I have to nit pick just a bit. Trek, Giant and Cannondale had a very large presence at the Demo Days event and all were as gracious to our production team as was Specialized. While I would love to see an equal showing in the exhibition hall, I think it is unfair to label them as absent. In fact, they were among the dominant vendors throughout the demo and had some of the longest lines for attendees to test products.

Cervelo on the other-hand was disgraceful. I was fortunate (or so I thought) to get an invitation to their party. When I found out that they were not an exhibitor in any fashion with Interbike, I passed. Do they think that show happens spontaneously and for free? I guess they saved enough money to buy three more spots on Versus…on your company’s dime and all other exhibitors, no less.

Social media…don’t get me started!

The Bikes Belong film mentioned by MB above in the comments is great, worth watching (but they need a shorter edit to hook interest of a wider audience, methinks!)

And Richard, as for Lynn’s impression of our industry, she really didn’t have one – she wasn’t a cyclist per se, so she didn’t have deep-dive understanding of many of the subtle nuances we face. That said, it does sound like as an industry overall, we’re on the right track, as she was surprised at how many attendees were there, and how many were already using social media in one form or another. Still lots of work to do, though.

I intended to attend her preso, but I ended up in Taiwan instead…

Also worth noting that Trek, Giant, Cannondale, and Specialized were well represented at the Outdoor Demo.

Does this mean I get to have the last word on Interbike? Sweet…

An awful lot of US and UK bike advocacy is based on the propagation of fear (cars are dangerous beasties; to ride a bike you need to wear a helmet etc) while in much of the EU cycling is a normal, everyday activity and such an antagonistic approach is neither necessary nor effective.

I’d also argue that any advocacy based on fear will never be able to reach out to the mainstream. Share the road, cars need to give us more room type campaigns appeal to fit, vehicular cyclists, not newbie or would-be cyclists.

Now, as we all know, cars ARE dangerous and need to be tamed if we’re to progress but the positives about cycling often have to be teased out of some advocates.

As to your comparisons between Eurobike and Interbike there was an amazing difference betweeen the shows, and not just in sheer size. Your employer’s booth at Eurobike was massive and shows that Eurobike and Interbike are very different animals, not just bike trade shows on different continents.

There were also huge differences in a topic close to your heart: social media. Interbike – and the US as a whole – is far, far ahead of Eurobike and most of the EU in embracing Twitter, Facebook, blogs, UGC and the rest.

Many European bicycle businesses think social media is a fad, a distraction, a waste of time. They could be right. But if they’re wrong, they will be a long way behind US companies.

Real bike trade social media success stories are thin on the ground. And by success I mean dollars generated. Unusually for the spiritual home of capitalism, the US seems happy to experiment with cash-poor social media while, paradoxically, the EU wants to see the colour of the money before committing to something so potentially frivolous.

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On Cervelo: your analogy was spot-on. I got an invite but didn’t go. Not once I knew the back-story. Cervelo got a lot of social media grief for acting in the way they did. Will this social media backlash affect their bottomline? No.

I have to nit pick just a bit. Trek, Giant and Cannondale had a very large presence at the Demo Days event and all were as gracious to our production team as was Specialized. While I would love to see an equal showing in the exhibition hall, I think it is unfair to label them as absent. In fact, they were among the dominant vendors throughout the demo and had some of the longest lines for attendees to test products.

Cervelo on the other-hand was disgraceful. I was fortunate (or so I thought) to get an invitation to their party. When I found out that they were not an exhibitor in any fashion with Interbike, I passed. Do they think that show happens spontaneously and for free? I guess they saved enough money to buy three more spots on Versus…on your company’s dime and all other exhibitors, no less.

Social media…don’t get me started!

I’ll develop those ideas in my next post (I think), but between the incredible amount of inventory & bad debt in the industry, and the fact that there’s simply more products out there than the market can sustain, make no mistake: There Will Be Blood.