(Assuming you’re vaxxed and / or masked, but it’s all outdoors in the American state with the lowest Covid transmission rate.)
I like to visit Sea Otter on Thursday because that’s the slow day, but it’s anything but slow here with full campgrounds, more athletes than they had at their 2019 record year, and a busy expo area.
Sea Otter is under new ownership, but most of the staff who ran the show in previous years are still here, with the same attention to the guest experience except now they have more resources to make things happen.
One area where numbers are down are vendors and demos. Several bike industry people told me they just don’t have the bikes available to demo, either because they sell them faster than they can build them, or because they couldn’t ship them to California. Still, there’s plenty to see. As always, the focus is very much on mountain bikes, but I’ve seen a few vendors selling lifestyle and utility bike things that interest me.
I made a whirlwhind visit to a few vendors and I’ll write my thoughts up on what they have in the coming weeks after the show. In the meantime, visit my twitter for updates and photos from the show. Or, if you can, come out yourself for a visit. You can wait in line for a pass, or buy online and save yourself some of the hassle.
Is this still a thing?