Whelp! It is that time of year again. Interbike 2008 starts Monday with the Outdoor Demo at Bootleg Canyon. That runs through Tuesday, and then it is on to Vegas for the rest of the week at the Sands Convention Center. A week from this Saturday I'll return a very weary man.
I know that a lot of you bicycle freaks would kill for the chance to go to Vegas and see what I'm about to see. It is pretty fun! However; I'm working there, which is a big, big difference from what dealers and shop employees experience at Interbike.
Interbike for me is a week long endurance event. No joke! The two days at Bootleg Canyon are the best days out of the week, because you are outdoors, riding bikes, and you can get away from the crawling hordes if you need to. This is fun, yet taxing as well, because I will be putting in 8 to 10 hours of Bootleg Canyon per day with maybe 5-6 hours of riding in the desert mountains. Add in the limited amounts of fluids available, and the near zero chances for food uptake, and you can see why I bonked on day two of the Outdoor Demo last year at noon! I'll be a bit more aware than last year, so hopefully I can keep a little more gas in the tank for day two!
Nightly- especially for the first three days of the week- I'll be posting up stuff at my nearly snails pace, (You would laugh hysterically if you could see me typing right now!), until the wee hours of the night, and then getting up at the crack of dawn to get back to the action. Then add on top of all of that my gig this year as a television show host. Yes, you read that correctly! I am going to be hosting a half hour segment on Cycling T.V. which is broadcast from the Interbike show floor on Friday afternoon. I will need to be finding a couple of guests to interview about 29"er stuff, so if you are reading this, and are going to be at Interbike on Friday, give me a shout if you want to be on with me. Anyway, I found out about this on Wednesday, so not much time to line up guests!
So, not only will I be running back and forth across Interbikes massive show floor covering all things Big Wheeled, I'll be prepping for a show, and typing out screed at an incredibly slow speed! Time to eat? Ha! Time to drink? Maybe...... Interbike does have nutrition companies showing their wares at the show. Little bite sized morsels on platters for everyone to test taste are out there with maybe a Dixie cup full of energy drink to wash it all down with. I've gotten pretty good at grabbing about five bits and a cup on the run as I pass from one end to the other covering the show. But that's not the most devastating thing.
Just about every afternoon at 4pm, someone, somewhere is tapping a keg of some micro-brew and handing it out for free. Sometimes the locations are known to all. Sometimes only to a few. Usually you can tell by the hordes of beer vultures circling around a booth at 3:59pm where the beer will be flowing from. This would be an indication of a widely known keg tappage. The more discreet ones are the ones to hit, if you can find out about them! They usually do not attract the beer vultures, and as such, you can be assured of actually getting a beer! Since I am there as "Working Media", I usually, but not always, get in on the action. Good for me? well................not so much!
I usually have about what? Ten bite sized bits of Cliff Bar, or equivalent, a Dixie cup or two of fluids, and a roll and coffee right off in the Media Center for seven to eight hours of running the show floor, and that's not counting the two hours I'm up in the morning before we get there. Soooooo.............that beer goes straight to the head! Yeah........then it's about what? An hour to an hour and a half before you get any dinner. Then the long night of typing at a snails pace before turning in at some single digit hour the next morning.
So, yeah..........I've about drained the tank by weeks end! Poor, poor me, right? Well, I ain't lookin' for no sympathy from ya'all, just tellin' ya. I'm actually doing some work out there. Really! I am!
And when I get back there just might be an important announcement concerning my future! Stay tuned! Or not.........maybe you should just ride yer bicycles instead!
On that note, I'll bid ya'all adieu until next week when the excruciatingly slowly typed drivel you've become accustomed to reading here will be erratic and posted at random times. You've been warned!
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