Interbike

And I wasn't even 21 yet.

So the next trade show was the Interbike trade show in Vegas where it's like a whole bike industry thing.

So I was going to have to hit all these different trade shows for all these different sports.

So I had to use a fake ID to get into the trade show because it was in the casino.

[laughs] And he was like, "Yeah, actually I have a couple snowboard shops and a bike shop that, like, need some help, and you can run those." And so I went back and started working for him again, and then I started my own rep agency, and that's kinda where I found 5.10, 'cause one of...

I'd found them in Vegas, um, at Interbike way back in the day.

This was 16, 17, maybe 18 years ago.

Really? So you go there looking for new brands, peop-

Do you? [laughs]

So, like, I, I was, I was, uh, I was at...

A long time ago, a friend of mine was at Interbike, and he, like, told me this story about mountain bikers, and it always sticks with me when I think about, like, designing mountain bike stuff.

He, we, he was at Interbike, and you know, they used to have showgirls that were in there.

For sure, I mean, a press launch, a, a, a press junket is always a great occasion to, uh, to do brand building, uh, but it's not the most efficient.

And on the other hand, we were also meeting media at trade shows, like we were, you know, back-to-back appointments with media at Eurobike, at Interbike, at other media events.

And that was, uh, kind of like, uh, you know, basically, um, just one after the other and it was just talking, talking, talking and not much else.

So we said, "Okay, there must be a, a, a middle way for this." A- and this is why we, we tried to adapt the, the bike press camp format, uh, to Europe.

We were like one of the first retailers in the United States.

Steve actually was with me at Interbike.

He like grabbed me.

I was meeting with I don't forget who I was meeting with.

So that was the motivation for us was creating something that was a bit more fitted to the market.

And how about now? Do you think that the role that Cabda plays and, you know, Interbike, I think is the trade show you were referring to, the one that has since passed away.

But when you think about like the role of Cabda, do you think that that's evolved over the last decade? Because, you know, we're rolling into 2027.

You've been around for a while.

I was on the BPSA board, which was before BPSA merged with People for Bikes.

And we had our yearly board meeting at Interbike.

So we're down in the I'll call it the basement of the Monterey Bay Convention Center.

If everybody knows, you go down those stairs and there's all those rooms down there where people meet.