Bikeforums.net is a forum about nothing but bikes. Our community can help you find information about hard-to-find and localized information like bicycle tours, specialties like where in your area to have your recumbent bike serviced, or what are the best bicycle tires and seats for the activities you use your bike for.SECOND SUMMER
11-05-09, 06:28 PM
Hi friends,
I've attached a show report (rough draft) from the Vegas Interbike show last September; this will eventually show up in Recumbent and Tandem Rider magazine. You can find this blog on our website:
http://www.secondsummertours.com
Cheers,
Rob Templin
Second Summer Tours
This is the fist part:
“Hey Rob”, the voice behind me in the crowd was asking, “how are you doing”? As anyone that has worked a major trade show knows, this would be a greeting asked many, many times over the course of the event as once-a-year friends attempt to reconnect. Business on the run as all of us try our best to catch up on a year’s worth of history in a few minutes of face-to-face conversation.
After shaking hands, my friend warns me to wash my hands as he’s fighting a nasty cold. Thanks a lot. I make a mental note to keep my hands away from my face until I get a chance to use the hand sanitizer that’s now standard pocket gear - especially after the recent flu outbreaks. At least I got a warning this time.
Welcome to Las Vegas and Interbike - one of the world’s largest trade shows covering all things two wheels … and the wrong place to be if you’ve got germ worries. I’ve learned to tone down my Howard Hughes-Howie Mandel germ phobias for a few days as it’s difficult to cover a bike show this size without shaking hands and talking. A lot.
It’s not like I need any extra incentives to be my usual grumpy old man self. Vegas has a way of slapping in you face if you’re not a smoker, heavy drinker, gambler, or think that exercise is getting up from the table for another round at the $9.99 all-you-can-eat buffet.
A few weeks before the show began I started to contemplate the merits of a more sedentary Vegas lifestyle: after some 600,000 miles of cycling during the past 40 years with no major ills, my body’s version of a ‘check the engine’ red light came on in the form of a nagging pain in my right knee. Turns out I had a torn something or another (does it really matter?) that would require simple arthroscopic surgery. I delayed surgery until I would return back from Vegas - just so I could make my annual journey to Sin City to keep all of you informed of the latest industry happenings (well, o.k., that’s not the full story but as we all know, whatever happens in Vegas ….).
While some of the big names in the cycling industry, like Trek, have attempted a bit of a pre-emptive strike with their own 2010 product roll-out months earlier at invitation-only open houses - hoping to give their key dealers a reason not to go to Vegas (and check out the competition of a thousand-plus product brands). Still, over 20,000 industry personnel were in attendance (close to last year’s numbers), representing 4,000 IBD’s.
Another several thousand will weasel their way through the doors of the show even though security is tight to keep out the riff-raff; including a motley crew of bike-shop rug-rats looking for schwag and other deals, consumers that had leaned up their favorite shop for a pass (”I’m one of your best customers, pleeeeeeeeeeease”), and, of course, the omnipresent hordes of free-loading media types like myself. The Interbike show folks have kicked around the idea for years of opening the show for a day or two to consumers but one figures that isn’t going to happen in the near future if the vendors have any say in the matter.
To read the complete story, see:
http://secondsummertours.com/blog/
I've attached a show report (rough draft) from the Vegas Interbike show last September; this will eventually show up in Recumbent and Tandem Rider magazine. You can find this blog on our website:
http://www.secondsummertours.com
Cheers,
Rob Templin
Second Summer Tours
This is the fist part:
“Hey Rob”, the voice behind me in the crowd was asking, “how are you doing”? As anyone that has worked a major trade show knows, this would be a greeting asked many, many times over the course of the event as once-a-year friends attempt to reconnect. Business on the run as all of us try our best to catch up on a year’s worth of history in a few minutes of face-to-face conversation.
After shaking hands, my friend warns me to wash my hands as he’s fighting a nasty cold. Thanks a lot. I make a mental note to keep my hands away from my face until I get a chance to use the hand sanitizer that’s now standard pocket gear - especially after the recent flu outbreaks. At least I got a warning this time.
Welcome to Las Vegas and Interbike - one of the world’s largest trade shows covering all things two wheels … and the wrong place to be if you’ve got germ worries. I’ve learned to tone down my Howard Hughes-Howie Mandel germ phobias for a few days as it’s difficult to cover a bike show this size without shaking hands and talking. A lot.
It’s not like I need any extra incentives to be my usual grumpy old man self. Vegas has a way of slapping in you face if you’re not a smoker, heavy drinker, gambler, or think that exercise is getting up from the table for another round at the $9.99 all-you-can-eat buffet.
A few weeks before the show began I started to contemplate the merits of a more sedentary Vegas lifestyle: after some 600,000 miles of cycling during the past 40 years with no major ills, my body’s version of a ‘check the engine’ red light came on in the form of a nagging pain in my right knee. Turns out I had a torn something or another (does it really matter?) that would require simple arthroscopic surgery. I delayed surgery until I would return back from Vegas - just so I could make my annual journey to Sin City to keep all of you informed of the latest industry happenings (well, o.k., that’s not the full story but as we all know, whatever happens in Vegas ….).
While some of the big names in the cycling industry, like Trek, have attempted a bit of a pre-emptive strike with their own 2010 product roll-out months earlier at invitation-only open houses - hoping to give their key dealers a reason not to go to Vegas (and check out the competition of a thousand-plus product brands). Still, over 20,000 industry personnel were in attendance (close to last year’s numbers), representing 4,000 IBD’s.
Another several thousand will weasel their way through the doors of the show even though security is tight to keep out the riff-raff; including a motley crew of bike-shop rug-rats looking for schwag and other deals, consumers that had leaned up their favorite shop for a pass (”I’m one of your best customers, pleeeeeeeeeeease”), and, of course, the omnipresent hordes of free-loading media types like myself. The Interbike show folks have kicked around the idea for years of opening the show for a day or two to consumers but one figures that isn’t going to happen in the near future if the vendors have any say in the matter.
To read the complete story, see:
http://secondsummertours.com/blog/