Interbike 2008: Trends

I’m at the first day of Interbike 2008 in Las Vegas with others in the Crooked Cog crew. Here are a few things I’ve seen:

• Attendance is incredible — the show floor is absolutely packed with a record number of booths and attendees.
• Everybody is offering single speed and fixed gear bikes. The companies that already offered singlespeed bikes are now “civilizing” these bikes by adding gears and other commuter-friendly features to them.
• Disc brakes and internal hub gearing seems very popular.
• Innumerable clothing vendors selling traditional bike jerseys and shorts, but many with more or less “regular” clothing.

I’ll post specifics later tonight. Surly has new colors on their bikes, the 2009 Bianchis are much more lovely in real life than the catalog photos convey, Rans has a cool semi-recumbent longtail bike, Dahon is here in force. I also scored a shirt from Fat Cyclist. Woo hoo!