Spinning in Seattle: I Could Live Here

We launched Bicycle Times a year ago at the Seattle Bicycle Show, amid some really crappy Seattle weather. Standing on a wet floor in a leaky circus tent somewhere in Magnuson Park, we greeted the hordes of dedicated cyclists pouring in with fresh copies of our very first issue. Eyeing the preponderance of yellow-jacket-wearing, pannier-hauling, mirror-sporting cyclists, we new we were in the right place to reach the legions of real-world bike life. And everyone else was there too!

That was then, this is now.

This year we’re in a seemingly-new cruise terminal on Pier 91. There’s carpet on the floor, luxurious lighting, and a fantastic view of the Olympic range right outside the large windows. Things are smooth, as Robert and the Two Fish family have driven the booth up from SFO, I’ve flown in after the Bike Summit in DC, and we’ve just ridden our bikes from the hotel, over a giant hill with a mondo view of the Seattle skyline and 14,411 foot Mount Rainier. Life is good.


But let’s get to work. We’re here to promote our magazines. Let’s grab a stack and shove them into people’s faces. Make sure they have seen them and have had a chance to like them (or not). “Dirt or off dirt?” That is the question as we offer each attendee their choice of Bicycle Times or Dirt Rag. We’re happy to meet all kinds of cyclists. Some have known Dirt Rag for years and others are just getting their indoctrination papers for the first time. It’s all good.

And when we lure them into the booth for the subscription offer, it gets better. We’ve got Melissa Bearns from Klean Kanteen in our corner today, and she’s brought along the spinny-wheel.

Melissa is a pro. A sales pro. She walks into the booth, says hi, grabs a stack of magazines, and she’s off to the races, hawking “Subscribe and spin! Yea, come on in!” Spin the wheel and you could win one of these fine prizes from Klean Kanteen, Dirt Rag, or Bicycle Times!


Anyway, we converted nearly fifty regular people into enlightened ones (subscribers) in those two days, and got to look around the show a bit as well.

Got to meet up with Erik “Sure King” Zo, a man with a brain bursting at the seams with bike knowledge.


Always a pleasure. Zo was part of the classic lightweight bike display at the Seattle show, a huge collection of old bikes, and featuring a bunch of Jack Taylors, and a visit from Ken Taylor, a man with a few more years of bike knowledge. Man I need to find some photos of this stuff. All I got was this head tube from a 1939 Caminargent…


Then there’s the  World Champion Artistic Cyclists from Germany! Corrina Hein, Stefan Musu and Lukas Matla were another amazing attraction. Awe-inspiring! There are some videos here… http://kunstrad.fernradweh.de/media/videos/
And I took a few stills myself…


All told, 9300 visitors came to this show. In this new venue things are only going to get better. We’ll be back!