An Amusement & Diversion for The Genteel Cyclist. Daily.

Friday, October 5, 2007

White belts and SPD shoes in Vegas!


Well, we finally got around to reading our email, and found a delightful little correspondence from Snakebite regarding Interbike. Here's what our man in Vegas had to say:


What I did notice about the dirt demo stuff (I did mostly mountain bike riding and almost Surly's entire line) is 29'ers seemed to be the direction people were heading and talking about. Also, the Spot bikes with the belt drive were really popular. I talked to Gene-O to get his take (since my size was never available when I tried to get one) and he thought they might not be so good in a mountain bike setting due to small rocks potentially getting in the works but his opinion is they'd be super great in an urban setting. Belts are not supposed to stretch and last upwards of 25 years.

The Tuesday morning Lake Meade ride (formerly known as the hangover ride) was more like the Lake Meade race if you were up front. I tried to hang with those guys on a Scott Addict I scored at thee last possible moment (was going to take a Surly Long Haul Trucker but the Surly dudes didn't show soon enough to unlock the bikes - go figure) with a too long stem but felt a bit uncomfortable pace lining at 25 to 30 MPH with riders I'm not use to riding with. I backed off and rode with some dudes that were closer to 20 MPH.

Buzz from inside the convention center - Crumpler bags seemed to be the shizzle. Thee booth babes were babe-alious. I didn't see / hear about anything that stood out more than anything else.

The cross race was really good and close. Gary Fisher was seen sporting sequined pants and jacket and a (non-sequined) cowboy hat.


We stopped in the shop for quick confirmation on the whole belts thing (we'd be happy to not ever talk about 29ers again, frankly), and Gene-O confirmed that this was, indeed, the case -- and that he and a co-conspirator attempted to manually jam the belt-drive bikes with small rocks and sticks, which earned the opprobrium of the Spot people, but proved the theory correct.

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