LAS VEGAS, Nev. — Some things never change. I always think I’m going to have a ton of time to post fresh snark about this and that during Interbike, and then I find myself caught up in the flow, like medical waste in the California surf.
The Adventure Cyclist folks are a great bunch — we’ve spent some hours trolling for toys, drinking, eating and bullshitting, which beats the mortal nuts off being chained up in the Sands basement, cranking out word count for the Show Daily.
The crowd has gotten a tad weirder since I was last here. Fewer booth bimbos, but enough tattooed, shaven-headed, multiply pierced, fat honky bastards to outfit three Aryan Nations chapters and a pirate fleet, for starters.
But what the hell? If they’re all about the bikes, then I love them all like the ugly, surly ADHD children I never had, thank God.
I’ve stumbled across old friends and made a few new ones, drooled over some toys, and even rode a bike to the Sands once — a Bike Friday New World Tourist. That was educational. You want a rear-view mirror for that high-speed run along Sands Avenue to the expo. Maybe some body armor, too.
Mad Blog Media 
But Jeziz, Patrick, we can’t get any of Bianchi’s Gran Fondo bikes with Campy stuff hung on them! I suspect during the “golden era of Bianchi victories”, there were primarily dago components on those framesets. My Naples-born grandpa, who according to my uncle did some bike racing in his days, is turning over in his grave….
In other news, Santa Fe just got named a Bicycle-Friendly Community and landed the 2012 IMBA meeting. Now, if we can just get the drunks and crazies off of Cerrillos Road and St. Francis Drive…
Khal, Bianchi has been owned for awhile by a much larger bike corporation and sadly said arrivederci to more than a token spec of Campagnolo many years ago I’m afraid. Not too many of the frame/forks are actually made in Italy these days either–it’s become more about “branding”…you know, the slapping of your brand onto anything, no matter how cheap or shoddy it may be, just to put a few more euros into the account.
Continuing this sad saga, Gios had a huge booth with a bunch of shiny bikes in the famous blue paint — but nary a one sported a “Made in Italy” sticker on it. It seems Alfredo Gios’ brother is still making the real thing in Italy but can only sell ’em at his retail shop there. The rest of the world gets these non-Italian versions.
Too bad about Bianchi.
My faculty advisor, once we got him riding seriously, went out and purchased a really nice Bianchi in celeste green, all hung with Record components, back circa 1984. Lovely bike. Between his Bianchi and my buddy Chuck Herzig’s Eisentraut, I always felt like the slumdog of the pack riding my black Cannondale boneshaker with its odd collection of Japanese parts.
Patrick,
For a day there I though you’d been eaten by some magician’s big cat (Turk relative perhaps?).
Wow retro downtube Andrews. My first serious bike (Fuji Grand Tourer) had them as expensive, for 1980, upgrades. Not much of a Tourer either- ni eyeless or water bottle bosses. Just heavy steel everything. Still in the basement I’ll have ride it again just to relive the terror of shifting while going downhill at speed.
Khal congrats to Santa Fe. Maybe the drunks and crazies can go to Texas? Who’d notice a few more?
Khal, only someone on a suicide mission would ride their bike on Cerillos or St. Francis. There are plenty of alternative routes to get around the city. Rufina has become a terrific alternate on the city’s southwest side. Alameda is pretty good too.
Too many people try to ride the same routes that they drive. Expand horizons and the world opens too you.
And not to pick nits but you sound like too many of my friends “on the hill.” Not everyone outside of your anglo enclave is “drunk and crazy.” I would much rather ride around the hinterlands of Rio Arriba county, and northern SF county than inner city Santa Fe and your own bombtown. The transplanted Texans and Californians on the rich north side of SF, or LA mini-van driving soccer mom are a much greater hazard than the average chollo low-rider or old Spanish guy in his beater pick-up.
Not to nitpick either, MD, but beware of some-all fallacies. I never did say that “everyone” in Santa Fe is crazy or drunk. Or, for that matter, than everyone in BombTown is not. Somewhere on my own blog is a post where I had to physically fend off an irate motorist who got mad at me for not riding in a glass-strewn bike lane but instead used HIS road!
But a few Santa Feans (and Los Alamosans) certainly are a few cards short of a full deck when it comes to driving, as anyone reading the newspapers regarding roadway crashes, or looks at the crash density maps can figure out for themselves. Agree with you on the hinterlands being preferable places to ride. But if we are to make cities places where people can use the bicycle for transportation, we need to ensure that those who accidentally or on purpose having to use major roads rather than hiding on minor roads are not perforce behaving suicidally.