09.25.2008 | 12:44 am
A Note from Fatty: Be sure to check out the photo my sister got yesterday on her blog.
I am now a grizzled Interbike veteran, and so I would like to offer you a piece of advice to those of you who have not yet ever visited Interbike, but hope to someday.
When you first step onto the expo floor and you see all the carbon and Ti and aluminum and steel and gears and cables and tires and wheels and pedals, do your utmost not to throw your hands in the air, squeal, and run around in circles yelling "I’m in heaven I’m in heaven I’m in heaven I’m in heaven!" until you fall over.
Because others will not necessarily appreciate your candor, that’s why.
But that’s how you’ll feel. Seriously, it’s a bike geek’s dream, and there’s enough there for you to see for days and days and days.
And then, when you realize that you only have a couple of days to see months and months worth of bike-related wonderfulness, you will be tempted to run up and down the aisles as fast as you can, grabbing information at a breakneck pace, an idiot grin on your face.
Yeah, don’t do that either. Trust me, I know what I’m talking about.
So, anyway, after I finally got Kenny to calm down and get his shaking under control, we went and checked out some of the most awesome stuff there is to see.
With a definite emphasis on not looking at complete bikes.
Fatty is Starstruck
I’m pretty sure I’ve made my hero-worship of Scot Nicol / Chuck Ibis a matter of public record. So it shouldn’t surprise you at all that the first place we made a beeline for was the Ibis booth, which is a Streamline trailer, so that I could finally get a picture of me with Scot.
For some reason, he declined to autograph my chest. Jeez, how uptight can a guy be?
I then waxed nostalgic about the only bike I’ve ever truly regretted selling — my Ibis Ti Mojo. Scot agreed that I was stupid, which didn’t help me feel any better.
But the cool thing is, Ibis is in fact doing a special run of the Ibis Ti Mojo again. I’ll have to look under the couch and see if I have a few thousand dollars there.
Booth Babes, Part I
Then, as I was talking with Scot, all man-to-man and stuff, some booth babes walked by.
Kenny’s attention was diverted.
"Hey, would you mind posing for a picture with the Fat Cyclist?" Kenny asked.
Well, of course they would be happy to.
So here we are.
It’s kind of sad, really, how the one on the left had to kind of crouch to not be 8" taller than I am. Also, it’s kind of sad that it’s impossible to tell what their outfits are promoting. Seriously, you can’t tell, even in real life. Kenny tells me that he spent a good ten minutes staring at these girls and he still doesn’t know what their outfits were about. And finally, it’s kind of sad that I blinked as the photo was taken.
Not that any of you noticed that I blinked.
Booth Babes Part II
Kenny and I were very interested in a very innovative quick release skewer setup called "Clix." Instead of having to loosen the skewer by unthreading it, you just pull out the spring loaded tab. It’s fast and easy and really nice, especially for folks who have to remove wheels all the time — like I do any time I mount my bike on the truck’s fork-mounted rack.
In addition to its actual merits, Kenny was interested in seeing if he could win the speed wheel change competition Clix had going on — whoever during the course of the show could remove one wheel and then put another on would get $500.00.
Kenny took about nine seconds, which — at least at the time — put him in second place.
And of course, as a top scorer, Kenny was required to pose for a picture with the Clix booth babes.
Imagine, if you can, his disappointment.
Tasty
When at Interbike, you can tell yourself you’re just objectively looking at all the bike wares there are to see, but that is of course a lie. There is some part of you that is at the show to look for something you want for yourself. In my case, that item is an adult-sized Big Wheel.
In Kenny’s case, it was an all-carbon bike saddle.
Kenny was not disappointed.
He found the Selle Italia SLR C64, and was unable to resist licking the glossy 85g miracle.
Kenny’s that way about carbon fiber. It’s a curse.
Oh, and I found the thing I was looking for, too.
But I didn’t lick it. That’s not my way.
I Am A Very, Very Important Panelist
Of course, the day wasn’t all goofing off for me. I sat in on the Web 2.0 panel, where I gave away a whole bunch of Fat Cyclist t-shirts (pretty sure I gave away about 60), to distract folks from the fact that I had nothing meaningful to contribute to the conversation. Here’s me, sneaking a look at my iPhone because somebody had asked me something about my site stats and I couldn’t remember what numbers I had most recently made up.
"Uh, yeah, it’s just like I said: I get 20,000,817 hits per day."
And here’s the rest of the panel.
And you know what’s really cool about this whole panel thing? Andy Freaking Pemberton (second from the right in that photo), publisher of VeloNews, gave me his business card after the panel. Which just goes to show: he hasn’t ever read my blog.
OK, really I did make what amounts to what I consider to be one really good point in the panel, which I will reiterate here: Web 2.0 is just a fancy and obscuring word for "neighborhood." Use the same techniques you would use to be a good neighbor when you build your site — be available, helpful, interested, interesting, and fun — and you’ll be just fine.
I’d tell you what the other people said during the panel, but I was too busy looking for opportunities to interrupt them and make the conversation be about me.
Oh, Oakley
Kenny and I capped off the day with a stop at the Oakley booth. There, Alyssa showed the upcoming-but-still-in-development replacement for my beloved Racing Jackets:
I’m afraid I might have gotten a little strident with regards to this news, seeing as how I replaced my seven-year-old Racing Jackets with yet another pair of Racing Jackets.
So I’m kind of slow to change. Fine.
Anyway, I told Alyssa that I demanded I be made a beta tester for these new glasses, seeing as how I’m all emotionally invested in them and stuff.
"Sounds good," she said, edging for the nearest exit.
But before all that happened, we all took turns vamping it up with some of Oakley’s finest.
Alyssa tried on some men’s glasses:
And then Kenny tried on some Bono glasses:
And I went for the recently-reissued Frogskins.
I am, after all, a product of the 80’s.
Tomorrow
First thing tomorrow, Kenny and I are going to the press conference Lance Armstrong is doing, wherein he will give us details around his return to pro racing.
And then, of course, I will give you the straight scoop. Including, quite possibly, pictures.
After which, Kenny and I are going to go goof off on the convention floor some more.
I confess, I am having fun.
PS: Over at BikeRadar.com, I talk about my delightful experience with the Rock Racing booth.
Comments (48)
09.24.2008 | 12:04 am
On the way to the Interbike Outdoor Demo today, Kenny and I had a strategy session on how we would determine what kinds of experiences we would seek out. Before long, we narrowed the approaches that interested us to two:
- Find and ride the best-of-breed versions of what we already enjoy riding. In both our cases, that meant we could spend the day finding and riding top-notch 29" hardtails. In fact, we probably could have spent the day doing nothing but riding and comparing fully rigid 29" singlespeeds. Yes, Interbike is so diverse that that niche could easily have occupied us for the whole day.
- Find and ride stuff that we normally don’t ride at all. Since both Kenny and I already ride top-of-the-line fully rigid 29" singlespeeds, what if we spent the day exploring and riding stuff that was completely different?
Both of these options were good ones, but we agreed that it’d be fun to explore the wild and wacky side of the world of cycling.
I think it was a good call. Here’s some of what we did, in the order we did it.
All-Mountain Touring: The Salsa Fargo
The first booth we stopped at was Salsa. Kenny, in a rare moment of weakness, wanted to immediately abandon the "let’s ride stuff we don’t usually ride" plan, and picked out the Selma — their 29" scandium / carbon SS bike — I just left it up to the guys in the booth.
"Give me something interesting," I said. And they gave me the Fargo, a 29" mountain bike, set up to be fully rigid with drop bars, with eyelets in place for racks and panniers-a-plenty. The idea behind this bike is comfortable multi-day outings, on-road and off.
I thought it would feel ridiculous and awkward to ride.
I was wrong.
On the short mountain bike course at the expo — mostly singletrack — I comfortably switched between riding in the drops (when climbing or braking) and on the hoods (when on wide, open terrain).
A few minutes on this bike and I found myself wondering what kind of big adventures this bike would be suitable for.
Get Bent
As Kenny and I walked by the Rans booth, Kenny said, "We should try out riding recumbents."
I laughed and we kept walking.
Then I stopped and said, "Yeah, we should."
And so we did. Kenny started on a real-life recumbent, which he nearly wrecked when he tried to execute a simple U-turn.
Apart from the strangeness of whacking his knees against the handlebars, and the disconcerting nature of having the front wheel roughly thirty feet in front of him, Kenny said that his least favorite part of riding this bike was the miles and miles of chain required, and the way it slaps around constantly.
I’m not sure Kenny’s ready to convert.
As for me, I got a low-to-the ground tricycle-style recumbent.
Unlike the two-wheeled ‘bent, this trike took no time at all to get used to. Steering is intuitive, and balance doesn’t enter into it.
But I had to ask myself: "Why?" Why would I ride this bike? It’s slower than a conventional road bike. It’s heavier. It’s vastly more complicated. The only compelling reason I could think of was if you found a ‘bent more comfortable.
The thing is, though, I’m very comfortable on regular bikes. I can go all day — literally — seated on a Selle Italia SLR. A hammock’s a little overkill.
I’m not saying I’d never buy and ride a ‘bent, but that day is not upon me yet. Nor upon Kenny, I’m pretty sure.
Still, it was fun to try one out and get contemptuous looks from people on regular bikes as I struggled up a gentle climb.
Oh, and I noticed that during my fifteen minutes of riding a ‘bent, I grew a full beard.
Gary Fisher Roscoe
What is the opposite of a fully-rigid 29" singlespeed? Well, probably a downhiller, but I just couldn’t bring myself to try one of those, because of my snobby belief that nobody should be allowed to ride anything downhill that they didn’t first ride uphill.
So the bike furthest from my personal point in the mountain biking universe may well be the new Gary Fisher Roscoe: a 26"-wheeled, 6"-front-and-back, geartastic bike.
But Travis Ott — Gary Fisher Bike Brand Manager — told me I ought to ride one. He said I’d have fun.
And he was totally right.
The Roscoe encourages you to plow through stuff. To run over stuff. To drop off stuff. To ride your bike as if you have recently attended the Monster Truck School of mountain biking.
And so I did.
Kenny got a nice sequence of me ignoring lines and plowing straight ahead:
Please feel free to note the goofy grin in that last picture. And also please note that I later turned around and rode up the same pitch. This bike takes big hits, but it’s also light enough that you can climb back up afterward (or beforeward, depending on where you start your ride).
Faster
This last one’s not easy for me to talk about, because I am somewhat conflicted about my reaction to one of the bikes Kenny and I tried out.
You see, we tried out a couple of electric-assist bikes from iZip…and I’m a little bit ashamed to admit that we both had a ball.
Here’s me, laughing out loud, my shirt billowing full of air as I easily hit 35mph, as I blast by road cyclists — as if they were standing still — on my cruiser-looking bike:
And riding uphill is just as hilarious. La-di-da as you casually pedal 20mph up the steep gradient.
These bikes look horrible and obviously have cheap components to keep people not used to how much a good bike costs from going into sticker shock.
But they’re fun. And I can’t help but think, "Maybe I could get my boys to come biking with me if I got one of these."
Hot and Tired
That’s just a sampling. There was other wacky stuff we rode, and I’ll be talking about them — and showing photos — soon.
Though it’s quite probable that I will destroy the video of me riding the bike you pedal like a stairstepper. Some things are best left unseen.
Comments (46)
09.23.2008 | 9:53 pm
I’m working on my writeup of today’s Outdoor Expo excursion, but first I wanted to say that Kenny and I had dinner with Brent Gale and Ryan Carlson, the geniuses behind Twin Six.
Brent would let me photograph him only upon the condition that I put big black X’s over his eyes. Hey, I’m here to please.
And then, after dinner, Brent and Ryan sprung a great surprise on me: they’ve received a few prototype 2009 Fat Cyclist jerseys.
And they look awesome. Kenny likes his so much, in fact, that he never wears anything else.
Here he is, wearing it while he watches the hotel’s pay-per-view previews for the thousandth time.
And here he is, modeling the back of the jersey.
Or maybe he’s on the way to the bathroom. I guess we’ll never be sure.
There’s some surprise text behind the center pocket, too. You’ll just have to wait and see what it is, though, until the jerseys start shipping (which will be soon).
And now, I’m going to get back to writing about the Interbike Outdoor Expo, which I am pleased to announce will include the following photo:
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