Oh, we touched it.

Bringing some weird, new bike part to Interbike and telling people not to touch it is a little like buying a new house so that you can camp in the back yard.

My man Connor walked up and touched the shit out of this new Ergon split flappy leaf spring style seatpost. In fact, I’d go so far as to say he outright fondled it–so much so that I thought he was doing it on purpose, just to see what would happen.

But no, he just didn’t read the sign. And good for him. Touching new bike stuff is our God-given right as Americans for crissake.

Realistically, if they didn’t want anyone to touch it, they should’ve put it in this thing.

Nobody got anywhere near that shit. It cleared whole aisles, probably because every time anyone saw it they assumed someone was about to start telling them about it, and most of us would’ve rather spent Interbike cowering in a bathroom stall than face hearing even a few seconds of a sales pitch for this thing.

But you know what’s back? Inverted forks!

No. Of course I’m just kidding. In fact all of X-Fusion is just one big piece of highly conceptual performance art, like Cirque du Soleil or Paul Ryan.

Which makes me think of mimes. Mavic had said they were sending “some French guys” by our office a few days ago. Nobody showed up, but I did see a guy in a white and blue horizontal striped shirt wandered around outside my window, and it’s pretty much common knowledge that Mavic is filled with mimes. I’ve heard they were originally brought in to make meetings more interesting, but have since pretty much taken over the company.

At least they redesigned the freewheels.

Last big benefit for my friend and co-worker, Mat Barton, happens this Friday at the Lumberyard in Portland. I’ve been in charge of coordinating things, and we have some incredible stuff going up for auction–including a $650 saddle, and 200 other great prizes. Plus, it’s at the Lumberyard. Get there.