London Cycle Show

The day after Ryan's successful Wicklow Way Cycling Record breaking attempt, Ryan and I flew over in London to help out our 2008 sponsor Torq in the London Cycle Show. The show is basically an exhibition about anything to do with cycling (bikes, components, gear, nutrition) mainly for marketing/advertising purposes, although some companies are also allowed to trade, such as Torq. It was also interspersed with interviews from famous cyclists, such as the Athertons and Nicole Cook and other people, several cycling fashion shows and some cycling competitions.

Ryan and I flew to London early on the Friday morning and straight to Earls Court where the show was held to help out for 3 days. Because we arrived when the show was already opened for the day, we were thrown right into the deep end. Barely having had time to say hello to the other Torq people, we were in the midst of promoting Torq's nutritional products. Until 6 in the evening we were on our feet chatting to so many different people! From the weekend leisure cyclist over the daily commuter to the high level triathlete - people in all shapes and sizes and levels of fitness. In a way it was half work, half pleasure, listening to many iteresting stories from the people and at the same time educating people about the basics of sports nutrition. Going by the amount of people that were always hanging around the Torq stand it also seemed that the people liked the Torq products - some people kept coming back during the show to pick up another taster of the bars (or maybe they were just interested in any type of free food ;)).

Lots of tasty Torq bars :)

Obviously, the show was also an opportunity for us to have a peek at next season's bikes - heaven for Ryan! It was really hard to go anywhere without Ryan stopping and looking at this wheel and that crank and those brakes.....

I went to see the interview with Nicole Cooke who won both Olympic gold and the World Champs in Road Cycling this year and have to say that it was really quite inspiring. She comes across as such a nice and down to earth girl who still can't quite believe in her success!

The show was really hard work, getting up at 6:30 am every morning, being on your feet all day and chatting to people and only going to bed again at 1am, after eating dinner together and chatting till late at night, but also really good fun. And I am impressed with our team work - especially when we took down the stand after the show and packed everything away in record time - you'd think we do this for a living!