2/14/98
I went to the bike expo last year, and it was crowded. I think it was a little less crowded than last year. Lan was busy, so I went by myself, which meant I couldn't stay too long.
I arrived early, because I wanted to see the bike swap. It's a swap meet of bike parts. It turned out to be about 30% collector stuff, stuff that would be useless to people who actually ride bikes. Another 20% I think were just bike shops. The prices weren't that great. I'd seen cheaper bike clothes at the Bicycles West clearance sale they had last year.
All I picked up was a $15 aero wheel cover. I was thinking about getting one for the track bike. I am quite pleased with it, although I had to make some modifications to make it fit my wheel.
The first thing I saw at the bike expo proper was the Marymoor Velodrome booth. Matt was there. After that, I went to the Computrainer booth. Again, like last year, they had two bikes set up so that you could race. I think the people running it were people involved with Seattle Express, a juniors team. I went up with one of their team members, I think. The new software looked pretty good. The graphics were waaay better than the previous version. They had the race set up as a 1 kilometer race, up a rolling 5% grade. I totally smoked my competition, but I was so burnt from my effort that I needed 30 minutes to recover. I basically sat next to Matt at the MVA booth for a few minutes before staggering around.
Alan (from the Crits) was there. He came with two friends (who both own Kona Jake-the-Snake cyclocross bikes). We walked around the booths and looked at all the doodads. I picked up a bunch of stickers to put on my cheap bike helmet, and I bought a little bag that fits on top of the rack for the tandem.
Rivendell had a booth there, and they had a few of the new Heron bikes. They looked pretty nice, but all new bikes look pretty nice. They had a demonstration of how they wrap the tubes they've selected for your bike in butcher paper where they've written the dimensions. The example 'design' had Monica Lewinsky's name written on it. That was pretty funny.
Davidson had some pretty bikes. One bike had this strange dark blue-green paint job with sparkly flakes in it. The lights played off it nicely. And they had a titanium bike with the logo polished on a brushed frame. Mr. Davidson told us he polished the frame, puts a mask on the logo parts, and blasts (brushes?) the frame, and takes off the masking. Looked neato, and no decals to damage.
I guess if they wanted to, they could do the same thing with a more intricate pattern. That would be even more beautiful.Schwinn had some nice bikes. Their new Paramounts were really nice. The paint jobs on their mountain bikes were great. They were colored like something from the 70's, with gold flake and everything.
I also found a bike equipped with the latest Shimano Ultegra components, including the integrated bike computer. It would tell you what gear you were in, and the controls were built into the right STI lever body. That was pretty neat.
I picked up an STP brochure. Lan and I plan on doing it this year on the tandem...
All in all, it was an okay expo. Quite a few big bike names weren't there (or at least I didn't see them). Trek wasn't there, among others.