A BIG SPARK IN VEGAS

Recap in Nevada

This is the Delfast Prime, a Ukraine-based company that is crowdfunding its way into the U.S. market. This bike claims an unheard of 236-mile range. The looks, performance and range grabbed our attention.

Every year the bicycle industry puts on a huge convention to show off the newest bikes, accessories, technologies, etc. It’s the one place where everyone gets together to talk and touch and sometimes even demo everything that’s bicycle-related.

**When the show opens, the masses pour in.**

Last year electric bikes were starting to show up in many booths and made up about a quarter of the show. This year electric bikes were creeping up significantly more. More and more mainstream bike companies are jumping into the electric bike market, and the buzz is that the U.S. is about five years behind Europe in acceptance and adoption of e-bikes, who sells close to a 60/40 ratio of traditional to electric bikes.

Two days prior to the opening of the trade show, Interbike hosts an event called the Outdoor Demo, which this year featured the Electric Bike Corral. EBA helped sponsor the Corral and designed a special e-bike demo course for dealers to test ride a variety of e-bikes. The event proved a big hit, and we learned a lot from dealers in what they thought about the bikes and where they thought the e-bike market was headed.

**What happens when two guys who work at Hi-Power Cycles come to Interbike? They forget that bikes have two wheels and opt for riding on just one.**

Next year the show moves from the Mandalay Bay Las Vegas to the Reno Sparks Convention Center in Reno, Nevada (September 18–20, 2018). Unfortunately, the show is still closed to the public, which means the Sea Otter Classic remains America’s closest semblance of a bike show that’s open to the public.

There’s a great demo area with a track setup so anyone can go try many of the bikes from various manufacturers. This GeoOrbital wheel put on a Razor Drift trike never rested; we saw people on it non-stop!

Sena debuted a couple of new connected cycling helmets at Interbike. The R1 is road bike-specific and can allow communication between riders or play music or GPS, monitor health stats from fitness apps and more. There’s also an R1 Pro model with a built-in QHD video camera to record rides.

Bosch showed off all their motors and the new Power Tube (not shown), a new battery design made to go into the downtube. The new Active Line Plus changes it up to use a larger sprocket and less internal gearing for more efficiency, and the CX was updated this year to include the e-MTB mode, a sort of automatic transmission for the power.

**The show has lost many of the big traditional bike manufacturers; this year only Cervélo remained. E-bikes are creeping into being the majority of the show.**

**Raleigh had some cool stuff, but this all-carbon-framed beast with an inverted fork really caught our attention. It’s still a prototype.**

**Focus, who caught our attention with the Jam Squared this spring, debuted some new electric bikes at the show, including the Bold Squared hardtail.**

Here’s how the Bosch Power Tube looks in a bike—sleek and stealthy. It won’t be backwards compatible with the original battery system. At the moment, we’ve not had a chance to ride one—even the ones at the show were all dummy batteries.

Tern showed off their newest bike, the GSD, in many configurations. It’s meant to carry two kids or all your groceries for the week, or whatever else you want. The slick part is that they designed it to stand upright on its back wheel so it can easily fit in elevators!

**After riding a bike with the much-anticipated PW-X motor, we loved it enough to award it Motor of the Year. It was a tough choice, because there are a lot of great motors and improvements this year.**

**Editor Tony Donaldson (red T-shirt) congratulates the Yamaha team for winning the Innovation award for the PW-X motor.**

**Bosch outfitted a Kona bike as the ultimate trail-building bike and includes a Bosch electric chainsaw for clearing branches and logs.**

**We were happy to see Tern debut a great new red colorway for the Vektron.**

The demo area is run by the same fine folks that put on the Electric Bike Expo, so they also have these unique jumps for testing out bike suspension. There’s usually someone there making sure people look like they know what they’re doing before they go on this section.

**Then there’s Lance Nelson. He’s a motocross racer turned mountain bike downhill racer. He’s definitely qualified for the test jumps.**