The Best and Worst of Interbike
After a few days at the 2014 Interbike show and having been there manny, many years now on both sides of the aisle, I created a list of Best and Worst products, people and services, all witnessed while in Las Vegas this year.
Many people posed in front of this Interbike sculpture right at the entrance to the Mandalay Bay Convention Center and it is likely that it gave the show a lot Instagram, Facebook and Twitter love.
The Best of Interbike 2014
Below are mostly products that caught my eyes while perusing the show in Las Vegas. There are surely some things that I missed, but for now enjoy what I found and loved.
POC Cerebel
The POC Cerebel helmet was inspired by the relationship with team Garmin-Sharp and developed with the help of the WATTS Lab in the Volvo wind tunnel in Gothenburg, Sweden. The helmet is very beautiful and comes with two different lenses. A violet road specific lens with a VLT of 89,3%, and a light yellow lens with a VLT of 38,0%. It won't be available until early 2015 and my initial thought was to cry when I heard that there will be only one size, but despite my 59.5 cm noggin, the Cerebel easily went on my head.
Colors: Zinc Orange, Nickel Blue and Hydrogen White
MSRP: $350
Speedplay Zero Aero
It has been very silent in the Speedplay camp, but they came to Interbike with all guns blazing. I especially liked the Zero Aero pedal system that includes a walkable cleat. we are in general obsessed with aerodynamic gains and so why not look closer at the bottom of the shoes? Richard Bryne of Speedplay did not have data for these pedals, but told me that he would take the pedals to a wind tunnel. It will be interesting to get actual data, but they have to be faster than regular pedals, plus they certainly look fast and cool.
MSRP: n/a
Sugoi Zap jacket
Protection from the elements matters for sure, and so does visibility. The Sugoi Zap jacket is available in black, red and bright super nova yellow, but it is actually in the darkness when it really shines. The Zap jacket features 25% Micro-Glass beads that are silkscreened to the fabric surface and then reflect when hit with artificial light. So even the black Zap jacket turns into a shiny bright object when hit by car lights or street lamps.
Colors: Black, Red, Super Nova
MSRP: $160
Fly6 tail light camera
In February of this year Aussies Andrew Hagan and Kingsley Fiegert tried to raise AUS $95,000 on Kickstarter to make their dream of a HD camera 7 tail light combo a reality, and with $266,594 they easily jumped over that target and clearly many cyclists thought of this as an important safety tool and voted with their own money. Fliegert was shot with a slingshot while riding a bike and many of us have horror stories ranging from being hit by smoothies to full coke bottles to close drive by action and diesel smoke stunt. At Interbike Fly6 showed a slightly smaller version with a longer battery life. The unit gets shipped with a 16GB card and that should allow you to record at least 5 hours of a looped video.
MSRP: $159
K-Edge Garmin dual mount
We have all learned that K-Edge makes very nice and smart components and this new Garmin dual mount is no exception. K-Edge actually stands for Kristin's edge as in an edge for 2-time Olympic gold medalist Kristin Armstrong. Many of the products were designed to give this speedy cyclist an advantage, and although I don't see her competing in a TT anytime soon with a GoPro camera attached to her Garmin mount, it is a very clever setup and most cameras on the market either fit directly or can be adapted to fit below the Garmin mount. Recording the world around you during a bike session is increasingly popular, not just for vanity and bragging rights, but safety and ammunition against inconsiderate fellow traffic participants, and would match up nicely with the Fly6 we featured just above.
MSRP: $54.99
Onyx Racing Products hubs
Onyx Racing Products are best known in the BMX world and ridden by Alise Post and Joey “The Bomb” Berthiaume, but the brand is slowly pushing into other areas of cycling with their instant engagement hubs. They do road and cyclocross hubs too and you have to touch and play with the rear hub to truly appreciate and understand the instant engagement. But this instant engagement does not come cheap, and sadly, how many folks do still build up their wheels from scratch?
MSRP: $420 rear / $185 front
Quarq Elsa RS power meter
This new power meter from Quark was created to match up nicely with the Shimano 4-arm Hollowglide chainrings. That was an area of opportunity Quarq had ignored (as part of the SRAM family) and left open for play to its competitors, but play time is over. Thee are many more competitors out there now, but Quarq is still a very reliable standard and you can have an Elsa RS crank as short as 162.5 and also in 165, in addition to 170, 172.5 and 175.
MSRP: $1,600
Shimano XTR Di2 components
The word game changer is well overused but applies here. The new XTR Di2 was in my view the most amazing product at Interbike. With 1 manual and 2 Syncro shifting options it was a marvel to watch and feel it shift through all while pressing just one button. You can either continuously shift, jump 3 gears or one gear at a time, and man it is smooth. A small display shows you where you are and the electronic system allows you also to integrate Fox front and rear lockout. The 2 systems work hand in hand and more system integration is likely down the road.
MSRP: $3,500
Silca SuperPista Ultimate pump
This beautiful and very expensive pump was created with lots of passion and hard work – and it all came from the heart and smart mind of Josh Poertner. He readily admits that he had lots of input as he set out on the arduous path to improve on the original Silca SuperPista and subsequently incorporated many of those ideas into the final design. He however did not listen to all the naysayers and stayed true to his vision. The pump is manufactured in Indianapolis and at 7 pounds it is the heaviest bicycle pump I ever touched. The operation however is very smooth and the pump has many clever details including a magnetic dock for the chuck. Silca won the 2014 Interbike Best In Show award and word has it that the number of pumps sold has surpassed all expectations and wishful thinking.
MSRP: $450
The Triathlon Pavilion
While it seems that Interbike is getting smaller, the Triathlon Pavilion certainly is getting larger and larger and it was a hub of activity. Plus for media it is great to see all these brands in one spot. At Eurobike it is very difficult to find triathlon related products, but that is not the case at Interbike. So yeah for the great Triathlon Pavilion in Las Vegas.
MSRP: priceless
Ryders Eyewear booth
At a show where many booths are simple 10×10 or 10×20 stalls, the Ryders Eyewear booth has made a lasting impression the last few years under the guidance of Mike Guinn, the director of creative tomfoolery and it is truly entertaining to visit their little world in Las Vegas. Last year it was Back To The Future and this year it was Western themed and the staff plays well with the theme each year, including funny accents this time around. Ryders Eyewear is a North Vancouver, Canadian brand, and of course they have fine products too, so it isn't just show and no go. Bravo Ryders Eyewear.
MSRP: priceless
The Worst of Interbike 2014
A tradeshow in Las Vegas brings up gripes in general, and I had thus no shortage of ammunition for this section. I tried however to not go on and on and items and situations featured within evolve around the Interbike but could apply to other shows and events too.
Roller bag traps
Roller bags are convenient when going to an airport but in narrow and crowded trade show aisles they are dangerous and a nuisance. Plus it guarantees that the user grabs every flyer and brochure he or she gets their hands on, because they do have space, and they do not need to lift it. But why roll all that stuff through the halls when you are pitching most of it into the hotel room trash anyway? The guy below must have been worked over from the effort of pulling the heavy roller bag and thus missed his next appointment. He or some passerby started to fill the handle with flyers too.
Tablet photographers
Manufacturers should actually be blamed for including cameras in tablets, but the responsibility really belongs to the people who bought them. You look like an idiot when you hold a tablet to your ear to make a phone call, and it is not much better to hold it in front of you and others to take pictures with it. It is actually very inconsiderate.
Media access at Interbike
I am not sure why trade shows like Interbike do not allow media in earlier than the rest of the industry folks. Are the show owners and exhibitors afraid we see employees with vacuum cleaners and brooms? The time in the morning before the show opens officially would be perfect to snap pictures without a million arms and legs in the way.
Along those lines Interbike and Eurobike (and Kona) should not give out media passes so readily. Advertising folks and friends and family should be able to have access to the show, but not with the same color pass as the journalists. And along those lines, just because someone writes for a random own blog (not DCRainmaker) that does not make that person a journalist, and should certainly not offer them a media badge.
Where have all the big brands gone?
Interbike is heaven for new brands and established ones in small booths and folks who can hand carry their product to the show. But Specialized, Trek, Cervelo and Cannondale are some of the big brands who no longer exhibit inside the Interbike halls, and most of them have also stopped to show stuff at Outdoor Demo. The show is no longer a sales booking show as it was and thus the reason to go to the show has shifted. Big brands now do house shows to which they invite key accounts and media folks, and having been on the exhibitor side myself when I worked for American Bicycle Group I understand some of the reasons for that shift away. It was basically twice as expensive to move the freight from 2 tractor trailers from outside the convention center to the showroom floor than it had cost us to drive 2,500 miles from Chattanooga, TN with said 2 tractor trailers round trip. It is still sad though to see those brands no longer there. Felt however bucked a trend and they showed inside the Interbike halls for the first time in a while.
PR and marketing folks with no knowledge
Many companies have PR agencies and their staff represent their brands and while some of them do a fine job, many of them basically know little and have to go back to the source regularly before relaying that information back to the journalist. So how is that helpful to the brand? It certainly isn't helpful to the journalist when questions aren't answered or require a brochure search by that PR specialist. I have actually gotten completely wrong answers and sometimes it takes days before the information gets returned, when that PR person forwards the questions to his marketing contact inside, and that person passes it on to engineering, and then the same thing on the way back. Why not connect the journalist straight with the brand? But that brings up the other issue, even some marketing folks within a brand seem to now little about the products they are pitching. And this is not my first time at this kind of rodeo, so do not tell me about as a point of distinction of your open mold product that the specific carbon layup process that you specified is so great that the stock mold manufacturer now wants to use for all his other customers.
Super Sprint Tri and Interbike
While it is great to see the big presence of the triathlon pavilion at Interbike, I still do not understand how the Super Sprint Triathlon Grand Prix again took place with maybe only 50 folks spectating. Interbike, USA Triathlon and SS Tri GP had a year to get together to improve what happened last year, but that was not the case. Yes this was covered by Universal Sports and will air eventually, but it would have been great for people to see this very exciting race format live. There was $70,000 on the line and the battle for that cash was fierce, but I barely learned about this race while already in Vegas. I do not want to finger point here, but this has to improve for next year and there is now a full year to go.
Rowdy ClifBar Cross Vegas
Unlike the SSTRIGP, the 2014 ClifBar CrossVegas race was packed with fans and they started to party very early. By the time the Pro men started their race around 9:15pm some fans in a drunken stupor and likely encouraged by other fans poured their beers on racers as they passed by. No one wants to be sprayed by beer, especially when you are riding at the rivet trying to follow the wheels of Sven Nys. Several Pros found the action of some fans as very sad and frustrating, and runner-up Las van der Haar has considered not returning to this race in Vegas. In Europe some fans have done beer spraying because they are loyal to certain racers and against others, and Nys actually confronted a fan during a race for that. European athletes appreciate how American fans loudly support all athletes and do not partake in partisan support, but what happened in Vegas gave American fans a black eye. Let us be smarter and more considerate, after all we don't want to be sprayed with beer or other liquids either while racing.
Unfriendly or otherwise occupied booth staff
Exhibiting at Interbike is clearly not cheap and thus it is puzzling that in certain booths the employees are just sitting in a corner with their head down and tapping away on a smart phone or tablet every time when you pass by. Is it that hard to stand up and engage with potential customers and media?
More PR agency shenanigans
I still got requests for Interbike appointments from PR agencies during Interbike week, on Monday, Tuesday and a couple on Wednesday. Really? They did not think about this sooner? Maybe the bike brand representation is just a very small potato for these agencies, but then maybe it is best for the PR group to simply not accept these brands into the portfolio.
