Interbike: the journey there and back again

It’s been a little longer than usual since we’ve posted anything, and part of that is because we were busy getting ready for, driving to, exhibiting at, and then driving home from Interbike. For those of you who’ve never been, Interbike is the biggest bicycle trade show in the North America, and it shows just how wide the range of bicycles and bicycle-related products really is. Alongside all of the bikes and components that we’re all familiar with, you’ll find all sorts of wild inventions whose inventors hope will be the next big thing.

We made the trip in the JonesWagen, which Jeff crammed full of bikes, handlebars, and framesets–leaving just enough room for us to fit our bags and coolers of food so we wouldn’t have to stop for longer than it takes to fill up the gas tank and wash the windshield.

ready-to-go — It’s 5:30 AM, and we’re headed to Las Vegas.

We were expecting blazing heat, but on the way out we ended up with beautiful clouds and even some rain! We made it in a little under 14 hours, including stops, proving that the drive could be done in one, albeit long, day….

stormysky — Big open spaces on Route 95.

Tonopah, one of the larger towns on the 95.

We found a pretty cool old firetruck in Goldfield, NV — We found a cool old firetruck in Goldfield, NV.

Chain drive on the fire truck, a clear descendant of the bicycle!

oldfiretruck — Another fire engine in Goldfield, NV.

The cloudy day made the light amazing all the way through!

eveninginthedesert — Lengthening shadows.

lastlight — The last remnants of the day.

sunsetinthemirror — The sun in the rear-view mirror.

When we got to Las Vegas, it was time to set the booth up, give the bikes a last minute going-over, and swap tires on one of them to the new Duro Crux 29×3.25″ models that we got from the folks at Duro Tire. We’re excited to test the new tires out because on first inspection, they’re not only the largest 29 plus tires we’ve seen, but they’re also the knobbiest!

changingtiresintheparkinglo — Last minute tire changes.

We came to interbike in part, at least, to show the new prototypes that we’re working on, and we’ll have a blog post about that this coming week, so stay tuned!

We got to walk around the show briefly a few times over the three days, and Jeff found a picture of himself aligning a frame at the GT booth! Jeff told me about the photos, saying, “I was initially hired to do all of the alignment and QC on the Zaskars, which was a new project for GT, and this year is the 25th anniversary of the Zaskar. I learned a lot there, thanks Gary, and Richard!”