08/22/2008

Dave Tolnai: Las Vegas Virgin Wide eyed observations and jaded commentary Words and photos - Dave Tolnai

The Dirt Demo served as an interesting introduction to Interbike and Las Vegas. Imagine gobs and gobs of people stumbling around small town America in ridiculous heat surrounded by the desert. Fun times.

Not a fair priced meal or bank machine in sight.

My bike for the day was the new Cove Shocker. Gabe Fox sold it to me as “"an 8.75" travel bike that can do everything."  The VPP-inspired design is targeted towards the freerider/downhiller that wants to do it all with one bike. It has two shock mount positions that change the feel of the bike. Gabe claims the lower position (the one I was running) is slightly progressive and the top mount straightens the shock rate out. 

There are some nice features to this bike like a RockShox Maxle rear axle. I was lucky enough to be able to put the user friendliness of the Maxle to the test when I pinch flatted 30 feet into the trail. Jeers to Gabe for mounting cheap tubes and cheers to Nick of Evolution Bike Shop in Cupertino, California for changing my flat. Everybody in California should buy a bike from this guy, as far as I'm concerned.

Not available in brown or pink: with names like Hooker, Peeler, Stiffee, Handjob and G-Spot you had to know Cove was up to something with Shocker. This bike was last seen goin' to town with one in the brown.

The bike itself is a fun little ride. The demo bike is a prototype and is roughly the size of a medium. While a little small and a lightly sprung for my tastes, it proved to be a lively ride that didn't wallow in its travel at all and responded well to being tossed around. Even with the soft shock, it pedalled quite well. I hope to spend a bit more time on this bike once it hits production (big hints to Cam and Gabe).

After only getting one bike in on Day One, I had higher expectations of myself for Day Two. Joe at Santa Cruz has been hyping the Blur 4X for months, so I was anxious to take it out for a spin. This bike is obviously positioned as a 4X race bike, but I was curious to see what it would feel like on the trail. The bike was set up with a 145mm Manitou Nixon air fork and a 5 th Element air shock controlling the 125mm of travel in the back.

I've never been a huge fan of air shocks and this bike did nothing to change my mind. I'm sure with a little bit of set-up time things would have been fine, but this bike had a very on/off personality. While not terribly impressed with the suspension performance of this bike (and I'm blaming the rear shock), I have to say that this bike absolutely rails. This would be a perfect Kamloops/Okanagan trail bike –- with the suspension dialled in.

For comparison purposes I jumped from the 4X to a Santa Cruz Nomad. The suspension on this bike felt a thousand times better, both in the rear (Fox DHX Air) and on the front (Fox 36 RC2). The Nomad has similar geometry to the Blur 4X but has 30mm more travel in the back and almost an inch higher bottom bracket. If Santa Cruz could combine the cornering feel of the 4X with the suspension performance and travel of the Nomad I think they would have an amazing trail bike.

Of course, Interbike isn't just about mountain bikes. Lance Armstrong has Americans all freaked out about road bikes. I figured that I should see what all the fuss was about. So I borrowed a road bike from Rocky Mountain, slapped some flat pedals on it, and rode down to Taco Bell. The food was terrible but the bike was quite a bit of fun. But why do road bikes have such crappy brakes?

At this, point either the heat or the fast food taco-like substance took me out. On my way back to the hotel, I poached the Sands convention centre where the indoor part of Interbike takes place and watched companies scrambling to get their booths set up for tomorrow. I'm looking forward to moving things inside and seeing all the money wasted … umm … invested in hocking crap to the masses.

Things should be interesting inside the Sands.