If you read this site through an RSS reader, take a moment and click over to the main site.  I’ve recently revamped www.crookedcog.com.

The site’s main goal now serves as a portal to the rest of the network.  Any new article that is posted across the sites will show up here so if you’re looking to keep up with all the Crooked Cog writings, this is the place for you.

My personal blog will keep rolling, however it’s taking a backseat to the ‘real’ content.

I’ve been making lots of changes to the Network over the past few months and will continue to do so.

All the site’s layouts have now been completely revamped to make them more user friendly and, while there are some readers that don’t like the new looks, the stats don’t lie.  There has been a huge increase of people finding the site, sticking around to read articles and then moving deeper in to read more stuff.

As we move forward a lot of the changes will be behind the scenes.  Guitar Ted will be filling more of a roll in the Crooked Cog inner workings and Arleigh is getting more involved in writing for all the sites.  There’s at least one more new site in the works and I see our staff of writers increasing sometime in the Spring.

It’s good times here at Crooked Cog headquarters as this beast continues to grow.  Stick around to see what happens next.

I gave my thoughts on the 2007 Interbike experience, but now I’d like to address another subject… opening up Interbike the last day of the show to the general public.

Eurobike does it, why can’t we?

I’ll break it down real nice for ya…

Crowd

Interbike is already a tight fit a lot of times. Booths get full, lines are long and at peak times the show feels like mildly controled chaos. And that’s just the industry folks.

Theft

Every year there are reports of stuff getting stolen at Interbike. Both on and off the floor. And again, that’s just the industry people. Once you open it up to the general public you’re playing in a whole different ballgame. Currently at Interbike very few things are locked down. You can go into a booth and pick up the products, look closely at them, feel the weight, etc etc. That all changes if you open the doors wide and the attendance triples. Everything starts getting locked down with bolts and behind glass.

Are we missing the point?

Interbike exists so manufacturers can sell their wares to retailers. Anything else should come second to that and anything that inhibits that should be removed. As a member of the media, I know my place on the food chain. I always take a step back when a retailers enters a booth and allow my conversation to be interrupted. I only have a job if the industry keeps growing and it’ll only keep growing when retailers are moving products. I’ve even wondered at times if the media’s role should be scaled back. Sure, we’re there to cover the products and it definitely adds a ton to the exhibitors return on investment if they get some press on the stuff they’re pushing, however with 450+ members of the media at Interbike this year, there has to be times when we get in the way.

Now… add to that a mass of people that come through the doors and triples (or worse) the attendance? There is no way you can do business in that enviroment and I think the majority of retailers would hit the door for that last ‘public day’, which begs the question “Are we missing the point?” There’s already a general sense that the show is just to big to cover in three days, so why would you add stress to that?

There’s gotta be an upside

And there is. The general public, which actually ponys up in the end for these products, get to see a whole lot of stuff first hand. Products their retailer may not carry so it could potentially create some public demand that wasn’t there before.

But this isn’t a good enough reason in my mind. The mass of people would be to much of a disruption to the main goal of the show and this is where the media’s job steps in. It’s our job to cover the show in a way to assimilate as much information as possible to the general public.

In the end…

There is no way the final day of Interbike should be opened to the general public. Way to many disruptions to the system for reasons that, frankly, aren’t good enough.

The only way I see a ‘public day’ working is if you extend the show to Saturday and make that day open.

But good luck getting the exhibitors to signon for a longer week…

Last week was the big shinnydig for the bike industry. Interbike is held the last week of September every year and is the chance for manufacturers to show off their wares to dealers. This was my fourth year to the big show and although I’m still a newbie compared to most, I believe I can give some overall thoughts and opinions on the show. The parts that are good and the parts that need some work.

Viva Las Vegas

Vegas sucks. We all know this. And the overall waste and sadness that exists there is hard on the soul after a week. So why is the bike tradeshow held in a city that many would deam contrary to everything the bicycle stands for?

One, just like the women, Las Vegas is cheap and easy. The major airport is five miles from the event and the hotels/flights are to expensive. Not to mention that much of the city is built around large events and large amounts of people. This makes it way easier to put on such a large event as Interbike

Two, the sands expo is a perfect place for Interbike. There are only a couple places in North America big enough to hold everybody and the Sands is (I believe) the only place that can house everyone in one room instead of multiple floors and shoving the little guys off in their own room somewhere. Think the New Exhibitor pavilion is a ghost town now?

Third, how many of those other places that could house Interbike can almost gaurantee no rain for the outdoor demo?

So yeah, Vegas sucks, but the folks at Interbike didn’t just close their eyes and put their finger on the map. They picked Sin City for good reasons… and don’t forget the dealors took a survey last year and overwhelmingly voted to stay in Vegas.

The Exhibitors Need Some People Skills

Ok, I’m gonna say it. A lot of the exhibitors come off as jackasses.

Why would you pay the thousands of dollars for booth space, shipping, travel, etc and then ignore people when they walk into your booth to look around? And this isn’t just me, I’ve heard this same complaint every year from many people. There were several times each day, companies large and small, that I walked into a booth, asked somebody standing their to tell me about their products and they looked at me like I had three heads. There were a couple that even sighed as if I were annoying them.

And then you have booths like Specialized and Townie that had friggen security at the door kicking people out. Oh yeah, and I was told I had to ask permission from the marketing guy at the Specialized booth for each picture that I took.

Maybe the folks at Interbike should ship out a copy of “How to Win Friends and Influence People” to everyone that exhibits.

Get some people skills or stay home and save your money.

Switch the order of Outdoor Demo and Interbike

Having the Outdoor Demo before Interbike makes no sense from a logistical standpoint for Interbike’s biggest customers, the manufacturers. Every company that participates in both has to ship out to sets of bikes. One to get wrecked during the demo on Monday and Tuesday then another to get shown Wednesday through Friday. Why not have the tradeshow the first three days and then the demo Thursday/Friday so these guys can save some cash and only ship out one set of bikes?

Also, doing it this way gives the dealers a chance to see all the bikes for a few days so they can see exactly what bikes they want to demo and potentially make appointments for them.

Let’s switch up the Outdoor Demo and Interbike days to save the manufacturers some cash and make it easier on the dealers.

The Show Rocks for the Media

Last year the media center was added to the showroom floor and it was great to have somewhere on the main level to go and update the websites. However last year was also the first year cycling.tv was streaming live from the event and the bandwidth was severely underwhelming. For most of the show the internet was painfully slow and a huge nuisance for those of us bloggers looking to update the sites regularly.

This year all that changed. The wireless network was extremely reliable and they even had hardline hookups in the media center if you needed a faster connection. Rich Kelly of Nielson (owners of Interbike) and Chip Smith of SOAR Communications were extremely nice and helpful.

The 2007 show was the best so far for the media and I give two big thumbs up.

Not so Rockin’ for the Manufacturers?

I heard a story about a smaller company only wanting to exhibit at the Outdoor Demo and they were quoted a price that was more than the cost of exhibiting at the Outdoor Demo and Interbike. Yes, you read that right. Doing both cost less than doing just one which meant they opted to exhibit at both.

There’s been some speculation of the waning of Interbike with big dogs like Trek/Fisher pulling out of the main show and Specialized severely cutting back their booth space. So is this Nielson’s way of twisting the arm of smaller operations to stay at the show so they can keep claiming big numbers? I sure hope that’s not the case but I don’t see any other reason for the weird pricing.

In the end…

Interbike was pretty great this year. I’m interested to see how things pan out in the future with people’s annoyances with Nielson and the Eurobike folks trying to muscle in as well.

Either way, it’ll give us media folks somethin’ to talk about.

The doors opened for the Interbike tradeshow this morning at 9am.  I was already running behind schedule at 9:38am as I rushed to meet the Trek/Fisher folks.  By 12pm I was back on schedule standing at the Crumpler booth… but only because I was so late to my last meeting that we had to postpone.

There were two pretty rockin’ things that I did today…

First off, thanks to Carlton Reid of Bike Biz and Quickrelease.tv, I was on a panel of judges for a Shimano video contest.  The other judges included:

• Kozo Shimano
• Phil Liggett
• Bob Roll
• Carlton Reid
• David Bernstein
• Rich Kelly (not pictured)
• Tim Jackson (not pictured)
• Donna Tocci

Here’s a picture from our photoshoot:

The second was my debute on cycling.tv for the first video version of the Spokesmen cycling podcast.  It was extremely quickpaced with the amount of guests but went well and was a lot of fun.  I’ll post the video here once it’s up somewhere for you to watch.

So that, in a nutshell was day 1 of the show.  Crazy crazy times.

This was Guitar Ted’s and I first year to the Outdoor Demo and I understand why a) everyone likes it more than the tradeshow and b) everybody is already worn out when you see them Wednesday morning.  It’s two days in the Nevada sun riding a whole lot of bikes and some pretty rad trails.  Oh yeah, and the exhibitors are working their tookus off demoing bikes, dealing with their demo booth AND setting up their Interbike booth.

But I do enjoy my roll to play in all that…  going around demoing as many bikes as possible for two days.

Monday I focused a lot on what few commuter rigs were available to ride at the show.  I posted most of them up on commutebybike.com but I gotta say the coolest one was the Big Dummy from Surly.  I’m gonna be wantin’ one bad when those things hit the market.

I did also get a couple dirt rides in on Monday and then all day Tuesday was singletrack.  Here’s all the mountain bikes I tried out:

• Surly Karate Monkey
• Niner RIP 9
• DiamondBack Mission 3
• Haro Werx Xeon (with 650b wheels)
• Trek 69er Singlespeed
• Salsa El Mariachi

These were all bikes I’ve seen many times but never had a chance to throw a leg over (except the 69er) and each one had different elements that made it fun.  I’m sure I’ll be posting impressions here and on the other crooked cog sites.  Make sure you keep your eyes on Blue Collar MTB, Twenty Nine Inches and Commute by Bike for interbike updates.

Oh yeah and if you were wondering if I rode much yesterday…