Public day registration isn’t open just yet, but if you’re a retailer, you can go ahead and register to attend here. Retailer badges allow access to all four days of the event – both trade-only and public. Find info about OutDoor Demo East here at the main Interbike website.

Gatherings of the bike industry like this are awesome. Couldn’t enjoy my job anymore than on days like today. Thanks to all retailers that turned out today and hope to see many more of you on Wednesday. Keep your fingers crossed for decent weather…

It’s late, so here are some photos to give some flavor of what’s going on.

Aisle shot while the sun was still strong. With those trees in the back, this definitely is NOT Bootleg Canyon.

The Jamis and SRAM corner of the Demo. Jamis has over 40 models on display here.

Chris DiStefano of Chris King in the CK booth. Just like in Vegas, one of the more popular booths.

Mike Steidley put on a show for the dealers in attendance to break up the business talk and riding. Richard Fries was the MC. Mike is sponsored by Kenda.

Jamis area at the Demo. They made a real commitment to put on a good show for their retailers this first year.

Meeting of the minds: Tim Blumenthal of Bikes Belong (in blue), Scott Montgomery of Scott USA, and Maurice Tierney of Dirt Rag and the new Bicycle Times magazines. Tim said he liked how he could have a longer conversation with people here without as many distractions as the big show in Vegas. Had a nice lunch with Tim and Lance Camisasca today.

Tim Jackson of Masi having a good chat with some retailers. Just like at Bootleg Canyon, Tim seemed to be constantly busy.

Some of the Specialized bikes on display for demo’ing.

Parlee is one of the regional manufacturers from new England with displays here.

Here’s a retailer from one of the quintessential New England bike shops: the West Hill Shop in Putney, VT on some of the singletrack trails at the Demo site that we spent all day yesterday maintaining and cleaning up. One of the great things about having a demo event here is that the retailers can ride the bikes in conditions that they and their customers will be riding in. Here, that would be rocks, roots, dirt and mud when it’s wet.

I’m way past ready to call it a day, but wanted to get at least a few photos up of setup. They were all taken with my iPhone since the van that I left the real camera in was out running errands all day so that’s why they look crappy. It was a gorgeous sunny day with not a cloud in the sky. Got close to hitting 60 degrees F. Hope the weather holds out for Tues and Wed.

First off, an overview of part of the demo area:

Santa Cruz bicycles tent:

Always great to see Civia bicycles. Come on out to try one yourself, retailers:

You can always count on a large presence for Specialized:

Rocky Mountain bikes:

Fuji has a lot of carbon fiber available to demo in their tent:

Spent most of the day pounding in the these stakes and running Interbike caution tape between them to mark the trails. Think we laid out about 3 miles of this tape today with Lance, Chip and Robert. That and raking, clipping, shoveling and picking up seemingly tons of garbage out of the woods. Why do people go out in the woods to experience nature and then trash it with urban waste? Shame. But I feel like if nothing else, we’re leaving this great park a lot cleaner. Can’t wait for the soreness tomorrow.

Had some nice comfort food in an Irish pub down the street earlier tonight with the rest of the team. Almost got kicked out of said pub for cheering on Tampa Bay a bit too vigorously in game 7 of the ALCS (our team is made up of Yankee and Angel fans). I grew up in the Yankee half of Connecticut, myself. The game’s still on so I don’t know who won yet.

But enough baseball – we’re in New england for bikes. Lots of bikes, actually. Pulling into the parking lot of the Providence Hilton, this is what we saw:

Two Giant Bicycle rigs and one from Specialized. Hidden behind them was the Fox Racing Shox truck. They’re here in anticipation of move-in day tomorrow down at the Demo site. Had a nice chat with Andy the Specialized tech who was assembling some of their demo bikes. He had a few bikes with the new 2009 Dura Ace groups and we compared notes on it since I got to ride it out in Boulder City in September. Compared it with SRAM’s Red and the Super Record from Campy (which I haven’t had a chance to ride yet). Won’t tell you what our preferences were, but we did agree that they’re all definite improvements to the breed.

From my visits and calls to Northeast shops and pre-registration numbers (over 1,200 last I checked early last week), people are pretty excited about the event coming to town and we should have a great showing. If you work at a bike shop in the Northeast you should really come on out to Roger Williams Park just south of Providence. We’ve got just about 60 manufacturers coming with big demo fleets and ‘09 gear for you to see and try. Add in the Mavic and SRAM tech clinics and NBDA Super Seminars and it’s going to be a real serious event. Show us that we were right in choosing to put on a trade event here. Here’s the latest list of exhibitors for you:

AMB i.t. US, Inc.
Action Bicycle USA Inc.
Advanced Sports Inc: Fuji, Kestrel, SE and Breezer Bicycles
American Diabetes Association*
BMC
Cannondale Bicycle Corporation
Carver Bikes
Chris King Precision Components
Civia Cycles
Delta 7 Sports
Downeast Bicycle Specialists
Earth, Wind and Rider
East Coast Greenway Alliance*
Felt Racing, LLC
Finish Line Technologies
Fox Racing Shox
Giant Bicycle Inc
Gore Bike Wear
Haro Bicycle Corp.
Highway Two
Hydrapak, LLC
J & B Importers Inc.
Jamis Bikes
KHS / Freeagent Bicycles
Kenda USA
Kuota/Eurospek Inc
Louis Garneau USA
Marin Bikes
Masi Bicycles
Mavic,Inc.
New England Mountain Bike Association*
NiteRider Technical Lighting Systems
Norco Performance Bicycles
Nuun & Co
Pacific Cycle, Inc., Schwinn, GT, Mongoose
Pedro’s Inc.
Rocky Mountain Bicycles
SRAM Corp.
Salsa Cycles
Santa Cruz Bicycles Inc.
Scott USA
Sigma Sport
Specialized Bicycle Components
Squirt LLC
Storck Bicycle GmbH
The Biking Solution
The Caitlin Raymond Int’l Bone Marrow Registry*
Thomson
Thule, Inc.
Topeak/Todson Inc.
Uvex, Sports Inc.
VP Components Co Ltd.
WTB
Yakima Products Inc
Zipp Speed Weaponry

Well, I’ve been taking so long to write this post because of the game that’s been on in the background that I now know who won the game. Sorry, Boston. At least Tampa’s manager, Joe Maddon, is an avid cyclist, right?

See you in Providence!

Hearing from some of the exhibitors who will be at the event about some of their plans and it seems like no one is holding back and this will be a great event with lots of bikes and gear to try out. Jamis plans to bring no less than 40-50 models of bikes. Specialized just signed up to exhibit. Chris King should be showing their new bottom brackets and brown anodizing that was a big hit out West two weeks back. Haro, Masi, Storck, Giant, Scott USA, Santa Cruz, KHS, Felt, Zipp and BMC, to name a few, are all top brands that will be showing their lines and bikes to East Coast dealers. Regional suppliers Cannondale, Mavic, Pedro’s, Thule and Downeast will be their representing the best in Northeast bike and gear innovations. Civia, Salsa, Kuota, Fuji, Fox Racing Shox, Niterider… the list goes on. This event is the real deal.

I’m planning to head east a bit early to visit some shops in New England before the Demo. Shame I’ll have to miss the Gloucester Cross race this weekend. Last time I went to that race was back in 2000. Richard Fries and Chris Zigmont of Pedro’s are still the announcers and they are a treat to listen to while enjoying some tough New England style cross racing. Richard was the host of Good Morning Interbike and announced at CrossVegas and the USA Crits Finals at Interbike this year, by the way.

I also just learned that the Boston Bike Film Festival will be going on in Harvard Square the Friday and Saturday night prior to the Demo. I’ll probably be staying with some friends in the Boston area prior to Providence and I’d love to go to the festival. Wow – just noticed that the Head of the Charles is that same weekend. Will be hard to avoid, of course, but would love to see a bit of that since I raced there in ‘91 (6th place in the Club 4’s, by the way).

We really want this event to take off and become a real fixture on the east coast calendar. We see a lot of potential to build this into something bigger than just a trade-only event and really tap into the regional bike culture. I hope that East coast retailers see what we are trying to do for them in creating this event. We know that the expense of sending your staff out to Vegas each year is not trivial and a few of you have had to choose not to attend because of the cost or to just send the owner or buyer. So much of Interbike and the Demo are a real benefit to all staff members to get them up to speed on the latest gear and industry knowledge. This is the real reason for OutDoor Demo East: get as many of your buyers, mechanics, sales and staff members to ride the latest in bikes and cycling gear, learn from the SRAM and Mavic technical clinics, educate yourselves at the NBDA’s Super Seminars at ODDE and meet the people behind the brands.

Interbike and some of the best companies in the industry are placing a first-class trade event in your own backyard – take advantage of it! Let’s see the best East Coast, New England and Mid-Atlantic shops in Providence on the 21st and 22nd! Prove us right that the East Coast is worthy of its own trade event! If you’ve skipped a few Interbikes or sent less staff because of travel costs or timing, here’s your chance to reconnect with the best in the industry. We’re all looking forward to seeing you there!

Lance describes the OATF as a great event that was a bit before its time. From the strong response we’ve gotten from the industry and East Coast retailers so far, the inaugural ODD East should be a great event.

Interbike Postpones East Coast Open Air Trade Fair for 2000

LAGUNA BEACH, CA/USA (9 March 2000)–Interbike officials have postponed the Open Air Trade Fair, citing timing and market conditions as key factors in the decision. Unveiled last September, the Fair provided, according to Interbike, a business oriented hands-on riding experience in an outdoor festival setting. The event drew more than 1,300 retailers representing nearly 600 retail stores to the two-day event in Vernon, New Jersey. “The Open Air Trade Fair was a great event, but its value wasn’t realized by all the attendees,” said Lance Camisasca, Interbike
Show Director. “The postponement gives us an opportunity to discuss future possibilities on a more intimate basis with Eastern retailers as well as with show exhibitors.” Despite the postponement, the Interbike staff will reach out to Eastern retailers by sponsoring a retailer-only
day at the start of the 6th Annual Pedro’s Mountain Bike Festival, held in Lanesboro, Mass., from 17 to 20 August. The retailer-only day is slated for Thursday, Aug. 17, 2000. “We’re very excited to initiate some conversations with East Coast retailers at the Pedro’s Fest, but we’re also eager to refine and retool the Open Air Trade Fair for the future, if the industry feels it is needed,” said Camisasca.  (JW)
Published @ 09-03-2000

We’ll be back…

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.