Interbike Is Leaving Las Vegas... For Reno - News
Well, it’s official—Interbike is leaving Las Vegas for good. After much speculation (Will the show move to Denver in 2018? Portland?) it comes down to this: Reno, Nevada will be the new home of Interbike beginning in 2018.
Interbike officials made the announcement a couple minutes ago via a conference call to a collection of bike industry nerds.
The tradeshow organizers polled the industry last year after a particularly saggy edition of the show that had many longtime attendees poking Interbike's corpse with a stick and shooing away flies. Locations that were floated about included Denver, Salt Lake City and picturesque Anaheim by the sea. Interbike's organizers were looking for a new location that possessed the appropriate blend of geography, cultural relevancy, accommodations, date availability, costs, marketability...you get the idea.
While many attendees have been calling for a Salt Lake-ified Interbike, that city was pulled from the roster after a public lands debate erupted in Utah last fall. Interbike’s sister show, Outdoor Retailer (OR), has long held their gig at Salt Lake and while the beer is weak, the sushi is surprisingly good and the riding in nearby Park City is great. Alas, OR pulled out of Utah and since Interbike is owned by the same company, it was good bye, Salt Lake, we never knew you for all us folks with the funny black socks and the weird tan lines.
Interbike and OR bundled themselves together and sent out a request for proposals that went out to 15 cities. Eventually, five cities were considered worthy. Those five cities included, well, we know Denver was in the hunt, but since the process was confidential, we are in the dark on who else was proposing a match with Interbike. We imagine the official process probably resembled the inevitable hot tub scene in any episode of The Bachelorette. It's as good a guess as any.
And the winner is?
Cue the drum roll!
And the winner is?
Cue the drum roll!
What I'm confident the bidding process for the new site of Interbike must have looked like.
Oh, yeah, sorry… we already announced that in the headline and lead. Yeah, it’s totally Reno. They've got a five-year lock on Interbike--through 2022. So much for the climax. Anyway…
“I know there's been a lot of conjecture out there as to where everyone thought we might end up," said Interbike vice president, Pat Hus, "but in the end the Reno/Tahoe connection became a very clear cut winner."
Interbike's vice president went on to note that Reno possessed the most appealing mix of weather, lodging and terrain. There's undeniably good riding in Tahoe and the demo-portion of the event will be held at North Star's bike park. Chairlift and gondy passes will be provided. The Reno Sparks convention center was also said to be swank and utterly state of the art. Bonus points: it's a non-union building so no teamsters will threaten to break your leg if you attempt to set up your own tradeshow booth or bring in a potted plant to dress up the joint.
Photo by Ken Lund
WILL THIS “SAVE” INTERBIKE?
What prompted the change in venue?
Clearly, there have been plenty of people who have pointed out over the years that Las Vegas was a sort of…interesting…location for a tradeshow dedicated to promoting the benefits of cycling—a sport that’s all about health and clean living and the like. "Why are we having a tradeshow on the strip?" they'd ask. "A place that’s famous for second-hand smoke, venereal diseases and crappy all-you-can-eat buffets?”
Just as many people, perhaps even more, always shook their heads and countered, “Are you crazy? Vegas has cheap flights, a ton of hotels, decent riding out at Boulder City, great meals if you bother to look for them….just suck it up for a couple days, man…it’s a damn tradeshow not a weekend at the spa!”
In other words people were split on the merits of Vegas. What role did that play in this decision to move? Or was the move more about jump-starting a tradeshow that steadily lost key attendees and the vitality it once possessed.
Was there some intent on bringing back the excitement that used to surround Interbike? In a word, yes.
Good bye, Vegas. We'll miss you. Well, some of us will. Some of us hated your ass, so I guess it's sort of a split decision thing.
“Just moving the show to the new city wasn’t going to be enough," said Hus. "This is really us hitting the reset button. Brands want to connect direct with consumers."
Part of hitting that re-set button, apparently, includes staging a consumer bike festival at Northstar (California's largest bike park) that will open Saturday, Sept. 15 and will run till 2 o'clock on Sunday. The party will include racing, concerts, a kids rodeo, access to the chairlifts, beer and the like. Interbike is billing it as the largest bicycle demo event in the world. After 2 p.m. on Sunday, the event transition into a trade-only demo event.
Part of hitting that re-set button, apparently, includes staging a consumer bike festival at Northstar (California's largest bike park) that will open Saturday, Sept. 15 and will run till 2 o'clock on Sunday. The party will include racing, concerts, a kids rodeo, access to the chairlifts, beer and the like. Interbike is billing it as the largest bicycle demo event in the world. After 2 p.m. on Sunday, the event transition into a trade-only demo event.
Monday will be a long day of demo rides for members of the bike industry. Tuesday September 18 through Thursday September 20th will amount to the usual assembly of hung- over bike nerds shaking hands and exaggerating about the "crazy shit" they did the night before, while also exchanging business cards and staring at spoke nipples.
There was a time when Interbike was the place where companies rolled out their top-secret, latest and greatest bikes and products. The show where deals were struck, bike shops made their next-year orders. If you were serious about being in the bike business, Interbike was the one show you couldn’t afford to miss.
Those days are long gone. Major bike brands such as Trek, Specialized and Giant have abandoned the tradeshow—first deciding to present their wares to shop rats and the general public at Outdoor Demo and now not even showing up for that pre-tradeshow waltz. By the time Interbike rolls around the major brands have already flown out their top bike shop partners to some exotic locale, shown them the goods, got them a bit drunk at their catered buffet and already inked pre-season orders. Hell they’ve done that before Eurobike even hitches up its lederhosen.
My favorite picture from our Interbike coverage last year. We'd already seen the "new" bikes five months earlier, so the dog was arguably the hottest thing at the show. Who's the cutest little selective breeding abomination that can't naturally reproduce on its own? You are! Yes, you are! Yes, you are!
And if we’re talking about new product? Well, you probably already saw most of the new 2018 stuff in April of 2017 when we dumped several gigabytes worth of new products into your lap during our Sea Otter coverage. What doesn’t get leaked at Sea Otter these days gets shown off several times over on every website—like this one—by the end of each July.
So, in the face of these larger global trends—trends, to be entirely fair, that Interbike has no control over—does moving the trade show’s date and location solve the larger problems that hound it?
“We are trying to reinvigorate the show," said Hus when I posed that question to him. "We're having meaningful dialogue with key brands about reinventing the event and our hope is to bring that package together. We wanted to revitalize the show by adding new features and bringing new ideas to the event."
Will Interbike succeed in shaking things up and regaining its former glory? Only time will tell.
Good bye, Vegas. Hello, Reno.
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"A place that’s famous for (...) venereal diseases "
In other words there was only one choice...
Ideally after the Taipei show overseas.
Do you ever ride Tyrolean? Have you been on bobsled near Reno recently?
Alternatively you can go the ski movie route, if you have any pink polo shirts and white sweaters to tie around your neck.
Don't take it personally. Just different strokes.
Every where I've been and lived, and as long as you avoided the tourist and dangerous areas, the people were awesome! I've lived on three different continents and visited more so I know better than to say the people in some place sucks.
So once again, sorry if you take it personally, but I still don't like what LV has become since my first visit in '84. You are probably cool as hell but that has nothing to do with Vegas.
I tend to agree with you, Interbike has become less of a 'necessity' since most of the stuff being shown off has been leaked, or nowadays full on released, months prior. Why would bike shops squeeze pennies out of their already tight budgets to send personnel there?
There are about 150,000 rooms in Las Vegas, even if that's 85% taken up with Cocaine filled degenerate gamblers, that's still 22,500 spare rooms for bike nerds.
That's at least 17,500 rooms more than available within 50 miles of Eurobike...
I paid €150 per night last year, and that was 40km outside of the venue...
Definitely my idea of a party.
Those of us that live here know that you can get a great ride in and some serious temperature drop by driving 30 minutes up to Tahoe. Yesterday (8/2/17) topped 100* in Carson City and 103* in Reno. Lake Tahoe was a very comfortable and RIDEABLE 87* for a majority of the day and was 81* at about 3:30pm when the afternoon thunderstorms started rolling in and giving some great cloud cover.
Between all the trails that Reno has, Carson has, and everything in Tahoe you are going to be hard pressed to find something that you WONT want to ride. And that is just talking about offroad type stuff. Hell I haven't been main places where I can go for a long ride, gain close to 2k' of elevation sweating my balls off, then decide to go for a quick, refreshing jump in some of the worlds most pristine water or tube down the river, all within less than an hours drive.
Will this save Interbike, that is to be seen. But it will help revitalize it for a few years if nothing else.
Have you been out to Spanish Springs recently? Not my favorite trail system (Peavine & Mt Rose for the win!) it looks amazing and is so much fun to ride after the fires.
If I am traveling that far I would rather hit Tahoe up (north or south shore).
Reno did used to be hell, to be fair
Also, I found that out about the tech companies and airline in the past week.
Pretty soon once 395 opens I'm planning a road trip from Downieville, through Tahoe/Reno/Carson and down to Mammoth. The best jalapeño cheese bread in the world can be had on 395 on the way to Mammoth and there's an amazing maintained downhill trail in a small town on the way down too.
So yeah, I used to ignore Nevada for riding but things have changed.
And @LoganKM1982 the last section of 395 opened last week!!! So now you have a straight FREEWAY shot from Reno all the way to highway 50 West without stopping.
Also just got word that there will be a Clear Creek (just along 50 behind the Costco/Target area) extension that has been initially approved for a trail system all the way up to Spooner. No more taking the old Clear Creek road to the top! Plus TAMBA just received approval for a connector from SnapDragon/Sunflower Hill to the Redhouse Flume that will bypass the damn to make things safer. Add to that the fact that we had so many satisfied riders from the CCOR Epic Ride Series and an addition of something like 250 more riders this next year (201
And us Carson City local appreciate it!
I can only afford one bike right now and it's a downhill bike, so if you ever see a guy on a black YT Tues with a neon green chainstay yoke, that kook is me.
It's funny because when I first started frequenting the area I had no clue how much was there. Now I honestly feel defensive of the area, like a local.
www.bicycleretailer.com/north-america/2010/09/10/interbike-moves-anaheim#.WYQeSa2ZMUE
The snow industry moved from Vegas to Denver & everyone hates the move. Nobody from Europe / Asia will come to Reno (or Denver for that matter) because they have the same thing at home (random city at the base of mountains). As crappy as Vegas is, it's cheap with plenty of hotels, flights in / out & it's the city is a spectacle.
The show was already done but this move will stick a fork in it.
It will be interesting for sure to see how this plays out.
It's not much further from Reno than Boulder City is from LV, and the temps will definitely be better.
So true!!!????
Just be ready for sand.
Brazzers: Lets ride vegas like we ride them bikes!!! Hard and rough yet buttery smooth.
@wallheater: I'll check this
Harsh dude.
The drive is about 45mins. Facts.
The OR basically telling Utah how to run our State chapped a lot of asses, I agree that they were and have been looking for an excuse to leave. SLC put on a great show for a lot of years but I guess the grass.............is always greener on the other side, right?
Our airport and access to the hills are literally minutes away from the convention area. Good luck with D.I.A. and driving in horrible traffic to get to the nearest mountain an hour away.