Now, where were we?

Oh yeah… I was bouncing back and forth between the best days and the worst days ever;

Also- Do you know how hard it is to find an image of a guy bending over to find a pile of cash while a piano is about to fall on him?

Pretty hard.

Anyway, so there I was, waking up after a mellow evening with my life partner Demonika, and my other life partner Steve Elmes, and Thursday was upon me. I knew I needed to get cracking, walk the show, see a few more people and things before heading off to meet Troy and the Over The Edge crew for their annual 1:00 lunch. I went one way, and Demonika went the other. Again, as I described on Monday, as I neared the show’s entrance, I began feeling an anxiety attack coming on. Luckily, at that moment, Jim from Vecchios Biciclettera sauntered by, and again, I invited him to sit down on the floor with me where we had a real live conversation.

I’m not quite sure what the advantage is, but I suspect it has something to do with having my back to a wall (ensuring no surprise attacks), and being able to see everything right in front of me, while simultaneously focusing exclusively on our discussion.

After about another half an hour of chatting, I felt ready to commence with my day, and so I did, taking in at least some of the following;
















Just before heading to lunch I swung by to see Jeff and Katie from Feedback Sports (the latter of the two pictured here wearing the face of someone who has met the Las Vegas delirium head on);

Some months ago Jeff clued me on on a very exciting development they had brewing, the secrecy of which I was sworn to. It seems as though the good folks in that camp have been burning the midnight oil, plus a metric shit ton of candles at both ends developing a whole lotta badass new tools;

Being one who is a huge fan of badass tools, I was quite excited to get a walk through and see the fruits of all of their labor. Jeff mentioned a number of times that they would like to send me some. I repeatedly let him know that as much as I would like that, what I wanted most of all was to help promote them via simple transmission of the information, because getting quality tools into the hands of both ham fisted and pro mechanics alike will only serve to make the world a better place.

He looked at me skeptically, I assume because everybody hits him up for free stuff, but again I reassured him that my directive was a genuine one.

I like the Feedback Sports people, and I like what they are doing. Keep your eyes peeled towards this squad. They are only going to continue to blow up, and soon enough everyone’s blue-draped tool boards will eventually transition to red.

At this point I looked at the vacant spot on my wrist where a watch would traditionally sit and knew I had to get high stepping to lunch, where I jumped into a pool of free margaritas and derelicts;









With a full belly and satisfied heart I headed back up to my room to grab a change of clothes in order to get to The Bunkhouse Saloon to help Who Rides The Tiger load in, trip out, cruise around, or whatever else they needed done.

It turns out that the eventual soundcheck was a piece of cake, and after making introductions with the bar’s owners, staff, and sound guy, all that was left to do was grab a bite of food and wait to see if anyone showed up;

Fortunately, eventually people did. Unfortunately, I’d heard a week prior that there was a huge music and arts festival occurring in downtown that week, and that there would be street closures. “Great” I thought. “That means more people potentially coming to the party.”

Except that the festival didn’t actually start until the next day, and by ‘street closures’ I found that all of Fremont street from 6th to 11th was fenced off, and guarded by numbskull security.

So basically downtown was a no man’s land;

Whether this affected the ultimate turn out, I don’t know, but I certainly don’t think it helped.

Eventually the crowd began to swell, and I took the stage thanking VYNL Race Bikes, HiFi Components, DJ Fish;

-my guy on the inside, Ruben, Glenn the sound guy, Jillian and Ryan from The Bunkhouse, and most certainly Pabst for ensuring that we wouldn’t once again run out of beer.

After that, all that was left to do was have Tiger take the stage and let the chips fall where they did;











There was one final photo that I took that I couldn’t help but add a bit of photoshop magic to;

So there we go.

Hugs and highfives were shared, and with ears ringing, eventually folks melted off into the night leaving me to focus on helping clean up the bar a bit. Or possibly just wander around in circles feeling like I was helping clean up the bar a bit.

Whatever the case, I woke up a few hours later with a flight to catch, and an assortment of orphans left over;

In the end, no pianos fell on me, but conversely no piles of cash were found either.

I guess we’ll chalk 2016’s Interbike Trade Show of Bikes, Bike Parts, And Other Assorted Stuff®™© up to a draw and once again promise that we’ll never do it again until next year.