Interbike, Vegas Baby!
By Christy Nicholson
After barely recovering from a reunion in Vegas just ten days before Interbike, we headed back to Sin City for round two. Interbike was Interbike – an explosion of all things bike. I love to ride my bike, but the sensory overload of gadgets, carbon, and bike geeks rolling around the aisles on recumbents is almost too much to handle all at once. I am pretty sure I get a bad case of Attention Deficit Disorder at Interbike. Maybe it is due to the Interbike diet, which consists of way too much caffeine, candy, energy bars and drinks, Clif Bloks, Sports Beans and Happy Hour beer. Whatever the cause, I am glad it only happens once a year.
Seeing Friends
The one thing I do enjoy at Interbike, is running into old friends. This year I ran into my old Chevrolet/LA Sheriff and Chevrolet/Klein teammate Carmen D’Aluisio and caught up with her over some Jittery Joe’s espresso. She is doing a great job as the Team Director for the Aaron’s Pro Women’s Cycling Team. We were talking about all of the women we raced with that are now Team Directors and are directing the next generation of women to win bike races. These Director Sportifs have impressive cycling resumes and include my former teammate World TT Champ and Olympian Karen Brems (Webcor), Olympian Linda Jackson (Tibco), National Champion Laura Charameda (Advil/Chapstick), and my HPWC composite teammate and crack up Lisa Hunt (ValueAct Capital). I think it would be really cool if one day some of these ladies directed a Pro Men’s Team on to victory.
CrossVegas and the WCSN USA Crit Finals
This year Interbike treated us to two great events - CrossVegas and the WCSN USA Crit Finals. I hope these events become an Interbike staple for years to come and always thought they should incorporate a bike race sooner. Unfortunately, we missed CrossVegas, but heard it was awesome and hope to check it out next year. The WCSN USA Crit Finals were held in the Mandalay Bay’s Convention Center’s parking lot in front of a pumped crowd of 20,000 spectators. The course was cool from a spectators stand point offering lots of vantage points as the riders twisted and turned throughout the parking lot. From a riders perspective, turn one looked a little tight for the speeds the riders were going and quite a few riders got friendly with the pavement and barriers.
We grabbed a premium spot to watch the Industry Cup on the WCSN editing trailer. The field was stacked with some heavy hitters like former World Champ Mario Cippolini, Olympians Steve Bauer, Steve Hegg and Dave Lettieri, So Cal's Jen Reither and eventual winner and former Chevrolet / LA Sheriff Junior Team member, Kenny Williams. With a lap to go, there was big crash in turn one that took out Cippolini. After watching the playback on the big screen, a rider got irritated with a photographer that was standing on the course by the S/F line and threw his bottle at him and in the process overlapped a wheel before turn one taking out Cipo, Michael Zellman from SRAM and others.
The main event was the Pro Men’s Race. It had all of the excess that Vegas is known for; Umbrella Girls, a $ 5000 Gamblers Prime, $ 7 cans of Bud, crashes and an exciting finish with Ivan Dominguez (Toyota-United) just edging out Martin Gilbert (Kelly Benefits / Medifast). Rock & Republic’s, CEO Michael Ball, sponsored the race and dropped some killer primes for the riders. When the announcer asked him why he sponsored cycling, he said something like “Because it’s F’ing cool man, it kick’s A$$.” I guess you can’t argue with that and if he wants to infuse some cash and excitement into the sport, that’s cool!
Interbike Rumour Mill
The usual rumours and stories were flying at Interbike. Probably the biggest hoopla was the Tour of America story. I’ll believe this one when I see it. It has similarities to the Noble House Team that never happened in 2001. The other rumour that is big, is that Chris Horner signed with Rock Racing (Rock Racing even has him listed in their press kit as being on their roster). This may be premature, since I hear he is talking with Slipstream.
Check back later for product coverage.
