Selle Royal’s emergency replacement stand Pic:BikeBiz

Last year Italian stand manufacturers Selle Royal had a really classy stand at Interbike. This year, thanks to a dispute between LA harbour managers and dock unions, it’s sat on a truck by the dockside rather than being in Las Vegas where the show is. Selle Royal’s Steve Carr told bike trade site BikeBiz.co.uk, “[The stand] takes four days to build so even if we got it now, I don’t know how we’d be able to build it”.

Impressively, though, Selle Royal called in a stand contractor (the same one they used in 1999 when their stand was shipped to Nebraska by mistake) who put together a new stand in just 24 hours, stocked with saddles from their US distributor BikeMine.

Not all of Orange’s bikes made it Pic:BikeBiz

They weren’t the only ones to have problems. Germany’s Sigma Sport and Taiwan’s Velo Enterprises also have stands stuck in the docks. And while Orange’s stand arrived safely, six of their bikes didn’t. The boxes that the bikes left Halifax in showed up at Orange US loaded down with bricks… If anyone tries to sell you an adjustable travel Patriot or an XTRed Sub 3, you know who to call.