#1360

INTERBIKE ( Wednesday )

To the indoors we go!
The halls of the Sands Center seemed more crowded then ever. There was a marked increase in the number of exhibitors from last year populating the two floors. There were quite a few new food and supplement exhibitors. Electric assist and folding bikes were also hot items. Here are some highlights from the first day indoors.

There were less than the usual amount of
Pro's bikes set-up for all to ogle.
One that was there, getting a lot of attention, was Peter Sagan's C-Dale.

BH had branded FSA cranksets on all their top-end "BB386" sized frames.
Super beefy and super stiff.

Broken Bones is a new frame maker that has been supplying the Wonderful Pistachio Domestic team this year.

The frames and bikes are all very colorful and are finally being made available for sale to the general public.

Here is our first real-life Contintal Tubular CX tire sighting....
The CycloXking. Really looking forward to trying this tire out. Unfortunately they will not be ready to go for this CX season.

Here is a new helmet from Dux Helm. Looks ordinary now but...

This helmet houses a retractable shade. The lens is removable, extra lenses are provided and many different shades of lenses will be available to buy. Exact weight of the helmet was not available but it felt in the range of 300 grams. Not super light but by no means heavy either.

Here is the slightly-refined-for-2013 Fi'zik R1 shoe. Gone from the line-up is the 3 strap SL shoe.

And new colors for the popular R3.

This is Louis Garneau's new top of line shoe, the Course 2LS.
L.G. is also getting rid of their 3 strap super light flagship shoe, the Carbon XLite. That shoe was very recognizable on Thomas Voeckler's feet all year long. The new Course is about 50-60 grams heavier but offers much better fit tuning than the velcro straps offer. I for one, have never had a problem with a proper fitting velcro-only shoe and think all these BOA dial shoes are more a result of following current trends and less about better performance.

L.G.'s new TT\ TRI helmet.

The daily drawing for GoPro Hero HD cameras always draws big crowds. Funny thing is when the M.C. asked the crowd, a lot of these fans already owned GoPros.

We love supporting Jelly Belly whenever possible. They have just released these recovery beans. The milk chocolate ones tasted just like malt balls and were great. They have the expected healthy amounts of carbs along with several grams of protein and fat each, depending on the flavor.

OK, back to the shoes... Here is the new Sidi Wire Vent Carbon. Weird name, common color ( more highlight yellow!? ).
This shoe shaves a solid amount of weight off the Ergo 3's and features new cooling channels along the footbed.

Sidi always does a new MTB shoe along with their road models. Here is the Draco MTB race shoe.

In reliable Sidi fashion, all the wear points on the sole are replaceable, including the cleat plate.

Here is the Xentis Squad carbon wheelset.

The rim features a zig-zag ridge below the brake track that runs all the way around.
It was said to do "the same thing as the dimples on a Zipp".

This is the first year a booth was advertising "custom carbon frames from China". This speaks a lot about popular prevailing opinion of china made carbon. Here is the very nice "Falco".

This was also the first year where a large, dedicated area of the lower floor was devoted to just electric bike test rides. Over 30 bikes were there and almost non-stop had people putting it to good use.