SIA Winter Park: On-Snow Demo

After all the wild times in Denver for the SIA tradeshow 2010, it was time to head to Winter Park for the second portion of the whole SIA event, the on-snow demo at Winter Park.

Monday was the first day of the demo and started out crazy early around 6:30am when we got up to snag some free breakfast at the hotel in Denver, and then head from there to Winter Park. We woke so early because we needed to be at the demo by 9am, so we left ourselves plenty of time to make it there in case of traffic or whatnot.

When we arrived, the tents and boards were already set up ready to demo. We learned the system of where to put the different size bindings for easy access, as well as went over the product more in depth with one of the reps so we'd be able to talk to the buyers about the product while we were setting them up. This was definitely my favorite part because I love learning what goes into products, plus I totally felt like a rep when I was talking to buyers.

So that is pretty much how the whole day went. We were there from 9am to about 4pm setting up product and then packing everything into the Rome van at the end of the day. I did get to take a few runs with the owner of Rome, Josh, the sales manager, Sully, as well as my boss for the show, Ron, who works in Rider Communications and is the event coordinator at Rome. I didn't bring my board so I demoed the new Artifact 150 with Reverse Jib Rocker and Romesnew QuikGrip sidecut technology. To be perfectly honest, I demoed a bunch of reverse camber boards last year and hated them, but the QuikGrip sidecut provides extra grip when making turns, so it got rid of the sketchy, washy feeling I felt on reverse cambers last year, so I definitely enjoyed riding the board. However, the next day I demoed the Artifact 150 regular camber board with the QuikGrip sidecut and liked it way more, so that will definitely be the board I get.

I should mention here that an awesome perk of helping companies out at SIA is that they are so stoked for the free help that most all of them will hook you up with free gear. Just like last year, all of us interns are going to be getting hooked up with the board and binding of our choice, so I'll for sure be getting the Artifact with the new 390 Boss bindings. The difference between the Boss and the regular 390s is that the Bosses come with different canted footbeds to make your stance feel more natural and comfortable.

Now all of the craziness at the on-snow actually happened the night of the first day. We were driving from Winter Park to Breckenridge to crash at Steve's place for free, cause who doesn't love free lodging, when Steve got pulled over. It was just for a busted tail light so the cop just went through the routine of checking his license and all. But as it turns out, Steve had two warrants out for his arrest because of two missed court dates, one for a speeding ticket, and one for driving without a license. Needless to say Steve was arrested.

The cop then proceeded to check David's and my licenses to make sure we could drive Steve's car for him. Well if Steve wasn't enough, it turned out David had a warrant out for his arrest as well for an unpaid speeding ticket. So needless to say again... David got arrested.

So now I was left somewhere between Winter Park and Silverthorne by myself, needing to figure out where the prison was and how to bail them out. Thankfully, the cop told me there were at Clear Creek County Prison, as well as he let me take David's debit card and pin number so I could use his cash to bail them out. I continued down the rode, not having a clue where I was, when I thankfully ran smack into Silverthorne. I stopped at a Burger King to get some food a regroup. I even called my mom to explain the craziness that had just happened and tell her the adventure I had ahead of me. Thankfully, my friend Tyler had come up to ride Copper earlier that day and was at Steve's house with his roommate Josh, so I called them, told them the story, and they looked up how to get to Clear Creek County Prison for me.

So after eating a calming down a bit, I headed for the prison. It was in the super creepy little town of Georgetown. I went to a gas station to find an ATM, and even though the only one I found had a $100 limit, the nice ladies at the gas station let me use it twice. However, I needed $400, $200 to bail out David, and $200 for a bondsman to bail out Steve, since his bond was $1000 for his two $500 fines. They then pointed me in the direction of the town's ONLY ATM, which conveniently was located near the prison. Unfortunately, I couldn't get David's card to work in the ATM for the life of me, so I had to take out $200 of my money.

From there, I headed to the jail. However, even though the ATM was close, I was still unsure of what building it was, since the only description I had was a big white building off of 6th St. After calling the prison a couple times and going to two wrong white buildings, I finally found it. And this is where the waiting game started. The first waiting session started before I even got in the building. Apparently, they had six prisoners come in at once, including Steve and David, so I had to wait outside for an hour before a cop could escort me in. During the waiting time, I got the number for a bondsman from Tyler and Josh, except when I called him, he said he couldn't make it to Clear Creek County and hung up, so that didn't go well.

After realizing I wasn't going to be able to get Steve out of jail that night, I finally made it inside, only to wait some more. The cop took the $200 for David's bail, then told me it would be about 2 hours until he was able to be released since they had to deal with the other prisoners. While waiting around, I read a travel magazine, called my buddy Joel in Minnesota to let him know about the shenanigans, and ended up taking a nap on the floor until he was finally released at 11pm after getting arrested around 7pm.

From there we made the rest of the drive to Steves, met up with everyone, and passed right out since we had to wake up at 7am for about the 5th day in a row and make the drive back to Winter Park.

The second day of the show went pretty much exactly the same with setting buyers up on demos and such, but it was still another fun day, even though Steve was still in prison. At the end of the show, we said bye and thanks to all the reps and helpers at the demo, and then headed out finally on the way back to Steamboat after a crazy and exciting week.

We dropped Steve's car off, got picked up by our buddy Garrett who was nice enough to drive us to Kremmling even though he was hanging out with some friends in Frisco. In Kremmling we got picked up by Corey and Tyler, I said thank you by buying them scratch-offs (even though they didn't win), and after a 45 minute drive, we were finally back in the lovely town of Steamboat Springs, CO, just in time to enjoy one of my favorite events of the week, wing night at the Taphouse. After grubbing down, they dropped me off at the dorms. I don't think I've ever been so happy to be back in my dorm room. Unfortunately Bacon was not there to greet me since he was in Gunnison for a friends funeral who died in a very tragic house fire. Her name was Lucy and I was lucky enough to have had the pleasure of meeting her.

So even though it was a bittersweet homecoming, I am more than happy to be back on the grind in Steamboat. The week with Rome was insane and awesome but crazy exhausting, but I would love to do it all again. Keep checking back because I actually have a ton more to blog about as well as some pictures from the show. Peace.