Last week I took Tonik to the Big Gear Show, a new trade show for the cycling and outdoor industries in Park City. It was Tonik's first show of any kind in two years and it was great to dust off our expo gear and hit the road. I was up for a road trip and after seeing too much of my own backyard lately I was psyched to drive through the gorgeous country of northern Nevada and Utah.
The Show ran Tues-Thurs, outside at the Deer Valley Resort in Park City. An outdoor show was key to reducing Covid worries, and ingeniously the show allowed us to color-code our lanyards based on our contact comfort level (red for "social distance please" all the way to green for "come in for the hug").
At this show, besides getting out the word on Tonik, I was mostly interested in finding out what's new in the world of outdoor recreation and how other companies, especially other small companies, are doing. As it turns out, pretty much everyone has had their supply chain disrupted somewhere along the line. Factories keep getting shut down, parts are hard to get or on long backorders, and dates to introduce new products keep getting pushed out... and out...and out.
If you've been a Tonik customer for awhile, you'll have noticed that it's taken longer than usual for us to bring you some new things to love, so we have absolutely been affected in this way. The very visible takeaway from the show is that it is not unique to us by any earns. Even though it's 2021, Covid's effects keep reverberating.
That said, outdoor trade shows always have great things to discover, and here are a few: Galeo has a GPS and motion sensing cellular powered bike theft recovery device - like a Find My Phone for your bike - that can help you (or, ideally, police) track it and recover if it gets stolen. People for Bikes, a very cool nonprofit that I can't believe I didn't know about, has an app called RideSpot that allows you to find and share bike routes, rides and stories (think of it as a more chill Strava).
There were also all the drool-worthy overlanding setups (quick definition: overlanding allows you to car camp anywhere you can park, because the tent is carried on top of the car - I'm not sure I would actually like this, but the setups always look so dang cool. And quite a few bikes of different flavors and stripes, although admittedly, given the supply problems in the industry, fewer than I was expecting - good thing! as I don't need more bikes to covet.
All in all, the industry is slowly and surely sorting itself out - maybe not where we thought we might be by summer 2021, but here we are. Back to California tomorrow, and onward and upward.