The day started off inauspiciously enough, as I continued to meet new and interesting people in and around the tent city that is the Interbike Outdoor Demo Days.
While waiting in line to board the bus at the Sands Convention Center, I met Sheena Johnson, who like Johlene Hess the day before, headed straight to the Demo before checking into her hotel (Paris, or was it the Palms, sorry inside joke there). Sheena fits into the "its a small world" category of friends [and not merely because she currently resides in Florida] as we had some acquaintances in common, and none more poignant than Bicycle Generation's owner, Leo Cordery.Needless to say, Sheena is the manager of Downtown Bicycles in Fort Lauderdale, FL and races for the Kenda Tire Women's team. By her own admission, a chronic 6th place finisher who "hates the sprints," Sheena has already shown to be quite the competitor in her second year of racing on the road, placing on the podium several times. Although she races crits, she is a big fan of the stage race; having tackled the Joe Martin this year.
Sheena was kind enough to hang with me for most of the day, and she ended up being a wonderful resource in critiquing the bikes we rode. So on to the rides...The adventures started off at the Marin tent to catch up with Sheena's friend Mike (inset), who works for the California cycling company. Mike set up Sheena with the Mount Vision in their QUAD XC series, while I headed to Wilier to try their top-of-the line Cento.
Sheena's thoughts on the XS 25-26 pound bike, "it was great and felt light on the trail and even on the climbs." The only time she felt the weight was during the flats at the end of the trail, but she couldn't tell if that was from lack of sleep and food or truly from the bike's weight.
My impressions of the Cento, "don't ride a sweetly set up bicycle as your first ride of the day otherwise you'll have a tough time comparing apples to apples." The Cento was setup with some of Italy's best, Campy and Fulcrum.
In comparison to the dirt trails, the road loop was recently manicured with a fresh coat of asphalt. So it was difficult to determine how the bikes would perform on rougher terrain. But the two great things about the loop were the descent and ascent.
The Cento descended and climbed impeccably well. So well in fact that my riding experiences after that were a little biased. Its easy to see why a climber like Damiano Cunego (Lampre/Fondital) has this ride under him as it was ultra responsive to accelerations when I chose to chase some folks up the final climb.
While I was out on the Cento, I met up with Kerri Martin, a mechanic for Breille Cyclery in New Jersey. The self described "atypical Jersey girl," [ed. unlike the pair of typical Jersey girls who nearly ran 53rd Tooth down] Kerri was out on one of Jersey's originals Van Dessel. She was out at Interbike with the shop's owner, Patrick Connolly, who also gave me some great feedback on the bikes he rode.For the next round, Sheena stayed on the dirt and I on the road. She went out on Haro and I on the bike currently ridden by Colavita/Sutter Holmes, Blue.
Sheena didn't like the Haro as much, while I had little to complain about the Blue Rc-7. It handled beautifully, but again fell a tad bit short in comparison to both the Wilier and Lemond.
The next bike for Sheena was an Ibis. Athough the Ibis wasn't sporting any extraordinarily new technology, it won the best bike ridden for both Sheena and Patrick.
Intense - More Than a Brand, Its a Riding Style
Alright now to what you have been waiting for, some with bated breath, my broken clavicle story. The final bike I took out was the Intense Spyder FRO. I wanted to take out the 5.5 FRO, but none were available. But by choosing the Spyder FRO, it wasn't exactly like getting stuck with an ugly step sister. The Intense Spyder is a bike that I have long been wanting to try after reading about their first VPP (Virtual Pivot Point) bike.
The beautiful Karen Lundgren of the adventure racing team teamsole.com got me ready for the trails. Teamsole.com is sponsored by Intense and uses the 29ers for their races [I hope I'm not letting anything out of the bag there].The crash occurred while I was out on a roller coaster like section of the trail. It was the perfect endo, not quite at the speed at which Tina Pic experienced in the photo above [at Downers Grove last year], but probably just as painful. Pic, however, walked away without any major injury, which can't be said for me.
The verdict, a distal fracture of the clavicle or collarbone. It has yet to be determined whether I'll need surgery or not.
It would be easy for some to blame the bike for what happened. But in fact, the only derogatory thing I can say is that it was so sweet that it challenged, even begged, my ego to take it out a lot harder than my rusty mountain bike skills would allow. It frankly made me feel like Superman [riding that is, not the flying through the air part].
The folks at the Intense tent had a good laugh with me about the mishap, with Paul Romero, offering these words of wisdom, "the red rocks up on Bootleg are red for a reason as everyone leaves a little blood out there." Consider mine part of the landscape.
Overall, my experience of the Outdoor Demo Days was positive even though I took a spill. The only negative was trying to get out of Bootleg Canyon. As the sun began to set, many of us were dusty prisoners of the lack of Interbike buses (below). But other than that it was great. How could it be anything less? It was the opportunity to live out what a lot of people [you know who you are] frankly dream of...having all the guilty pleasures of life without any of the consequences. Of course I got hurt in the process, but for thousands of others, they are still revelling and snickering in their accomplishments.
Thoughts Aside
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Photos: Leonard Basobas
6 comments:
Bummer about the collarbone. And I heard the wait for those buses was... well, long.
Ow. I mean... Ow.
Sorry Granny. That blows.
But was the bike OK?
Seriously, sorry about the crash. At least you had the good sense to break it in September and not May like some of us. You'll be A-OK by the time the snow melts.
the bike was sweet and even more resilient...nothing broken.
whoops....i meant to say I'm an "atypical Jersey girl". The only thing I have in common with Jersey girls is that I don't pump gas. But, however, that is because I don't own a car.
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