I’m sure you are all sick and tired of pictures of shiny shit and the gobs of pseudo-scientific analysis of how it probably won’t make you any faster. As I had promised to do, I took a shit ton of pictures throughout my first day at the venue. Those pictures make up that last post, so if you didn’t get enough…
Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on where you are standing, I don’t go to Interbike for the shiny stuff. It was my third or fourth year that it kind of lost its shine, so to say. I didn’t really think that a new color way or slightly different gear ratio was revolutionary. I quickly learned that I just love bikes and they are the one constant in my life. They haven’t changed in a century and they won’t any time soon. Despite all the marketing trying to tell you otherwise.
So I spend most of my time at Interbike doing this,
Not to screw up my street cred, but I quite enjoy learning and the only place any learning goes on at Interbike, is in the basement where the nerds and business peoples meet to go over how to keep the industry afloat. And how to actually make a living (not a killing) by running/owning a bike shop. I find this shit fascinating, much in the same way that statistical analysis and math float my boat. Luckily for you, it’s hard to build an entire post out of this boring shit, so you get the one photo.
After sitting through about six hours of seminars, frantically taking notes and letting my brain wander through the recesses of my small mind, I found my way back up to the place where the beautiful people walk and shiny bits float through space magically.
And this is where the fun starts.
I swear beer:30 starts earlier every year. I have an inkling that this is due to the vendors being bored and not by demand from the attendees. I base this on the fact that every time I walked into a booth, it was similar to walking into a poorly ran retail environment. There was a lot of phone looking and not a lot of, hey can I explain to you how awesome our product is. No, there’s mostly just blank stares and a high level of apathy.
So where were we? Oh, yea beer:30. Yea so that happened around 3:30. I held off until 4. You know I’ve been trying to take it easy so KB doesn’t lie awake at night and wonder if I’m going to wake up the next day.
For those of you who have never had the displeasure of attending, let me paint what this looks like. It starts with you noticing that someone has a glass of beer. And then you notice another. Pretty soon yourself or someone like you, asks, “Where are they giving out beer?” Some manufacture name is given and you are off to find it. Usually during this quest, you notice a line forming somewhere else and you think, “Ha!, I’ll grab a pint here first and then mozy on over to wherever the hell it was that I was going.” And you line up. I can’t help but see it as a bunch of hobos waiting in a kitchen line. The only difference, these hobos tend to be a bit better smelling.
Soon you have a glass (if you’re lucky enough to get there when they are still handing out free pint glasses, otherwise you have a plastic cup) full of beer and you’re off headed in the direction of another kitchen line where the only sustenance being served is beer. Pretty soon you are feeling full and you have too many glasses to carry around. Hopefully you remembered your backpack so you can continue to stand in lines and wait for free stuff.
It’s usually about this time that I start looking for something to do that night. It’s kind of tradition to go drinking while waiting for dinner. I bumped in to Milly and Cimarron at one of the kitchen lines and we quickly turned it into a game of seeing how many Kleen Kanteen steel glasses we could get. That was before we started getting plastic sippy cups. Everybody’s trying to get in good with the tri-folks.
I quickly found that these glasses were awesome for panhandling and could be attached to my carabiner where I keep my array of janitor keys. This allows for hands-free panhandling and the ability to panhandle and snap cards against ones hand. Accomplishing both “legal” ways to make money on the sidewalk of the Strip. I did both and Cimarron about fell over when she realized it was me handing out Mooseknuckler stickers and not someone trying to get her to take a stripper’s calling card.
It was time for dinner, which also meant it was time for me to check into the place I would be staying. No it wasn’t my car. Having been in Vegas for these types of things more than once, I did the prudent thing and stored the location of my cardboard box on my phone.
I then found my way to the temporary Chacon residence. Apparently the plan was to go to some party that required me to wear pants. Pants, you say? Yea, I don’t see that happening. Cimarron insisted I just wear a pair of hers and then kept trying to hand me capris which I was not going to wear and which I’m positive would not have gotten me into the party. 3/4 length shorts do not pants make.
A plan was hatched for dinner and we headed out, fully armed with stickers.
Following people on go carts through casinos is the equivalent of absolutely nothing, but made me question our dominance on this planet. It also made me want to hit someone.
We found the Mexican place we were to eat at and sat at the bar while we waited for a table and the rest of our party folk. One thing Vegas has on the rest of the world is the way they have taken drinking to a whole new level.
We had some beers and stuck some stickers.
Of course with all the imbibing going on, one must attend to certain necessities and seeing that we were hobos inside a casino, peeing in the corner was not an option. Well, at least not a good option. Luckily, the New York, New York has drink holders next to the latrine.
Once we finished our Mexican meal and all of our drinks, we stumbled out and a plan was hatched to ride the roller coaster. This is the point in the night that I usually say, I don’t remember anything else. Instead, I held to my pact with myself and stopped at the bottom of the stairs, turned around and walked back to my room. There was no stumbling down the Strip, no dancing, no lost memories.
I feel like I won.
P. L. and R.