Well, I made it. It was a bumpy flight, but nothing to terrible. I got settlrd in and Tim Grahl and I have two days worth of off road goodness in the books. Here's some goofy and interesting highlights from these past two days. Enjoy!
Airport Madness in Vegas: This isn't your family friendly atmosphere folks! I made it to baggage claim at Mc Carran International Airport only to find a 20' X 40' LCD screen running ads for Vegas shows and acts above my head with sound cranked. Suddenly I hear this-....Boom-ca-chunga-ca-chunga-ca-chunga Boom-ca-chunga-ca-chunga-ca-chunga- ad nauseum.... I look up to see scantily clad women writhing in pain.....well, that's what it looked like ta me! So I see finally that it's an ad for a nightclub that features fifty floors of dancing. Sorry, but if the people that frequent these places have their backs that far out of joint, I'll pass. Besides, fifty floors of dancing sounds like waaaay too much work!
Seen and Heard: These following things were seen and heard at the Outdoor Demo. First up we have the freak bikes. Yes, the sail bike recumbent, the bike with platforms attached to cables that were pushed up and down to motivate it, off road recumbents, (No! I didn't ride any!) and a trike with a guy that had a raging beer belly that was being totally motivated by electric power up a gravel grade. Talk about seismic waves! There was a guy dressed up as a hot dog hawking free weiners at the Yakima booth. His quip to passers by: "Free wieners! Ask me how!" Mr. 24 was at the Ergon booth handing up free Guinness and Coronas to visitors. (He's awesome!) And last but not least, an Elvis sighting.
Trail Super Highway: The crowds got so thick by Tuesday around noon, the bikes were nose to tail on the Bootleg Canyon trails. It was sheer madness. I tried to avoid the whole mess and grabbed a hot dog and some of the free drink floating around like Accelerade, Cytomax, and the like. The trails were ravaged. They totally changed their nature from the first morning through to my last ride. Lot's more exposed rocky nastiness!
Tire Trauma: I'll leave you with this final anecdote. There has been a big, big 29"er tire in development for awhile now and a person that shall remain nameless was under the impression that he had all the prototype info and that the tires he had were pretty much the only ones in existence. Well, I told him I'd gotten some info and pics from Niner Bikes and that the tires were on their bike. "No way!" he shot back, "They must have something else." I said that I was pretty sure they were the same tires. He said, "Da#@!! That was my tire!" I'm thinking that I might want to slip away quietly at this point! Oh well! That's the way it goes sometimes.
More when I can find the time!
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