|   wow! they should have Interbike EVERY weekend! | Jm
Sep 30, 2001 5:50 PM | | So here is the pre-pre-report or something. (I got some pics, but they are not developed yet).
Wow, what an event. Saturday was hot(as Las Vegas usually is) and dry as a bone!! Kudos to the guys at the trail head with the jugs full of water.
Tomac Bikes had the best demo policy, if it was hanging on the rack then you could take it, no waiting lists no reservations, I got to ride a few of those, they handled extremely well. I was really hyped up when I got to test a Tomac 204, but didn't get far before others noticed the seals on the Dorado were blown, evidently this is not an uncommon problem from what they said(which was "we are not supposed to talk about that").
Highlight of Sat was when Gary Fischer knocked over about 3-4 wheels on a stand, and I told him, "you are going to have to buy those now". He either wasnt amused or didnt hear me, I did not even know who it was at first, and really didn't care after the fact either, just another mountain biker, abeit a strange looking one.
Paul Turner was deep into calculus or quantum phyisics explaining the merits of his new Maveric bike, he was bent down giving a class on forces, tourque, chainthisandthat, otherbikesdothis, mybikedoesthat, blah blah blah, it was all very amusing, and I suspect if it really was as great as he made it out to be, people would just have to test ride it, but the amount of blah blah blah was pretty excessive.
It was hard getting a good freeride bike to ride, and near impossible to get a DH bike, it meant waiting around for a long time, so I just rode other bikes, and went to places that weren't as busy(and tomac, which had the better policy). One surprising bike was the Kestral Rubicon, I'd never ridden one before, but it really suprised me as a comfortable stretched-out chassi with stable geometry.
Other newer bikes were not excessively impressive, Manitous Black forks were very unimpressive. The stiffness was great, but the travel was not, and it really did not feel plush like a bomber(so what is yet, fox maybe), and this was like 3 blacks if I remember correctly.
Hayes mech discs, YUCK!! these were the most terrible disc i tried that day, second to the hayes hydros, but the hydros were just grippy and hard to get used to, the mechs didnt have any power, took excessive finger power(at least two) and just overall yucky. On the other side of the scale, Avid mechs were SWEET! These things had POWER. Good, not great modulation(probably due to the non-avid levers) but the power was impressive, much better than the hayes hydros i tested that day, definatly one-finger and you can easily stop the whole bike with one finger with just the front brake.
Lots of great stuff was going on, and I got to get the pics i took today developed, so maybe I will post again soon, I definatly have a lot more stories and tech-files that I picked up today at the expo. |
| Who cares? | FP
Sep 30, 2001 6:21 PM | | What kind of swag did you get, dipshit?
fp |
| The best kind. | Jm
Sep 30, 2001 7:16 PM | | Free Beer at the Evil Bikes booth at the expo.
Huge signed poster from you know who....No, not D8 you sicko, the Bomber Babes, and even though their english is not so goodly they definatly have a presence and the line was getting pretty long by the time I left.
No swag, there was a distributer there blowing out parts at dirt cheap prices, and I mean DIRT cheap, 50-60 dollar stems for 1-3 DOLLARS, and pretty much all kinds of components at stupid cheap prices, but due to the circumstances of my attendance, and the requirment for your shop to "have an account" with the distributer(could be done in 5 min on the spot) I didn't want slap the face of the people who allowed me to attend, because it wouldn't be right to do that to him after he was so nice to me.
So just tons of litterature, price lists, lots of stickers.
I might get into this later, but many manufacturers had prototype and even production models that they unvailed today, that were not present at the dirt demo. These include the santa cruz XC VPP, foes Fly, Rocky Mountain (new XC FS bike), and others, I took pics of em. |
| Any more info on the Santa Cruz VPP bikes? PLEASE! (nm) | CraigH
Oct 1, 2001 2:13 PM | | nm |
| Ha! Sounds like my Gary Fisher story. | ldf
Sep 30, 2001 10:53 PM | | I was at a race. He just finished his race, and a small group was flocking around him, asking for autographs. To them, he was being very cordial. He was riding, what was at the time, a preproduction Sugar, with a cool one piece Ti stem and handlebar. I could care less about the man. I mean, give me a break, he uses the can, just like everyone else. But I was fascinated by the bike. I walked up to him and started asking questions about the bike. I guess I came off as if I just thought he was another Fisher sales rep. He was pretty much being a dick, and giving me the total blow off.
Then, I called him "Gary" and asked for his autograph. (Not that I even wanted it, or cared). After I acknowledged that he WAS Gary Fisher, he was pretty cool and was more than willing to talk about the bike.
My guess is that he did hear you. |
| re: wow! they should have Interbike EVERY t! | 1WD
Oct 3, 2001 2:46 AM | |  |
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