Veloswap

This year I was solo at Veloswap, which was probably a good idea. Last year I brought my daughter who as expected was more excited by the food than by the booths. Similar to last year, I was not too impressed by the deals or new product offerings by the various vendors. There are a couple of booths that I will always check out. I will go by the sock vendor and pick up a couple of pairs and I will browse SPA Sports for some cold weather gear.

One of the highlights this year was the Garmin Slipstream team selling new clothing and used gear. While $1350 is a great price for a pair of Zipp 404’s, I am just not ready to spend that kind of money on wheels. I did pick up a pair of high cuff socks for $8. I also enjoyed the Pros Stuff booth which might have had some good stuff had I arrived earlier in the day. They had a lot of team kits and some aero helmets as well. Most of the clothing deals were picked over pretty good and unfortunately I am in the market for some new shorts.

The food vendors were pretty good and included Clif bars, Evol Burritos and Vuka energy drinks. The one perk to arriving late is that none of those vendors wanted to haul stuff back to their cars and as a result were not stingy with the samples.

A $50 coupon off the price of a Retul bike fit made the $7 parking and $8 admission worthwhile. I will probably take advantage of that in early November, as I have been planning to get a bike fit for quite some time. I always debate whether it is worth it for me to attend, but it only comes around once/year and I do enjoy browsing then vendor exhibits. I even get a kick out of price comparing the swap stuff although I will probably always prefer new gear for safety and fit reasons.