Thursday night saw us getting all the bikes ready to go for the demo and John did a cool decal job on the Amp that we built up. We had forgotten to put Devon's Rune and the Legend on the paperwork so we had to get it shipped to the demo, but at least we'd be able to show them cause we knew alot of people wanted to see the Legend up close and personal.
Greg from Straitline had a Wildcard that he was demo'ing but we needed it back so he shipped it to us... anyone who knows Greg will know that he's a bit of a prankster and our box showed up with a couple of pics on the inside cover... like Kevin Fed., New Kids on the Block, and Borat ... pretty funny Greg.
We left on Friday about 5pm but thankfully the border was quick and painless to get through and before we knew it we were on our way to the Gorge in Oregon to show a Rune to Dave -owner of the Windance Boardshop - who was interested in checking it out.We rolled into Hood River around 11pm and headed straight for the bar to
have a few before staying overnight there and heading for the next push straight to Vegas.
There was a pretty awesome band playing called the Bandfish Band and I know Keith would have been totally into them as they play the same kind of music as his old band... check'm out here.Next morning we were off to see Dave who was a super cool dude and invited us all to come back for a little kite surfing when we headed back home - hopefully we have time.
Hood River is this super laidback town with a great vibe and it totally reminded me of small town BC like Nelson and other places that have a good biking scene.
With everything packed back up in the trailer we were ready for the 18hour drive that laid ahead of us. I do love a good road trip, and when you're traveling with your friends it makes it alot easier. Dalen and John from Trident Sports were the drivers on this trip as I accidentally got a speeding ticket last year and wasn't able to clear it up in time for me to be "legal" to drive in the USA. Apparantly I have to take traffic school even though the fine had been paid... oh well.
At 4am we rolled into Las Vegas and made the wise choice to go to Boulder City and see if we could find accomodations there. Boulder City is at the base of Bootleg Canyon where the demo is and it seemed alot of people had the same plan as next morning we ran into Hoots [Jay Krantz], the dudes from Mavic, Ventana, Norco... etc were all in the same hotel. Normally we'd stay in Vegas and then travel out every morning but this was way better this year.
After a couple hours of sleep we were up looking for food. If you're ever in Boulder make sure you go to Mels Diner... food was freaking awesome and the service was great.
Now it was off to the dirt demo area to set up. We found our spot and start building. Since we didn't show up that early it was pretty late before we were finally finished. Then off to dinner and then to crash for the busy day we'd have over the next couple of days.
Linden, Devon, Darren, and Rachel showed up the next day to help out which was really cool to have them around, not just for work but just to chill with them. The booth was setup and looked pretty good. We brought down about 20 or so bikes so there was plenty and Linden brought his prototype 29r, and Devon had his Viento Xtra cycle with him which was awesome to see.
I had a couple media things i had to do with 
Radek and Tyler from Pinkbike, and I haven't checked to see if its up yet. I still have a lot to learn being in front of the camera but hopefully someday it will come off ok. We did a video of the Legend and the Rune but if you read the blog you'll probably already know about everything i talked about in the vid.
I also did a thing with MTBR.com and it looks like they've already got our new virtual tradeshow booth up. Rachel took and awesome pic with the Legend and she gave me this awesome pic that Devon took of her racing the Mountain States Cup series and she told me she won the championship which was totally awesome. Check out the virtual tradeshow booth here.
Linden won a pair of sick Skull Candy earphones for doing a wheelie on his Banshee 29r single speed all the way to the Oakley Truck and back again. That dude has some skills as we found out later when we all went out on a MOB session around Vegas.
After I took of the media stuff it was off to get beer and the Legend and Devon's Rune. We took his Viento Xtracycle as he assured me we could get everything on it... which to my surprise it was no problem and had room for more stuff. You can see Devon even used it to tow around the Amp which was pretty cool.
I was suppose to go on a couple runs with Dalen and Tom from WTB but for whatever reason we never hooked up so I just took the shuttle up and did a run before the demo closed. I took the Scythe which was a blast but only got 3/4 of the way down before I double flatted which left me walking down to the tent. 
So that sucked but I felt great cause my knee seems to be back in the game after i tore my MCL at Crankworx weeks back.
With the demo over we all got on our bikes and decided to do a little urban session. I was riding Lindens 29r and it was a blast, I definitely will get keith to do the final small changes to the V29 and it be good to go. Well here are the pics. I gotta run to the show at the sands but i'll try to take some more pics.
