Interbike - Day 1

We started our Wednesday at 4:45 am in Seattle and finished it after midnight in Vegas. Along the way, we walked the aisles at Interbike looking for the latest and greatest, searching out free schwag, and celebrated a friend's "birthday" at dinner.

We got to the show just after lunch and spent the afternoon walking the show floor getting the lay of the land. In the weeks leading up to Interbike, bike shops receive many postcards and such inviting them to "bring this postcard to our booth for a free.........". Some of these are usually for entries in some sort of product drawing. One of them this year was for a free cable guide and an entry into a drawing for a dirt jumping stem from Dirty Dog. We dropped off the card at the booth and the rep advised us to be sure and come back for the drawing at 4pm because only a couple people had attended the drawing the previous year so the odds should be in our favor (something hard to find in Vegas).

The appointed hour arrived, and sure enough, turnout for the drawing was low. In fact, we were the only shop there. That is an easy drawing to win. Thanks to Dirty Dog for the stem and the tip on the easy to win drawing.

The coolest thing we saw on day one was actually only a prototype and not actually a product available on the market yet. Jet Lites is working on a midweight heated glove that has a small rechargeable battery that sits on the gauntlet of the glove. It looks like it would be great for winter riding or even, depending on the final battery location, XC skiing.

The highlight of our evening was dinner with my friends and a "birthday" celebration for one of them. Tom's friend Chad joined us for dinner and being a spontaneous type he snuck off and told the waitstaff it was Tom's birthday (which was actually in May). We were all quite surprised and amused when the waiter appeared with a cupcake with a candle on a plate with chocolate covered strawberries and Chad stood up and broke into a moving rendition of Happy Birthday. It was a great way to start our evening on the town.

It's time to head off to the show now for day two. I'll let you know what we find.