Interbike, Part I

Over the past year I've been covertly planning to make it down to the 2010 Interbike show. For years I've scoured the web to see photos of what was coming out from different vendors. So now with some careful planning and deft product development of some friends I executed my plans. So what's so covert about going to Interbike? Nothing really except I was going in support of a friend who's bringing out the equivalent of sliced bread to the power meter crowd. More on that later...

Day trips to Vegas aren't a regular occurrence for me. Heck, prior to heading to Vegas for my ten year wedding anniversary back in April, I hadn't been back to Sin City since spring break 1994. Lots can change in a fifteen year absence, but now I'm heading back only a few months and it actually will seem more "normal" of a city than when I was overwhelmed during the spring.

No major hiccups on the flight, except I learned a valuable lesson at the Vegas airport. I tried to be sly and pick up a taxi on the wrong side of the airport. The airport officials quickly guided me to the right "line" on the other side of the building. After getting into my cab, I asked why none of the taxi's weren't even giving me the time of day on the other side of the airport. Apparently it's a $100 fine for them to pick up people on that side of the terminal. Ok, my bad...I forgot that I needed to queue up with two hundred other people and wait in line (I think some Brit might be running the airport since their love of queue's is high).

Upon arrival to the Sands Convention Center I found the reg desk and promptly was greeted by Velopromo people. Not really, but when I think "reg", I think Velopromo. However, the man helping me could have fit in just perfectly with the Velopromo folks.

I'm going to turn the clock back here about eight years and tell you a little side story that will help you understand what I was about to face. Before Lisa and I decided to have kids, we made sure to take a nice trip to Europe. Since I had spent some time around London and knew the town well enough, I wanted to expose her to Harrod's. We spent about five hours there (including lunch) and at one point Lisa had one of the paralysis moments of shopping. Just too much overload of what to buy. We fondly refer to this as our "Harrod's" moment.

So back to Interbike. I see the open door to the convention floor and briskly walk through. WHAM! I'm being hit from all sides with "Harrod's" moments! I am so utterly completely overwhelmed by everything that I found myself standing still for about a minute. Soaking in all the biking goodness was such a nice feeling. With that over I quickly got oriented and found my way over to the Metrigear booth.

A quick change of shirts soon found me in the black Metrigear t-shirt. Armed with a handful of marketing literature, I decided to walk up and down the aisle to get the word out for Metrigear. Of course along the way I saw some pretty cool things...but we'll get to those in the next blog posting.

More to come...