from mentioning. Truly just browsing the internet. Found a neat place that sells some great cycling tee shirts for the real racing fan with a knowledge of some of the sport’s history. Check out this one with the famous Tom Simpson quote:
Is that a great shirt or what? It’s real “insider’s” shirt in that it wouldn’t mean much to you if, say, you didn’t know the significance of the word “Koppenberg“. Click on the image to see the other designs the seller, Cyclista, offers with quotes from Merckx and Hinault. Cyclista sells some neat stuff for the serious bike racing fan. Not the typical stuff you see available in the US.
Their site’s selection reminded me of my first trip to Colorado a few years ago. When I first flew into Denver’s new airport, I was shocked to see the kiosk that was stocked with cycling memorabilia right there in the terminal. I don’t remember the store’s name, but they sold really hard-core racing fan-oriented stuff. Not just Lance and LeMond items that any non-cyclist would appreciate. The thought that occured to me was that Colorado’s reputation as a destination for cyclists must really be true if a merchant like that could exist.
I was back in Denver last August for our Health+Fitness Business Expo and didn’t see the kiosk. Does anyone else know if it’s still there? I’ll be back in Denver this August for HFB again and would love to visit it if I have time while waiting for my flight.
Jul
7
Carbon nanotubes enter the Tour de France
Filed Under Gear, Industry News, Racing | Comments Off
News.com has an interesting article about nanotechnology being used in the Tour de France.
“If Floyd Landis wins the three-week Tour de France, it will be a victory for nanotechnology too. Landis, the leader of the Phonak team and one of the pre-race favorites, rides a bike that’s been enhanced with carbon nanotubes.” via [ News.com ]
What do you think?