Home  Team BIKEMAN Interbike 2007
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Interbike 2007 |
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Written by Andrew Freye
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Thursday, 18 October 2007 |
 What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas…
This was my first ever Interbike and it is one I will remember for a long time. I had some left over plane tickets that I had to use up before the end of the year, so what better way to use them? Turns out Davis had some extra couch space at the Carver/Bikeman house in Vegas, so I was set. I had tickets and a free place to stay. To top that off I even got two direct flights on Southwest, from Manchester, NH to Vegas. Now that’s impressive!
I arrived in Vegas Monday night, met the other Bikeman guys at the airort and headed straight to the house Davis had. Turns out Monday night would be a long one. One of the guys had to go to the hospital etc…. but that is a different story, refer back to first sentence. Point being was that I didn’t get much sleep that night. Everyone in the house was up early in the morning. Davis was out tending to other things, while Pete and Tabor built up some really cool Carver bikes. New for Carver Bikes are custom ti frames. The bikes looked really cool all built up.
Once all the bikes were built up we all headed to the Sands Convention Center where the show would start up the following day. Since I was there with Bikeman not Carver Bikes I only had a retailer pass, not an exhibitor, so I headed off to the Dirt Demo while the other folks worked on the booth. Dirt Demo was kind of cool, 10,000 people who sell bikes, not necessarily ride bikes out riding on 6 miles of trails. I got to see the folks at Salsa and they were super cool and let me jump right in on an El Mariachi. It was my first time riding one, but I wasn’t able to get much feel for the bike. It was kind of a waste of time due to the over crowded trails. I guess it was worth while if you wanted to test out brakes.
So Dirt Demo was kind of a bummer, but at least I was able to spend some time out under the sun and chill out for a while. Wednesday was the big day of the trade show. Everyone in the house was up early and we headed out nice and early. I was able to see a lot of my sponsors and thank them all. If you are one of them and you are reading this now I would like to thank you again for all of your help and it was great to meet everyone in person. Even though I did a fair amount of walking around the floor, most of that time was trying to figure out how to get back to Carver booth. It was easy to get lost there. The majority of my day was spent at the Carver booth helping out Pete, Tabor and Davis. It was amazing to see how many retailers were stopping by and how interested they truly were. I think we gave out all of our info sheets and business cards in the first day. I think the new custom Ti frames from Carver are going to go over really well. I was even thinking about how cool it would be to have a custom Ti single speed. Maybe build it up with 26" wheels and a steel fork?
Wednesday night I got to go out to dinner with a rep from QBP who was so nice to take all of us from Bikeman out. We went to a Sushi place near by. I haven’t had much for Sushi in my life, but this stuff was amazing! I have no clue what it was because we just told waiter to bring us something to eat and that we didn’t care what it was. Well, after stuffing ourselves with some amazing uncooked fish it was off to Cross-Vegas! Dinner took longer than expected, so we missed the start of the women, but made it just in time for the start of the men’s race. I was a little bummed not to be racing, but it was still really cool to watch the race under the lights. Ryan Trebon had an amazing race out sprinting some other fast dude for the win. Adam Craig was enjoying the crowd by showing how he can bunny hop the barriers and pick up money off the ground. All and all it was a great race and I hope they continue to host the race in future years.
On Thursday I had to catch an afternoon flight home which wasn’t cool. I really wanted to stay for another day. I was able to spend some more time walking around and checking out some cool new stuff. Turns out Pedro’s recycled tube bags aren’t so environmentally friendly. Between all the shipping from vendor to Pedro’s, Pedro’s to manufacturer, manufacture to Pedro’s, and Pedro’s back to vendor isn’t efficient. So they canned the idea and are making a new saddle bag. It's still in the works, but it looks cool. Lake will be producing a lower priced carbon soled shoe replacing my MX230’s. It looks great, especially with the new ratchet system so it should hold up better in the mud. Panaracer has a new type of tire wall coming out that will help reduce flats which I can’t wait to try out since I have had my fair share of bad luck this year. Oh and DT Swiss has some really, really cool new products. Carbon rims built up on their 190 ceramic hubs, weighing in at a mere 1250g! Their forks are super cool too! The 1540’s are being replaced by a lighter 1450 series as well.
The flight back was ok, got in to Manchester around midnight, got home around 2am and slept till 11 or noon the next day. Overall a great trip and thank you Davis for helping me out!
A
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