The "SEE ME" light-up belt.
(Photos © Elly Blue)

At Interbike, big bike companies rule the day with huge booths in the center of the giant convention floor. As you approach the outskirts, the companies become smaller and funkier -- until finally, on the outer edges and tucked into odd corners, the lone, independent creative souls have set up small booths with their life savings on display in the form of the big idea they're working to bring into fruition.

These small set-ups were some of my favorite booths.

The Third Eye Mirror

A lone ranger off on one margin of the floor was hawking his Third Eye Mirrors. You glue a little mirror to the inside of your glasses and voila, you can see what's coming up behind you.

Next door was the maker of the "SEE ME" belt-mounted "safety visibility device" lights up with text that sends a clear signal to anyone at night who might not have gotten the memo that you're out there riding on the road. It was developed for cycling the sometimes harrowing streets of Boston; another text option reads "POLICE," which strikes me as potentially far more effective. Both are made of LED lights built onto a utilitarian circuitboard, with an ill-fitting waterproof pouch and a belt, and run $120 online.

The Freeload MTB rack, from NZ

The Freeload is a mountain bike rack that was launched at Interbike this year, and attended by its co-inventor Tim Armstrong. Based in New Zealand, the company makes racks that attach to mountain bikes with straps that adjust to fit any size suspension. The design is particularly inspired by the needs of bike tourers.

There were enough booths (around 800) that I didn't get to see nearly everything I hoped to. These folks contacted me a bit late -- they make rack-mounted roller generators for charging your portable electronics while you ride -- they look pretty cool and produce a lot of juice.

IT Clips in action

Another neat startup on the floor was the IT Clips booth. These guys have added a twist on the tried-and-true trick of using old, broken bike tubes as tie-downs -- a plastic gizmo that you attach to the end of each tube. You can just use the plastic bits to make a belt that clips together, or add the metal hook that's included to create a bungie.

I also saw, on different ends of the floor, two different systems for mounting a hydration tube to your handlebars -- one from a water bottle cage, and one from a bulbous, teardrop shaped canister behind the seat.

The BikErgo seat.

This guy's invention was certainly one of the most eye-catching. Standing next to his tree of his colorful BikErgo bicycle seats, he invited passersby to squeeze the seat mounted to a city bike. "Women love this seat!" was his refrain.

And finally, not quite in the same vein, but if you're interested in shiny things, you might just be interested in plastic skull blinkies and powder coated spokes.

Raleigh's new commuter bike.
(Photos © Elly Blue)

For an Interbike rookie, the main floor of the show is quite overwhelming. But after the safe confines of the Advocacy Zone, I decided to delve out into the mayhem in search of the latest city bike offerings.

I was pleasantly surprised to find a fairly widespread interest in commute and utility biking. In fact, the very first booth I saw was Topeak's, and the first thing I saw in the booth was a bike geared up for touring next to an ultra light tent, backed by a display of racks and baskets.

Topeak's "Flik" folder.

Behind Topeak was the booth of their subsidiary Jango, maker of modular commuter set-ups. Their big emphasis (a theme at Interbike this year) was the Flik folding bicycle, in various permutations. Everything on these bikes is interchangeable but proprietary -- even the lights -- but it's an appealing bike. Its main function seems to not be making transit connections (it doesn't fold up very small), but, as the salesman kept saying, to keep in your office in a place where there's no bike parking available.

A couple booths over, Dahon was exhibiting their new line of Midtown Minis, with a similar appeal -- they don't fold small, and you need both hands and a tool, but they look and feel like regular bikes. Their "Smooth Hound" with its leather handlebar tape was especially appealing.

Racktime (a lower-priced version of Tubus, which is related to Ortlieb) had a lot of really nice and useful urban bags and panniers, and they were using gorgeous city bikes to display them.

Urban pannier by Racktime.

Raleigh had a big booth with a wide range of bikes from carbon to cross to vintage-style. Brian Fornes told me that they are "going back to their roots" and really focusing on commuter bikes now -- and they have a good looking one that comes with rack and fenders.

The European Village

At the European Village (a section in the far back corner for smaller, European vendors), I saw a lot of the things I've been looking for throughout the show, but haven't always been finding even on commuter focused bikes: fenders, racks, integrated wheel locks, skirt guards, chain guards, generator lights, and thoughtful engineering for carrying heavy stuff around town.

Kalkhoff, the German e-bike maker who plans to open a retail store in NW Portland was also at Interbike. They told me that they're still working on the permitting process, but are thinking their Portland store should open by mid-October. These bikes are neat -- they have no throttle, and only give you an assist when pedaling. A cycle computer helps you balance your battery level against the level of assist you need. The floor model computers still showed km/hour -- another kink they're still working out as they jump into the US market.

The Gazelle Cabby.

One of my favorite booths was a small one in the back showing a handful of bikes from Dutch maker Gazelle. The Cabby is a bakfiets style kid carrier with a vinyl lined bucket instead of a wooden box. The kid seat comes out, and the whole bucket comes out for storage -- the idea is it's for people who don't have a ton of space in their garage.

Gazelle's other bike that I really liked was the Bloom (here's a photo). It's a bike designed specifically to have child seats added. The long-ish wheelbase lets you put a child seat a bit further back, and an extra long top tube (and extra long swept-back handlebars to compensate) also give you more room for a kid seat up front, between your arms. It's a sturdy, nice looking bike.

The Gazelle's working parts are "all sealed up, and maintenance free -- they just let you do what you do, but without a car."

I quickly fell for Pashley's main display -- a cargo bike with a huge basket up front, which is attached to the frame for easy steering. This is the company that makes the mail delivery bikes for the Royal Mail in the UK. They also had their bread-and-butter "Princess" model on hand -- a classy black city bike with a skirt guard. Their new bike for this year is a stripped down model without many of the extra features, designed for affordability.

Folding e-bikes: Numerous, but not inspiring.

I had a hard time gauging the immense array of electric bike offerings, but there were a heartening number of electric-assist options (i.e., that help you only when you pedal) mixed in amongst more or less thinly disguised mopeds.

Despite a dizzying array of folding bikes (including electric folding bikes of course), another essential part of the urban transportation mix, there wasn't much that was really new or exciting -- most of the bikes just didn't fold very small, and were marketed primarily for throwing into the trunk of your car.

There were also a number of bags and baskets, of varying degrees of more and less awesome. There were a few stroller-like kid trailers -- including the Zigo, which we've written about before -- but I only saw one display of cargo trailers.

Bike makers are definitely trying to woo commuters this year, and it's refreshing to see how many are doing this with racks and fenders and useful panniers. But the industry still has a ways to go in crossing the barrier between design and function.

At Interbike, a lot of the best stuff never makes it to the main floor. One of the highlights of the week for me was heading up to an 11th floor hotel suite for a trunk show with a few small, independent companies.

There I met Matt and Muriel of Swrve, a small, hip cycling apparel company; there were also a handful of enticing retro-inspired t-shirts from two young companies. But I was there mainly to check out Outlier, a year-old New York company run by two men who make high end, tailored clothing that's engineered for urban riding.

Abe Burmeister walked me through their clothing line. He and co-founder Tyler Clemens met when they were both regulars at two different locations of a New York coffeeshop, and both happened to talk to the same barista about their grand schemes of creating beautiful, tailored clothes which they could wear to
ride in all weather to professional meetings. She introduced them and Outlier was born.

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Outlier co-founder Abe Burmeister
in his merino wool hoodie

Outlier's philosophy and engineering come directly from the experience of biking in New York City. The garments are made in a factory in midtown Manhattan, just blocks from Times Square. Clemens and Burmeister bring their bikes into the studio when creating samples -- pinning and riding, adjusting and riding -- in order to master good, classy fits that don't fall prey to the usual problems of "crotch blowout," cuts that limit leg and shoulder mobility, and shirts that ride up and pants that ride down while you're bent over.

Their first product, a year ago, was a pair of dress pants made of a technical soft shell high end performance fabric from Switzerland. To demonstrate the fabric's properties, Burmeister splashed some on the knee -- it rolled right off. A heavy rain would soak the pants, he said, but then they're dry in 15 minutes and you still look sharp. Customers have reported wearing them to weddings.

In the last year the team has added a pair of pants that wear more like jeans, a merino wool t-shirt, and -- my favorite -- a merino hoodie designed for biking with a hood big enough to go over a helmet and elastic cuffs that stay up when you push up your sleeves to ride (the wrists with all their capillaries are a major cooling point).

The seams on these pants are intended
to reduce the crotch blowout factor.

This year they're getting ready to send a pair of women's pants to production, and have a few other products in the works.

Their newest, and to me the most appealing project is a collaboration with milliner Vincent Osborne to make beautiful cycling caps, out of two different grades of wool (the finest is the same stuff that goes into $3,000 suits) as well as waxed cotton. These hats are gorgeous. Burmeister says they're made to last -- he hopes they'll be something that can be passed down to kids and grandkids.

None of this is cheap, but Clemens and Burmeister are working hard to keep the prices from climbing too high, primarily by selling directly online. They love local bike shops, Burmeister says, and hope to figure out a way to work with them to sell their clothes while giving the shops the cut they need to stay in business and not compromising on the all-important issues of materials quality and outsourcing.

And while these items may not be a bargain on the surface, their true value is, Clemens and Burmeister hope, that you'll never need to buy another one.

BikePortland's reporter on the scene at Interbike, Elly Blue, couldn't make it out to Cross Vegas -- billed as the "Biggest Cyclocross Race in America" and held on the first night of the Interbike trade show -- but we still managed to get some coverage of the spectacle.

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What do you expect? It's Vegas!
(Subjects remain nameless for their own good.)

Elly loaned her camera to another Portlander in Vegas for Interbike -- Caroline Paquette of Little Package Cycling Caps. Caroline bravely waded through the masses to snap a few photos of the action and managed to find several other Portland people in the crowd.

For a bit more of what she saw, check the slideshow below:

For more of BikePortland's 2009 Interbike coverage, see our Special Coverage page.

Beautiful fixies (Photos © Elly Blue)

Ortlieb's classy new commuter panniers, "The Downtown"

Knog's new lock has a unique design and looks highly pocketable.

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Is it wrong to be excited about non-folding road bikes with 20" wheels? I saw several.

Biomega is a Copenhagen company that pushes the boundaries of bike design -- but also makes a functional city bike (often with a shaft drive).

The KiddieMoto -- by far the coolest looking scoot bike for kids.

For the second year in a row, Momentum Magazine produced their Urban Legend Fashion Show at Interbike.

Five models rode around a circular runway, stopping at various platforms to pose, while riding sweet bikes and wearing clothes that ranged the four seasons. Most of the outfits were not strictly bike specific, but the splash of technical gear -- a stretchy black face mask, or goggles, or one of these crazy inflatable seats -- kept the crowd excited.

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In the Sugoi booth.

Along with the rise of transportation and commuter bikes at the Show this year, bike fashion is also gaining steam. This new focus on "velocouture" isn't coming strictly from brands that have always been considered fashion-forward. Take Sugoi for example. The Canadian company is well-known for their excellent line of high-performance bike clothing, but this year they put their stylish foot forward with a new "Human Operated Vehicle (HOV)" collection.

But, I digress. Back to the runway...

The models, the bikes, the vibe -- it was all smoking hot. Here are a few more of my photos:

Note the scar on her right knee!

Looking good on the Madsen cargo bike.

Notice all the different crowd reactions.

Can't take yourself too seriously when you're having fun on a bike. (This guy's Chrome shoes were a big hit).

Getting excited about all this great-looking bike fashion? Well, sit tight because the six-week bike culture extravaganza known as Oregon Manifest is bringing Momentum and their fashion show to Portland. It's happening October 10th to coincide with Portland Fashion Week. More info at the Oregon Manifest schedule.

For more from the Interbike Fashion Show, check the slideshow below or click over to the gallery:

It's my second day at Interbike (see Day 1 report here) and the main event is open -- a giant exhibition hall packed with many hundreds of booths and the many thousands of bike industry insiders who have come to gawk, shop, and mingle.

But before I got into the main floor, I stopped into The Advocacy Zone. About two dozen organizations have set up shop here and they range from national advocacy groups like the League of American Bicyclists to a California based org that takes disadvantaged kids on mountain bike tours.

An exciting project for sure.

The first booth that really caught my eye was the East Coast Greenway Alliance. Coordinator Eric Weis told me the group's mission is to create "the Appalachian Trail of bicycle routes."

The 18 year-old Alliance works with state committees along the east coast to create what they eventually hope will be a 100% fully-separated bicycle route from the Canadian border to Key West. Currently they're 23% of the way to their goal, including pieces in every east coast state, with the longest section being a 37 mile chunk in New Jersey. (I happened on the ribbon cutting for another piece of the network when I was in Connecticut last winter.) The other 77% is routed along carefully chosen local streets.

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Next I chatted with Peter Rees of Project Rwanda, an organization that builds longtail cargo bikes specially geared and designed for carrying up to 400lbs of coffee beans or other cargo up and down Rwanda's mountain roads. Through a partnership with Schwinn and Ritchey, and loan programs with local banks in Rwanda, the bikes are sold to farmers and farm co-ops for the equivalent of $300 US dollars.

One of the best features on the wood-decked, longtail bikes is that the brakes and derailleurs are placed so that they can be maintained while the bike is fully loaded (an innovation I wouldn't mind seeing hit the commuter bike market). The goal, said Rees, is to eventually manufacture the bikes in Africa.

The Project Rwanda longtail. (Notice how the rear brake is not right under the deck, making it much more accessible for maintenance.)

Before leaving the Advocacy Zone and hitting the main show floor (update from there coming later), I spoke with Tim Blumenthal, one of the biking world's top diplomats and executive director of Bikes Belong (who ingeniously contorted his spine so that we could talk eye-to-eye despite a height difference of over a foot). The powerhouse organization's 10th anniversary is coming up; in the past 10 years, they estimate that $10 billion has been spent on bike infrastructure in the US.

What about the next ten years? They don't have a specific numbers forecast, but they're setting their sights high. Next March at the National Bike Summit, Blumenthal says, they'll be launching a major campaign to reach out to the 50 million US Americans who sometimes ride bikes (Jonathan covered it back in April).

Their aim is to have 1 million people express support for bicycling as a national priority. To get the word out, and to keep supporters engaged, they'll be working with ad agency Colle McVoy and Blue State Digital (the folks who used online media and social networking to help Obama win). The point: "To increase political clout" for bicycle advocacy.

Blumenthal also had some interesting insights into the state of the bike industry when it comes to advocacy -- more on that once I've hit the floor and started talking with a few of the players.

And don't worry, there will be photos of amazing garage inventions and spun carbon fiber wonders as well. Stay tuned.

See more photos from the Advocacy Zone and browse all our Interbike 2009 coverage here

I just finished my first day at North America's biggest bicycle trade show. Interbike has something like a thousand exhibitors and 20,000 attendees from all over the world. Below are photos and thoughts from my first day on the ground at the Outdoor Demo.

But before I get to that... What's with having America's premier bike industry event in Las Vegas? It's a terrible place to ride a bike.

I realized this immediately upon exiting the airport on my trusty Brompton (yes, you warned me -- but I had no idea it was like this). I'll spare you the gorey details, but suffice it to say, these photos of my ride to the Sands Convention Center only start to do it justice.

Outdoor Demo traffic: chaotic and dusty,
yet strangely exciting.

The point was further driven home as soon as I arrived at the event's Outdoor Demo, held in a very dusty place called Bootleg Canyon (several miles west of the strip). The Demo is a chance for shop employees, buyers, and the media to take next year's bikes for a test ride. There were paved pathways, gravel roads, and a network of singletrack trails to test mountain bikes.

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It was a big, cheerful traffic jam out on the pathways. All in the same, narrow space, people test rode macho-looking full-suspension bikes, walked from booth to booth, stood around and chatted, and stopped suddenly to take photos.

Amidst this cacophony of test-rides there was also an exhibition going on.

A pair of Interbike's fabled "booth girls".

It was great to see Portland company Chris King with a packed booth.

The guys at Civia were working hard to promote their Loring, described to me as a "farmers market bike." It has all the things you need in a bike -- spacious racks and fenders (both made of bamboo), chainguard, a u-lock holster, and even the widget with springs that keeps your steering stable with a heavy load up front.

I liked this one, a lot. The price ($1,395 for the 9-speed version) seemed a bit steep, but I guess it's a value when thinking of it as a car replacement.

The Loring is available with a step-through frame for shorties like me.

Dahon has a new line of commuter folding bikes called the "Midtown Minis". They don't fold up very small (see below) or very easily (you need a tool) but have a top tube that rides and looks more like a conventional road bike.

There were several e-bike companies at Outdoor Demo. Unfortunately, there never was anyone at the only booth that had a product that didn't look like a space-aged moped.

Mark Kohr and his Donkeyboxx
at the Xtracycle tent.

It was a real breath of fresh air to find the Xtracycle airstream trailer, complete with solar panel, laid back vibe, and the soon to be released (they should be shipping around October 1) new Peapod kids seat that we wrote about last month.

Xtracycles are so ubiquitous around Portland that it was neat to finally meet some of the folks behind the bikes (there are only four of them making it all happen). They had a friend in tow, Mark Kohr, who was debuting his new invention, the Donkeyboxx, his low-cost, light-weight, Xtracycle specific response to the bike bucket -- filled, in this case, with ice, beer, and a watermelon.

Besides being completely overwhelming, the next couple of days should yield a better sense for how the bike industry is (or isn't) wooing customers who ride bikes for transportation. Or more to the point, how the manufacturers are wooing the shop buyers who are here to pick out their stock for next year.

But whether it's bikes for sport or transportation, Interbike is about selling stuff in large quantities -- and Vegas does seem to be an excellent place for that.

Browse more photos and notes from my day at the Outdoor Demo here.

As I write this, our intrepid managing editor Elly Blue is en route to Las Vegas for one of the world's largest bike industry gatherings -- the Interbike trade show.

I have fond memories of working and walking the Interbike show floor, having gone several times as an employee of Chris King Precision Components, Old Man Mountain products, and later as an independent PR guy with clients in the bike business.

For a young, wannabe bike industry insider and former starry-eyed racer, the place was nothing short of nirvana. I would be so busy talking up products to dealers and rubbing shoulders with my heroes from the race track, the boardroom, and the newsroom that I would sometimes not even stop for lunch.

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It's been several years since I attended the show (my laser-focus on BikePortland and lack of a budget have made it hard to justify), but I felt our site must have a presence this year. After I realized my calendar wouldn't allow it, I was happy to realize that my intrepid staffer Elly Blue was eager to go.

Elly will be a great BikePortland representative at Interbike. She goes into it with completely fresh eyes -- her only knowledge of the Interbike and the industry is the half-hour crash course I gave her before she left.

Elly's Great Interbike Adventure
will begin at Outdoor Demo.

I'm not sure what exactly Elly will be compelled to report about. I told her to share whatever catches her eyes and ears. Elly said she'll be looking mostly at transportation/utility/cargo oriented bikes and products, finding out what Portland people are up to, checking in on the vibe around e-bikes, and generally just soaking everything in.

I do know that in her research prior to the trip, Elly was amazed at how many photos of women in bikinis she saw at the show. "What does that have to do with bikes?" she asked me. I tried to convince her that the show was all about business, but she's determined to find out for herself.

Elly's experience will start with a few hours out in the dust at the Outdoor Demo later this afternoon.

Stay tuned the front page, our Twitter feed, and our Interbike 2009 Special Coverage page (I'll run all her dispatches in the sidebar) for more from The Big Show.

[If you're at the show and want to connect with Elly, drop her an email at elly [at] bikeportland [dot] org or DM her on Twitter @ellyblue.]