If you’ve ever been to Interbike (or any big trade show), you know how busy a booth can become. Thousands of people mill around and hundreds a day make their way into the booth. As the day wears on (and coffee runs out), things begin to blur a bit. Feet begin to ache, the movements and discussions become somewhat automatic and try as you might, a degree of “Groundhog Day” begins to set in.
“Hi! Welcome to Coeur Sports! Where are you from? Do you have a shop there? Can we tell you a bit about the line?
Wash, Rinse, and Repeat times a hundred.
It’s particularly embarrassing when you launch into your welcome speech and realize that you’re speaking with a friend from another booth who just came by to say hello. Five words in, you recognize them and shut up mid-sentence. Of course they understand. They’re living the same thing two rows over.
Kebby in Presentation Mode at Interbike 2016
It was that kind of day last year at Interbike when we had our fan girl moment. Mid-afternoon on Thursday, a lady walked into our booth and casually began looking at our racks of clothes. She was self-assured yet pleasant and had a friendly (almost grandmotherly) air about her. Andrea walked over and began chatting. After about five minutes it became obvious that something was a little different.
The first thing we noticed was that she was accompanied by two younger and very muscular gentleman. Now, the show was full of incredibly fit cyclists, but these two men had a bigger build. It appeared that they spent more time in the weight room and less on the bike. Plus, they didn’t come in the booth. Instead, they just stood outside with one looking in and the other looking out.
When we asked her if she owned a shop, she laughed and said no. We determined that she wasn’t working in another booth and mid-way through a session of 20 questions, she let us know that she was a happy Coeur Sports customer (fyi...she paid full price) and that she was at the show to receive an award.
It was only after she told us that the award she was receiving was the “Leadership Award”, that we connected the dots. We were speaking with Ft. Worth Mayor Betsy Price!
From that moment forward, we were smitten. For those of you not familiar, Mayor Price was named “America’s most bike-crazy” mayor by Bicycling Magazine. She is a tireless supporter of cycling and has set a goal of tripling the number of bike commuters in Ft. Worth while also reducing the number of crashes that involve bikes.
She shepherded a bike master plan through and has Ft. Worth on the way to becoming a top bike riding city.
We’ve taken to following Mayor Price on social media and can attest to the fact that she not only “talks the talk” but that she also “walks the walk”.
The mayor spends as much time as possible on her bike and participates in group rides whenever possible. On occasion, she hosts Rolling Town Hall” meetings where she gets out to interact residents one on one and has even been seen riding around the office on two wheels!
While politics can be messy and complicated, the fact that she recently won her fourth term as Mayor by a landslide seems to attest to the fact that she’s in office for the right reasons. In addition, we think Mayor Price is a fantastic role model for women. She was a successful business woman before becoming mayor and is known to be hard charging, but also fair.
That’s why we’re so proud to announce that we’re coming on board as a sponsor of the Ft. Worth ½ and Full Distance Triathlon (she spearheaded the effort) this month as well as the Mayor’s Triathlon in July.
If you live in the area, we certainly encourage you to sign up. Our guess is that the races will be first class, but tough. Just like Mayor Price!