Interbike Day 1 - A Fresh Perspective

Interbike is old hat to some of us pinkbikers. Radek, Russ, and Mike went to last year's expo, giving them infinitely more experience than I've got at these things. But I'm getting along somehow so far and can offer a commentary on a couple interesting things about IB2003.One of the first things I noticed at the demo days is how much new stuff is around. Everybody's got their latest and greatest and is happy to tell about it. Heck, one vendor told me they don't have their current DH bike because "the next version is only about 10 months away." Yup, people want to show off that latest and greatest, not the two month old crap.
All the who's who of the industry is certainly around, but we didn't see a lot of the riders in the first day. We did, however, see the rider's bikes at the tents, so I'm pretty sure they're not out riding! Who knows where they could be, but I know if I were a pro rider, I'd certainly be here getting as much free stuff as possible.
Oh, did I mention that lots of things are free? Yeah, it's amazing, promo stuff is everywhere. I was actually foolish enough to ask at one booth, "Are these water bottles free?" The guy looked at me like I was from mars and said "This is Interbike." Enough said.
Then there was the Cycle-Ops/Saris booth which featured some forward thinking engineering which involved hooking up a cycle trainer to a blender. They brought ice, cuervo, and margarita mix to make some much-appreciated margaritas in the 95 degree heat.
Now I'm sure a beancounter at a bike company might read this article and try to stop this practice, but actually I think this is a good thing. People really aren't familiar with some of this stuff and this promotion is relatively cheap and directly given to an important part of the market. It does make sense in the end, but it's still kinda overwhelming. Heck, even WTB serving people burgers (which they so nicely did) can't be very expensive and it sure makes a lot of people happy with WTB.
An interesting trait of a lot of people I talked to on this first day is the absolute passion that people have about what they do. I talked to a number of people who were so happy about what they do and telling us about the little details they've taken care of to make their products better. It sure makes me proud to see that there is still this commitment to excellence around somewhere.
It's these little things that really make me realize what the value of a show like this is. Some of it may be vain or frilly in some way, but it's really what all those little details and feelings taken together illustrate - this is about biking and people love it. I'm glad to see it and glad to be here. Despite only getting three hours of sleep last night.