One of the key differences with Interbike over other bike shows is the two day dirt demo event which takes place at Bootleg Canyon in Boulder City.
The Out Door Dirt demo is one of the key reasons we, T2R-Distributors, attend Interbike, as once someone has ridden a Commencal bike, they want one, so it’s a key tool in getting new retailers to stock our Commencal brand.
Sunday is the set up day and so as Phil and I had arrived in town on the Saturday we headed out to the site to get our pitch set up. The Commencal guys had arranged for us to have access to the Commencal Expo dome that are used by the Athertons when they are racing in North America, and so on arrival we headed over to the Fox guys as they store the expo dome in their trailer.
The afternoon desert winds had created challenging conditions for setting up the tent, but we got it done and staked down ready for us to finish the set up the following morning.
Despite having set up our T2R-Distributors tent to promote Commencal, IXS and Spank the evening before, we still had a lot of the set up to complete on the Monday morning when we were joined by Mike Raney and Jason First. With the show starting at 9am we met up for breakfast at our Boulder hotel at 6.30am and then set out to the demo area soon after 7a.m
Although we didn’t have a huge number of bikes for attendees to demo, we did have a good selection of Commencal bikes including the all new Commencal Meta AM, the Supreme DH v3, The Ramones Cromo, Super 4, Absolut SX and Supreme 8.
In addition to the bike we were also offering demo’s on IXS Sports Division body armour including the Phobos and Kronos helmets along with a selection of their pads.
We also spec’d the bikes with Spank Industries components, such as the new Spank Spike pedals and Spank Spike Rims.
Even with the show starting at 9am, we were already talking riders through the range by 8.30am and at 9am all our bikes were out on demo and that was pretty much the storey for the rest of the day. No soon as a bike arrived back at our pitch it went straight back out again.
As well as the demo rides, Nico and Stephane from Commencal had also brought over the all new Meta AM 29er and the new Meta SL. These bikes were not for demoing as they are the only ones in existence at the moment, however I did get a change to get a quick lap around the event site on the Meta AM 29er, and it was good fun. More and more we are seeing the trend for XC and All Mountain riding swing towards to 29er, and the new Commencal Meta AM 29er certainly answers the requirements of a number of our customers in Canada and North America who are looking to expand and improve on the range of the 29ers with a full suspension mountain bike.
The ride position on the new Commencal Meta 29er is great and follows the style and feel of the new Meta AM, giving a mountain biking feel, which is often to the case with 29ers where the riders can feel perched on top of the bike rather than being in the bike controlling it.
We will of course be stocking the new Meta AM 29er which is due to be available in North America in June 2012.
Along with the T2R-Distributors team, we were also joined on our Dirt Demo stand by a number of the guys from the Commencal office in Andorra, including Max Commencal, who loves to attend the dirt demo show as it is the one chance each year where he gets to try a lot of the manufactures bikes that are on the market in one location to compare designs and concepts.
It was certainly a hot and sunny day, but no where near as hot as it had been the previous season and as we secured all the bikes for the night and ensured all our tents were tied down for the night a rain shower passed over the event and dampened down the dust and displayed an impressive rainbow.
Tuesday’s dirt demo started an hour earlier then usual, at 8am, so again it was an early start for the T2R-Distributors team, arriving at the site at 7am to get everything re-set up for the attendees to ride the bikes in top condition.
However this morning we were not as busy as we had been due to the rain storm that passed over Boulder City and drenched the show for the first couple of hours. This gave us a good chance to chat to people at they sheltered from the rain in our tent.
No soon as the rain stopped and the sun came out we were busy again with bikes constantly out on demo. The rain had certainly improved the quality of the trails with many of the demo riders commenting on them being super tacky and in the best condition they has ever been at the event.
Along with the Commencal guys who were stopping by at the booth on a regular basis we were also joined by Mike, Gavin, Lance and Pascal from Spank and IXS. It was a good time to be catching up with all these guys at the show. They also brought along with them samples of the new Spank wheelsets and the new IXS Metis full face helmet.
Again the day raced by and before we knew it, it was time to start taking down and packing up the tents and bikes. It had certainly been a productive day with a lot of new contacts made and certainly a new group of people trying and enjoying the Commencal, IXS and Spank Industries products.
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