Day one… was LONG. It started with direct deposit from the out loading of the Notekillers gig at the M-room, directly to the deserted Philadelphia International Airport at 2:00 am, where I waited for my 6 o’clock flight. There was no time or transportation back and forth, thus no reason to even dream of anything close to a bed.
I landed in Dallas, and then left instantly for San Diego. I arrived around noon Pacific Time with 1 hour of sleep in a chair at airline check-in and 2 hours from the first leg of the flight. It was doing little to keep me running. Yet, I'm finally getting to see the California that I had envisioned when I was a kid watching TV game shows. Ocean town, sun, palm trees, clean streets. The mathematical expression would be - San Diego is to Pittsburgh as Los Angeles is to Philadelphia.
I headed to the show by cab, tethered to the shop by my cell phone and wireless internet connection. My office ravel was with me in my Ortlieb roller and my Swiss backpack was slung over my shoulders. With me I have a Litespeed retrofit with bike stands in the roller suitcase and a Travel Midlands in my S & S hard case. The show is being held at the Town and Country Resort, so my last leg to the Expo hall was by electric tram, since being weighed down by gear makes moving on foot a bit too slow. (120 + lbs of luggage, a 140 lb man not only that, but the extending handle on my roller suitcase got stuck after I got dropped off)
I started my set up at about 1:00pm with some new found adrenalin. I got our green sprint track bike out of the box along with some shirts and postcards and laid them out on the table. From that moment on I had a steady stream of customers until nearly 4 o’clock.
Bike television came by for a video interview and wanted the scoop on BCW since last year. Mr. and Mrs. McCabe came by to say hello. They have a Sterling Tandem I built for them back in 1992. The editor and photographer from Loop magazine (A Japanese fanzine) hovered over our curved seat tube track bike, for what seemed like the entire show.
A couple looking for tandems, who had been referred to our us by other exhibitors, came by to touch base about what BCW could do for them in the ways of tandems. Next year we plan on bringing our tandems to the show.
Jeff Roe came by to say hello to Simon, and a customer waiting for an extremely custom 3 speed frame with fancy lugs came by in hopes of seeing his new baby.
The booth was also visited by Keith Anderson, Joe Bell, Bruce Gordon, Mark DaNucci, and Brian Baylis. With their visits, the evening party plans began to take shape. The crowd faded fast at around 4:00 pm. Luckily Friday is considered the "casual" day of the event, and it didn't matter that I had been setting up as people were coming by - because the real show…that starts on Saturday.
- Stephen (Sent from SD)
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