BikeBiz Bicycle and cycling retail news
Within minutes of opening this morning, the Specialized booth had a queue of retail staff wanting to park their butts on Specialized Epics, the Brain inertia-valve bikes. All day long, this booth was busy. The company brought plenty of Epics, but clearly, not enough to meet the demand.
But it wasn’t just the Specialized booth that was busy, all of the MTB suppliers were worked off their feet from the word go.
It was somewhat easier to test ride a road bike, America’s IBD staffers mostly seem to be still fixated on mountain bikes.
Like last year, Bikebiz.co.uk got here early (on the first bus to leave from the Sands Convention Center at 7am), and left late. And what a show! With 100+ exhibitors and 4000+ retail staff visitors, this was America’s second biggest trade show (second only to Interbike itself).
There were free energy drinks, free sports sunscreen sprays, free ice-lollies and even the most expensive of the top-end bikes on display were freely available for serious test-riding to whoever wanted ’em.
Recumbent and road bike riders had a long stretch of smooth asphalt highway to burn along. Mountain bikers had the choice of five desert trails, up to three miles in length. Two of the trails were highly technical with edgy singletrack, and stunning desert views.
