Donna of Kryptonite works out of Boston, Mass, so you’d think she’d be all over the proposed Interbike East Coast Demo. She notes, however, that several bike vendors are west coast companies, and getting all of the bike companies to put on two sets of demo days within weeks might be a bit much for them. More at Unbreakable Bonds.

David has posted the “The Lost Episode” of The Spokesmen cycling podcast. This is a video interview from Interbike hosted by David. The video features: Carlton Reid of BikeBiz & QuickRelease.TV, Tim “Masi Guy” Jackson, Tim Grahl of the Crooked Cog Network, Donna “KryptoGal” Tocci, Byron the Bike Hugger, Guitar Ted representing 29 inches, Brad Q of Urban Velo magazine, and Chipps for Singletrack World.

When you watch, you’ll see there’s a reason I don’t do video. Enjoy!

I looked for Sheldon Brown at Interbike. I did see him across the way once, but he was whizzing away on his electric scooter and he disappeared.

I missed this earlier, but Sheldon posted his own Interbike 2007 updates at his website. He notes the trend toward commuter bikes, especially high end expensive commuters bikes, and he likes what he sees.

Sheldon highlights a handy-dandy emergency derailleur hanger from Wheels Manufacturing that might have come in handy when I trashed my hanger. But then again maybe not, since I also destroyed the rear derailleur and my chainring bolts.

There’s lots of good stuff at Sheldon’s Interbike 2007 report. Give it a read when you have the chance.

This article in Bike Europe about Interbike 2007 has some interesting tidbits about the show and the future of Interbike:

• Attendance: 22,515 unique badge-holders, of whom 11,054 were buyers. This is up from 21,682 and 10,378 respectively in 2006. 3,787 unique businesses (retailers) represented at the show, up from last year’s 3,239.

  

• Vegas sucks? On a possible change of location after 2008, the Interbike team will gather research and feedback in the coming months and put forward proposals to the industry at the Bicycle Leadership Conference in January.
• Public days: Officially a trade-only event, Interbike is clearly infiltrated every year by many enthusiasts, begging the question of instituting public days. “We’re moving towards a majority that wants this,” said show director Lance Camisasca, “but retailers are still resistant to the idea.”

Tim Grahl addresses the question of Vegas in his Crooked Cog blog, in which he notes that “just like the women, Las Vegas is cheap and easy. The major airport is five miles from the event and the hotels/flights are to expensive. The city is built around large events and large amounts of people.” Interbike uses 600,000 square feet of floor space and draws over 20,000 attendees.

While several people want to move Interbike to Colorado, the Colorado Convention Center in Denver has a 500,000 square foot exhibition area and can only provide about 10,000 hotel rooms in the immediate area around downtown Denver. Other contenders might be Interbike’s previous home in Anaheim, or Chicago, which boasts the largest convention center in the world. The Morial Convention Center in New Orleans might be worth consideration with its million square feet of exhibit space.

Some more worthwhile Interbike wrap ups are available at Quickrelease.TV, Masiguy, Bicycling Boulder Report, Guitar Ted, BRaIN and WIRED magazine.