Interbike 2013: A Look Back

While there have already been some Interbike 2013 articles published by me and there are boatloads more to come, I’ve been pretty silent on the whole trip since arriving home very early on the 21st. I really needed some time to get past the Vegas fatigue and reflect on how the week went.

Yes, as usual, there were plenty of cool new things to see. More things that one mere mortal could take in over a year, let alone three days. That leads to my first beef – the show floor.

Much has already been said about the layout of the show floor. Patrick Brady over at Red Kite Prayer compared it to a “truncated J”, and lo to anyone who tried to navigate across the chasm. I know that it was a factor of the appointments that I made and the physical location of those vendors on the show floor, but I felt as if I spent most of my time racing between opposite corners of the convention center, leaving little time for those serendipitous encounters that make Interbike so much fun.

And that’s if I knew where I was going. At times I was just utterly lost. The aisles of the show were labeled as streets – 13th Street instead of Aisle 13. Following the street analogy, the ‘city’ suffered from major urban planning issues. It was rife with dead ends (the aforementioned chasm) and buildings blocking the road (booths that spanned a ‘street’).

Take a look at the image above. If you spent your day navigating just along 6th street, you’d probably be able to get around fairly easily. Booths in the 5000s are to the north, booths in the 6000s are south. Then you get a little further east. You’re on the same street, but the booths to the south are now numbered in the 7000s. I didn’t include this part of the show map, but if you were to continue east, you’d be back in the 6000s.

Then go just one street south. According to logic, you’d be on 7th street. The booths to your south should be numbered in the 7000s. Nope. 8000s. Or maybe 6081. Or maybe 7092 (that’s one of those ‘buildings’ that you run into).

Enough about the show floor. How about what was ON the show floor?

Gravel:

Gravel bikes, filling the hole that no one knew existed between cyclocross bikes and mountain bikes, was a big deal this year. Seemed that everyone either had a new gravel bike or re-positioned existing models to fit the growing market.

A lot of my colleagues in the business have gone on and on about the need or lack thereof for gravel bikes. It’s a bit of a ‘meh’ issue for me. If you have a cross bike and want to do gravel races, you’re likely in good shape. If you’re a core blacktop-riding roadie and want to go do a gravel race, by all means, look into what’s out there. Whether you end up with a cross bike or a gravel grinder, you’ll have a nice bike that you can likely throw some fenders on and ride to work in nasty conditions. It’s a win-win.

Aero Road:

I’m a big fan of Giant’s bikes. Although I apparently don’t rate with their marketing guys, I always make sure to stop by their booth to take in what’s new. It took two laps of their sizable booth to find a TCR Advanced. For Giant, it was all about the Propel aero road model.

It’s no surprise that aero was also the thing for makers such as Cervelo, but even brands as traditional as Fondriest were showing bikes with aero tube shapes and brakes tucked beneath the chain stays.

High End BMX:

In its 40 plus year history, BMX has always been a sport of innovation, with the big growth forward in the sport being led by dads working out of their garages to build better bikes for their kids.

There’s still a strong element of small companies making leaps forward in technology, but the growth of supercross BMX has vaulted the sport onto the world stage and the sport has not escaped the drive for bikes that are faster, lighter and stronger. $1000 race bikes were not terribly uncommon back in the day when I used to race, but those prices usually came out of the components (unlike many, my first exposure to Campagnolo and American Classic came through BMX, not road bikes).

I have to admit that I was initially shocked to see a $2600 Redline BMX race bike at the show. The shock quickly turned to awe as I spent more time looking at the bike. When you consider that the roadies are plying their trade on machines that cost $10,000 or more, a $2600 BMX bike that can handle the torque of Mark Cavendish AND survive being thrown off the side of a building makes more sense.

Another long overdue innovation to bridge to BMX is oversize bars and stems. Box Components is the first to create a BMX specific OS bar/stem combo to the sport with their Delta Stem and Maximus Handlebar. They’re the first, but I doubt that they’ll be the last.

Fat Bikes:

Fat Bikes are the stand-up paddleboard of the bike world. It’s the trend that just won’t die. I thought that after their initial bow that they would kind of just slide back into obscurity, but they seemed to be everywhere this year.

Their prevalence was most notable at Outdoor Demo, where it seemed that nearly every other person that rode by was on a fat bike.

The fat bike most talked about was Borealis’ carbon fiber Yampa. A size medium frame weighs just 1270g, a weight that would have been respectable for high end road bikes not all that long ago.

Fabric Tech:

The number of apparel choices that are available to cyclists of all stripes now are just amazing.

While you’re unlikely to see anyone on your local club ride wearing all-wool bike shorts, merino wool continues to provide an alternative to clothing that is 100% lycra. While its predominant in more casual clothing, companies like Icebreaker still make it a part of technical cycling clothing.

Lycra, while omnipresent, continues to evolve as well. ASSOS revolutionary S7 shorts include a woven (as opposed to knit) lycra in some panels. The innovation allows them to focus compression to certain parts of the shorts while still keeping the weight down.

Another examples of advances in fabric technology can be found in items such as Gore Bike Wear’s Oxygen jersey. The center rear panel of the jersey is made from a less stretchy lycra that helps to support loads in the jersey pockets. It makes perfect sense, even if no one had thought of it before.

Finally, there’s Sugoi’s RSE rain jacket. Super light. Super breathable. Super water resistant.

Conclusion?:

Not really, I’m just getting started on all of the cool things that I saw at the show. There’s a lot more to come to these (web) pages.