Some random thoughts and ponderings in a blog-type, most-recent-first style…

Thursday 25 September

Listen to the band

Once again it’s not really Thursday, it having just gone midnight (or 8am UK time). The end of Interbike is in sight now, with just Friday to go. Which in many ways is a good thing – my feet are starting to hurt, for a start.

Interbike’s a fairly laid-back show, though. There’s not a great deal of business being done after about 4pm, when the beer giveaways and other special attractions start. If you’re not doing something very obvious to draw people to your stand in the last couple of hours of the day you can expect things to be pretty quiet…

Wednesday 24 September

After two days roasting in the desert, you might think that returning to the air-conditioned comfort of the Sands Expo Centre would be something of a relief. Temperature-wise it certainly is, but clearly riding bikes is better than tramping aisles. But needs must. I briefly considered starting my Interbike assault in the opposite corner from usual and working from right to left, just for variety, but habit is a powerful force. Quite a few companies have moved within the hall, though, so it’s not too overfamiliar.

A few hours of snapping and chatting and it was time to decamp to the Media Centre in the middle of the hall to post a story up and drink coffee, not necessarily in that order. Then lunch, then back out on the beat until the end of the day, out for an early dinner and head out to the Desert Breeze Soccer Complex for the now-traditional Cross Vegas cyclocross race.

And now it’s 1am local time and I probably ought to be doing something useful, like sleeping…

Tuesday 23 September

Improvised anti-sunburn hat modification

Upon arrival at Bootleg Canyon for the second day of Outdoor Demo it quickly became apparent why yesterday seemed quite quiet – everyone and his dog had clearly decided not to show up until Tuesday. Today was busy, with most booths having substantial queues for bikes. We still got a fine selection in, though. Once again Dan (and very patient assistant Laura) was stood out in the desert heat for several hours, mostly waiting for me to show up with another bike. The unrelenting sunshine forced some McGyver-style hat upgrades to prevent severe sunburn…

They got a bit of a break while I joined a small group to give Truvativs’s new HammerSchmidt front transmission a whirl. Not much of a break for me, though, as SRAM’s Greg Herbold and Tyler Morland did their very best to tear the legs off the assembled press. With, it must be said, some success.

Tomorrow it’s the start of Interbike “proper” (although for my money Outdoor Demo is the best bit) at the enormous Sands Expo Centre in Las Vegas.

Monday 22 September

Photo: Dan Barham

It’s the first day of Interbike’s Outdoor Demo, one of the best opportunities you’ll find to sample a whole bunch of different bikes. The demo area at Bootleg Canyon has seen a few developments over the last couple of years, improving the layout and generally making things a bit more spacious. Today felt quite quiet, but how much that’s down to everyone having bigger booths and more bikes is hard to tell.

After a less-than-totally seamless trip out to Bootleg Canyon (top tip: Satnav can be unreliable, even more so if it’s in the car you’re following rather than your own) it was time to get on with the business of the day – cranking through some bikes until the desert heat got a bit much.

Then it was back to base for Dan to sort his pics out and for me to type some words. Tomorrow? More of the same…

Sunday 21 September

Las Vegas is over 5,000 miles from London, or a ten-hour flight. And, yes, the associated sasquatch-style carbon footprint which I’m trying to forget about. Which isn’t hard given the excesses that abound in Vegas. I picked up a “mid-size” hire car which is quite blatantly the smallest thing on the road. But never mind. Ace photographer Dan Barham is here and ready for a day of being lightly grilled during the first half of Outdoor Demo.

Of course, thanks to a minor time zone miscalculation, we’re not going to have anything to show UK readers until Tuesday – at the time of writing it’s 7.30pm Sunday here, 3.30am Monday there. We’ll just post stuff as we get to it and it’ll show up at whatever time it happens to be.

But now, after having been awake for considerably longer than is healthy, it’s time to turn in ready for a long day tomorrow. Stay tuned…