It’s Not Interbike, But Smaller B2B Bicycle Trade Show Visits Downtown Las Vegas For First Time Wednesday, Thursday
The official presenting sponsor of this story is Las Vegas Cyclery.
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Shop at Jay’s Market at 190 East Flamingo Road at the Koval Lane intersection east of the Strip.
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By Alan Snel, LVSportsBiz.com Publisher-Writer
LAS VEGAS, Nevada — Everybody knows Las Vegas is great at throwing parties, building sports venues and promoting entertainment acts.
But livability issues like education, health care, and bicycle safety? Not too good in Las Vegas.
Even though Las Vegas ranks at a miserable 37th percentile for bicycle resources like paved trails in the U.S., Sin City — remarkably enough — used to host the bicycle industry’s biggest bicycle trade show for many years. The Interbike show was a September highlight before it closed on the Strip.
And now a Chicago bike shop owner is changing all that in Las Vegas.
Jim Kersten, owner of the family-run Edgebrook Cycle in Chicago, is the hard-working organizer behind the CABDA bike show that is being held at the World Market Center expo hall in downtown Las Vegas Wednesday and Thursday.
It’s kind of like a little mini-Interbike, open to B2B bicycle store owners to check out products from bikes to tires to helmets to anything that can be sold in a retail bike shop.
Kersten holds three such bike shows a year — one on New Jersey in January, a second in February and a third in the western U.S.
His western CABDA show was in San Diego and Ontario, California and now he’s staging it in Las Vegas for the first time. He has about 250 brands showing products.
Here’s our LVSportsBiz.com interview with Kersten:
LVSportsBiz.com also spoke with Ray Keener of Boulder, the retail editor for the bicycle industry’s trade publication, Bicycle Retailer and Industry News (BRAIN).
Keener gave an overview of the retail bicycle scene and explained how Las Vegas fits into the meeting location picture.
Interestingly enough, the LVCVA (Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority), the public agency charged with attracting visitors to Las Vegas and Southern Nevada, was trying to rekindle the former Interbike show and make it part of the week of a Tour de France-branded bike ride in Summerlin called L’Etape Las Vegas by Tour de France.
If you’re a bicycle shop owner, you are welcome to swing by the World Market Center and see what bike and bike part manufacturers are making.
