THIS WEEK IN PRO CYCLING
Industrial Wastrel: All things come to he who Waits
Wasted and wounded, it ain't what the moon did
I've got what I paid for now. . . .
"Tom Traubert's Blues" by Tom Waits
LAS VEGAS, Nev. — It’s easy to go cyborg at Interbike. After a long day of stalking the show floor, translating MarketSpeak® into English, and even longer nights spent consuming volatile liquids and denouncing various Enemies of the People, you don’t sleep so much as crash. Come morning, you reboot, hoping that your RAM reorganizes itself along tidy, functional little lines. This almost never happens.
Thus, breakfast is a must, preferably within walking distance, but if you enjoy going bumper-to-bumper with Vegas traffic you might try The Egg & I on Sahara, because they know breakfast and they like bikes. When I visited earlier this week the place had some Vans Triple Crown of BMX thing going on two flat-panel screens, courtesy of Fuel TV. Young men biting the dust one after another, with Tylenol a sponsor and the Army buying airtime. And they said irony was dead.
After the grease fix it’s back to the Riviera Hotel & Casino to draw the Show Daily cartoon for Bicycle Retailer & Industry News, the outfit that buys my ticket so I can take this carnival ride through Bugsy Siegel’s Fun House, for reasons neither of us fully comprehend.
The Riviera resembles its Euro’ namesake only in that a guy can find sand nearby in short order if he really needs some. Liberace cut the ribbon and Joan Crawford was the mistress of ceremonies when the joint opened in 1955. I was a year old. Dwight "Beware the Military-Industrial Complex" Eisenhower was in the White House, Mickey Mantle was in center field and Louison Bobet was in the yellow jersey.
But the place has been brought right up to date — the inside of the bathroom door sports a gentle warning about the too-casual disposal of hypodermic needles. Must’ve had the ProTour crowd through here recently, though the current demographic leans more toward Depends than Assos. Think Casino of the Living Dead.
Next, it’s off to the Sands Convention Center, where my fellow BRAINiacs have been cranking on the Daily since the wee small hours. I have no real assigned chores, beyond cranking out a daily ’toon, generating some casually abusive word count and recommending single-malt Scotches to the younger staffers, so I get to wander around (that’s part of the job description for “editor at large”), take it all in, and view with alarm.
For instance: Las Vegas reminds me of the less attractive portions of Los Angeles, Phoenix and Hell. Everyone here smokes, even if they have to fit the Marlboros into their tracheotomy tubes, and why not, because they’re all going to Hell when they die and they might as well be smoldering when they get there. It’s the only place I know of where you can walk around outside and go back to your hotel smelling like a napalm strike in a toxic-waste dump.
And walking around outside consumes a significant portion of the day, because it’s the only exercise a guy is likely to get in this miserable whorehouse (although Dirt Rag’s Maurice Tierney and Thanita Adams tackled the Strip on a mountain bike on the last day, with Mo’ driving and Thanita packin’).
From the Riv’ to the Sands is a good half-hour of humpin’ under God’s own heat lamp with a messenger bag full of electronica, dodging road-ragers and fatties on the hoof, enjoying the atmospheric, visual and sonic pollution while adding a few melonomas to the old collection. It’s like being trapped in a video game designed by a hyperactive kid with ADD and an inoperable brain tumor, or maybe being inside a TV commercial, which is hideous for someone who doesn’t even like being outside a TV without a shotgun close at hand.
It’s good that I’m mostly a supernumerary, because I don’t get much accomplished once I’m inside the Sands. I tend to get collared while wandering aimlessly, which can be either good or bad, as any troublemaker who’s ever felt that restraining hand on the shoulder from behind can attest.
I haven’t gotten punched yet, which is not bad for a guy who tends to introduce himself as the “staff infection,” “the guy who makes the fart noises in the back of the magazine,” or “the local representative of the Forces of Evil.” And despite distractions, I do get the occasional moment to examine a shiny toy:
The Maxxis Raze, new for 2007, looks like good rubber for us ’cross-geeks. It’s 700x35, foldable and 315 grams. And it would look stylish on the jet-black aluminum Masi CXR, which can be had as a frameset ($700 and change) or a complete bike with decent spec ($1600 or thereabouts). Retro-grouches take note: Brand manager Tim Jackson says he’s hoping to show a steel model next season.
Jamis has added a race-ready “kinesium” Supernova with carbon seat stays and fork to its ’cross stable ($1925). And Surly is doing its popular Cross-Check in a nifty new color, Misty Mountain Grey. Sinus-infection green appears to be a thing of the past, though the stylish basic black can still be had. I forget the price, but it’s cheap enough that you can buy two and have one in the pit.
I’m sure there’s plenty of other sexy stuff out there, but it’s hard to see it through a single-malt fog. And anyway, I’ve gotta take this call. Just try hearing a Tom Waits ring tone (“Tom Traubert’s Blues”) in this intolerable racket. For all you know it could be a retarded Rottweiler getting set to take a couple bucks worth of burger out of your ass, something you don’t ordinarily see at Interbike, or even in a Vegas taproom.
But you never know. Hunter S. Thompson saw giant flesh-eating lizards, 200-foot-tall Nazi drunkards shouting, “Woodstock über alles,” and plenty of other things, too. And he wasn’t even staying in the Riv’.
Well, O'Grady's observations may not be worth much, but at least they're free (to you, anyway). Send your priceless commentary to us via webletters@insideinc.com. — Editor
