RBR is taking me to Interbike this year. Flying me out, putting me up, and letting me geek out at the nation’s biggest bike industry show.

Of course, I’ll be working while in Vegas. We’re planning to do daily show reports, photos, and possibly video interviews with various company reps. It should be a ton of fun.

So what can I do to fill my time between now and then? How about figure out which vendors I want to hit, document them here, and then forget to take the list come September? Okay, let’s do it!

Booth 4621 - Arkel Inc - Creator of the most rugged, expensive, expandable panniers I’ve ever seen.

4459 - Atoc Inc - Manufacturer of overly complex but insanely useful rack systems like the Draftmaster (which I have for Gare’s bike and for my trike).

L22 - Bikes Belong Coalition - These folks hand out money to non-profits. Want to stop here on BikeAble business.

1051 - Bionx - Electric assist for bikes. Interesting to see if they have anything new coming up.

1459 - Day 6 Bicycles - Crank forward comfort bikes with lumbar support. Basically, recumbents.

4613 - Do Wrap/SweatVac - I love my SweatVac, so visiting these guys is an attempt to get freebies.

4008 - Hase Bikes - Because I want to feel bad that we bought a Pino before they made the collapsible frame.

374 - HP Velotechnik Recumbents - Because Hase and HPV are my favorite recumbent manufacturers. My HPV Speedmachine and Street Machine Gte will attest to that. I’d have a tough time choosing between a Hase Kettwiesel and an HPV Grasshopper if the occasion arose.

1742 & 1735 - J & B Importers Inc - These are the guys behind Sun bikes/trikes. Might as well see what low end stuff is coming out for next year and discover whether or not the UAX still sorta sucks.

5231 - Keen Inc - Only reason for Keen to be here is for new cycling sandals. I’ve had my Keen Commuters for a year now and they’re still quite comfortable.

4363 - Kenda Tires/Tubes - Not personally interested, but RBR.info visitors might like some new info on Kenda gear.

1659 - Kidz Tandem - Interested from the BikeAble perspective.

6225 - KMX Karts Ltd - BMX Trike manufacturer.

2049/2053 - Magura USA - The only thing bent riders like more than disc brakes are hydraulic disc brakes.

709 - MapMyRide.com - Want to find out why they had to shit things up with all the ads. Okay, I know why, but it really makes me want to move to another service.

809 - Mirrycle Corp - Most famous mirrors in bentdom. The packaging now even states they’re for recumbents.

4575 - NuVinci - RBR sells a lot of their hubs.

4621 - Old Man Mountain - Maker of Catrike friendly hubs. Curious to see what else they have that would be bent suitable.

1425 - Planet Bike - Just want to see if they’re aware how much bent riders try to shoehorn their products onto recumbent frames and forks.

4381 - Power Grips - Hoping for something lightweight but strong.

1025 - Primal Wear - I just want to see the Stormtrooper Armor jersey up close.

5145 - Primo - Another popular bent tire manufacturer.

3425 - Schwalbe - More tires.

3929/4125/4133 - Shimano - Because we have to. How can you not want to see what Shimano has coming up?

3351 - Sigma Sport - RBR carries their computers.

4519 - SockGuy - Why not? I have a pair of SockGuy socks.

2923 - Speedplay - Manufacturers of Frog pedals, quite popular among relaxed recumbent riders.

1339 - SRAM - See Shimano.

3915 - Topeak - I’m a big fan of the Joe Blow Pro.

1339 - Truvativ - I’ll be cranky by the time we get to these guys. Ha ha.

2252 - Uvex Sports Inc - RBR carries their helmets.

I’m a little disappointed that neither Catrike nor Lazer Helmets are there this year, but I’ll survive. That’s more than enough booths to visit as it is.

Brandy and I sat down last night to watch a movie, something we do with decreasing frequency due to the demands of a two child household that is also inhabited by an adult dependent. It’s tough to find time to squeeze in two hours for passive entertainment.

But last night, we did it. We found the time. And we used it to watch Rachel Getting Married.  At 1:53 in length, it was going to run right up until Gareth’s nurse arrived, so time was precious if we hoped to finish the movie before having our evening interrupted by yet another outside influence. With that in mind, we loaded in the Blu-Ray disc.

And waited for the progress bar.

And saw it start to play BD promos.

And discovered we couldn’t stop the promos. Or open the menus. In fact, my attempts to do so inexplicably resulted in us being dumped out to the PS3 crossbar interface. We went through this process four times before I relented and decided we were just going to have to sit through the promo.

Once the promo ended, the trailers started. In the immortal words of Will Smith in all of his action films, “Oh HELL naw!”

Menu still wouldn’t work. Stop didn’t work. So I tried Next. That worked! It… skipped to the next trailer. I had to do this several more times to get through the trailers and finally get to the damn menu!

Once there, everything was fine, but I turned to Brandy and said, “You know who made us go through all that crap? Somebody in marketing.”

The lesson here, folks, is that you aren’t going to sell stuff by annoying your consumer. So stop annoying them.

Bonus tip for marketing folks: If your customer is already in the process of consuming your product, you don’t need to remind them how great it is. Putting an ad for Blu-Ray at the start of a Blu-Ray disc is relatively pointless. The viewer had a choice to watch a standard DVD, but chose not to - you have them, they don’t need to be beat over the head with it.