A Good Idea at the Time

EDIT: I've just realized that today is LiveStrong day, so I guess this is kind of appropriate... who knew...

Even though he wasn't at the show, there was more than enough Lance randomness to warrant an entire post.

Sram had Lance's Leadville bike on display. Pretty sweet paintjob, nice and low key with the black and white. Shiny XX of course. Elizabeth and I bought our tickets to go see the Leadville movie on October 22nd, should be fun.

Sram also had Lance's TT bike from the Tour down Under. Pretty neat up close with how the numbers fade/dissolve from the grey to black in places.

Sram has also officially released all the posters they were making for Lance's return to cycling. I snagged the Giro one a month or so ago, they are pretty nice. They are kind of on the largish size [24x36]. I've been told I can get one more of them, as the house is not a cycling shrine... I'm thinking the Leadville one is quite cool.

If you want one, all you have to do is buy a Sram road or cyclocross bike, and then go here and follow the directions... Free!

Giro had all the Lance helmets on display as well. Hard to tell in the pictures, but they were kind of scratched up like they had been wrecked/ridden.

Some of you may know that I am a bit of a Sram fan. What can I say, it's just better... You do what you want though :)

But I did snap a few shots of some neat things they had at the show.

Colored Sram/Truvativ xo goodies. 5 Colors to match up your ride, and crank brothers even made matching eggbeater SL and candy SL pedals!

The XX is quite incredible. The front shifting feels phenomenal, and it is crazy light. The cassette is especially cool, as it is milled out of a single chunk of steel like the red cassette. The weight of the 9 cog PC-990 [xo cassette] is 300 grams for an 11-34. The XX cassette weight 200 grams, with 10 cogs in an 11-36. Pretty impressive. Overall, I want it... I don't really want to pay for it, and don't ride gears enough to justify it... But it is the real deal. Lizard not included in group price.

I also filmed the internals of a Red Doubletap shifter. Pretty slick how the rachets slide around/over/under oneanother to shift one way or the other.

Other cool things were road brake levers only [For singlespeed, bar end shifters, whatever] in both alloy and carbon. The r2c [return to center] tt shifters were neat as well, and also came in a Zipp flavor that had a larger, nicer shape to them. They also had a great after party. Woo, beer!

Interbike coverage might as well start with some pretty pictures of cool bikes. First up, there were tons of shiny pro bikes on display:

Alberto Contador's Paris Madone 6 Series

Mark Cavendish's Scott Addict

Thor Hushovds Cervelo S2

[Still using Dura-Ace 7800]

Fabian Cancellara's Specialized Tarmac

I really didn't take alot of pictures of just stock bikes from random vendors, but snapped a few pics of things that were neat/cool/different.

Cool name for a track bike...

And I saved the best for last. The Trek District Carbon. This guy is basically a 5 Series Madone with a singlespeed belt drive, and some slick pivoting dropouts. I was super excited to see one of these in person since I didn't go to Trek World. Looks like the sweetest singlespeed commuter ever. Although at $3360 retail, this might not replace my $500 Soho S anytime soon... That and the whole impracticality of carrying anything on it. But who cares, it's a carbon bike with a belt drive!

Elizabeth and I headed west this past week to the city of sin to take in the behemoth that is Interbike. Having never been to Interbike, I wasn't sure exactly what to expect. As for Vegas itself, well, it's Vegas... We stayed in the Imperial Palace. Great location, but the rooms look like they haven't been changed since the 60s... At least we didn't spend much time there.

The show ended up being lots of fun. Really great to see people from across the country that you normally don't see. Also great to check out all the cool new bike stuff. It's kind of disappointing in a way though, as everything you see at the show was on the internet weeks ago. The USA Crit and CrossVegas made for fun spectating as well.

But rather than throw tons of random pictures at you, I'm going to do 3 or 4 Interbike posts with groups of pictures and whatsuch...