Drive up Saturday night was very scenic with a great sunset, extremely icy conditions when we got to northern WI and MN....3-4" of ice covering the roads from the storm on Thursday. That pushed the drive time way back and my co-worker Ryan and I arrived around 9pm when we went for a bite at the nearby TGIF and then had some drinks with Bobo at the bar before calling it a night.
Some really cool displays from the folks at Salsa. Ryan and I attended a very informative outdoor seminar in the morning to try and push the bike-packing.
Thanks to my buddies Tim and Paul I managed to make the Salsa/Trans-Iowa display where Paul and I crossed the finish line in the bottom right photo. Thanks guys!
The usual hub-bub of meeting and greeting old and new friends and learning all there is to learn in the limited number of hours we had at the show on Sunday.
The Whisky booth was pretty neat
The big news came from All-City with 3 new bikes. The disc macho man. Limited macho man build, and the macho king.
Some great colors.
Bobby at Cogburn gave me the lowdown on the new bikes and how the product fits into the industry. Pretty interesting stuff.
Surly had some modified dropouts that make a lot of sense, a SS pugs in purple, new ice cream truck fatty, and beautiful new bike colors.
The neighborhood roads were absolutely covered in a sheet of ice and driving was very very difficult, thank god I had my snow tires on.
Hit up several cool restaurants including the northbound with smoked fish and locally brewed beer.
Stopped off in Madison, WI on the way home for lunch and saw this great little gem...
It was great to head up to Frostbike for my 8-9th year going to this event. It is always great to reconnect with friends that I only see once or twice a year. Hear how they are doing and bounce ideas off of each other. Learn about the new products and trends. As well as build and maintain relationships within the industry. There are so many changes with retail in general it is great to hear other shop's perspectives on the topic. QBP always does a fantastic job with this event and this year was a great one even though it was a short one for me. So, thanks to everyone who put the event on and shook my hand this weekend, great job guys, great to see everyone!
- JB
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