So….that’s it.

1600 miles, 9 coffee stops, 2 US states, 15 hours sleep and 4 days of cycling inspired ‘fun in the sun’.

The 2012 show turned out to be everything we could have hoped for, the turnout was good, the weather was great, and we got to show a good selection of what we are offering in 2012. The response was great and you should be seeing what the cycling press thought of our new product over the coming weeks. (Dirtrag and twentynineinches.com both have updates already).

For Planet X USA, the aim of this years Sea Otter was to show the culmination of the past years work in establishing ourselves as a major player in the US cycle industry, and to further show our commitment to retaining the heritage of the Titus brand. From those of you that we got to meet, the response was great, and we look forward to showing you more of what we have in store for the coming year.

Thanks to those of you that come to see us at the show, and for those that couldn’t make it I hope we managed to bring a taste of the action to you. We have a full calender of US events lined up so stay tuned for all the latest news from the Planet X USA team.

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Anyone think they could handle an Ibis 59er?

Day five of Planet X USA’s Sea Otter 2012 started how any good day at a trade show should start, with Shiggy locking the keys to the van, inside the van. However, after half an hour of pushing, puling, swearing and pointing Michael managed to creatively fashion a tent pole into a breaking and entering device and we were all set for another day.

Temperatures soared into the ninety’s today and unusually good weather meant even the seasoned pro’s were finding the racing tough. The mens cyclocross race whipped up the largest crowd as it passed through the expo area, with Ben Berden taking an impressive victory.

Walking around the expo area and it was easy to see why the show attracts so many cycling fans. X-Fusion, Fox and DT Swiss all had new shocks on offer, magura had demo versions of their new hydraulic road brake calipers, shimano were showing their new Saint and Zee freeride groupsets and mavic had an expanded range of 29er wheels on show.

Here’s a few photos we grabbed walking around the arena:

Solar powered speed bike

Thule showed their love and used our bikes to demo their range of vehicle racks

Lasso the bike challenge on the green

Shimano had their new Zee freeride groupset on show

Shiggy rocking the On-One/Titus Jump Suit

Tomorrow is the last day of the show so myself and Michael will be heading back to Portland tomorrow evening. There will be more photos to come over the next week or so as we get back and filter through the aftermath of the weekend.

If you are here, be sure to stop by the stand tomorrow and sign up to our mailing list for a chance to win a frame.

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The first day is generally a little quieter than Saturday and Sunday, so if today was anything to go by we are going to be in for a busy weekend. The sun is out, and thousands of racers and fans made it out to Laguna Seca today to enjoy the show.

Highlight of the day for us was definitely unveiling the prototype El Guapo 29er, and we have struggled to keep it at the front of the stand for more than half an hour at a time as everyone wanted to get shots of the only prototype of our new model to reach North America.

If you are planning on coming to the show, be sure to stop by the team area to check out our booth (we are right on the corner backing onto the lake). If not, here’s some of what we have on show:

2012 Titus Rockstar 29er

2012 On-One Lurcher Carbon 29er

Guerciotti Scarponi Road

Guerciotti Lambeek Cyclocross

Planet X Exocet 2 (Guru Team Edition)

On-One Smorgasboard Prototype Tyre

On-One Smorgasboard Prototype Tyre

That’s all for today. It’s time to head into town to wash of the sand and refuel. Tomorrow, I’ll be leaving the confines of our booth and heading out to bring you the best of what everyone else has on show so stay tuned for updates.

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First job was to collect the last of the boxes we were waiting on, containing the prototype On-One tires, and Titus El Guapo handlebars.

After heading into the office to load up the rest of our gear and a quick coffee stop, we were on the road and heading South on the 800 mile road trip towards the promise of sunshine and a cold beer.

As we keyed our destination into the GPS, the pop-up that informed us that we had 560 miles until our next turn brought home the fact that we could be in for a long day (and also made me question whether we actually need a GPS or not).

However, so far so good. The sun came out, the music was on and the day has been relatively trouble free.

As I write this the sun is just setting over the California hills, and we are about 200 miles north of San Francisco so should be there just before midnight.

Shiggy arrived at the show yesterday, and has spent today setting up the booth and getting everything ready for the opening day tomorrow.

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For us in Portland, it was a little different (it was raining for a start).

“I don’t care what you have to do, make sure the consignment gets to us before midday today” – Those were the first words I heard as I walked into the office this morning, which I gathered meant the very first production Planet X N2A and Exocet 2 frames to hit North America were still in transit. Not good news when they all need assembling and packing ready for us to leave first thing tomorrow morning for the biggest show on the bicycle industries calender.

However, it did the trick, as by 11.45am, we ripped into the delivery and got straight to work on checking out assembling the new models. 7 hours, 2 burritos, and 3 grande lattes later and we can safely say we pulled it off and are ready to go.

So in addition to the bikes Shiggy has, we will also be showing:

Planet X RT57

Planet X Exocet 2 (Guru Team Edition)

Planet X N2A

Guerciotti Lambeek

Guerciotti Scarponi

On-One Dirty Disco

And the Prototype On-One Fat Bike

We’ve loaded up our temporary 2nd van, and we’ll be leaving tomorrow morning, as soon as US Postal shows up with the samples of On-Ones brand new tires, so make sure you follow our twitter for on the road (starbucks stop) updates.

Unfortunately, this does mean there will be nobody in the office from tomorrow until Tuesday 24th, so any orders placed over the next few days will be dispatched as soon as we return. We will be trying to respond to all e-mails received, but please bear with us if you do not get a response straight away.

By the way, for those of you that think its an easy life being a “Brit abroad”, I do sometimes need reminding of the fact…

Join us tomorrow when we should be at the show all set up and ready for a weekend of bicycle inspired mayhem at North Americas premier bicycle show.

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“He wanted to get back into riding and wanted a new bike, he was looking at some full builds from Santa Cruz in the low $2K range, I convinced him to spend some more and get a El Guapo. BikerBob helped us out with a full X7 drivetrain, Stan’s Flows, and a Revelation RLT Ti fork. The whole thing was surprisingly affordable. If you want to build one hit up Bikerbob for the parts and you can get the frame directly from Titus.”

Here is a quick rundown:
Titus EL Guapo M
RS Revelation RLT Ti Dual Air 1 1/8″
Smoothie Mixer headset
Full X7 Drivetrain 26-39 F 11-36 R, 175mm cranks
MRP XCG Guard
Elixir 7 Brakes 160R 180F
Stans Flows w/ Stans hubs
Speci Command Post
WTB Speed V
Shimano XT Trail pedals
WTB Mutano TCS 2.2R 2.4F
Truvativ AKA 70mm stem
Truvativ Stylo 680mm bars
Crank Bros. Grips
Weight 31.6 lbs.
BB height (with 150mm fork) 13.25″
Head Angle w/ 150mm fork 68.5 (measured with Android app)
You would be amazed at how little $$$ we built this for, anybody looking to put one of these together should seriously consider this spec.

First of all, for those of you that haven’t seen it before, let us introduce you to the Planet X USA van. This thing took the ‘Shiggys out there tour’ across the country last year, covering close to 100,000 miles, and he’s made it his home away from home. So considering that only the rear 7ft is actually cargo space, I have to say when we looked at the pile of gear we had at 10am this morning, knowing it all had to somehow miraculously make it into our trusty vehicle, I was skeptical.

However, by 2pm, he was loaded up and after a quick detour to Chris King HQ to pick up a converter we needed, he was ready to go.

Here’s what we managed to fit into the van:

Complete Bikes:
Titus Rockstar
Titus FTM Carbon
Titus X-Carbon
Titus El Guapo
Planet X Pro Carbon Road
Planet X Pro Carbon Track
On-One 456 Carbon
On-One Whippet
On-One Singlespeed Lurcher
On-One Geared Lurcher
On-One Pompino
On-One Macinato

Frames:
Planet X Dirty Harry
Planet X Stealth TT
Planet X Uncle John
Planet X Kaffenback
Titus FTM Alloy
Titus X Alloy
Titus Rockstar
Titus El Guapo
On-One Lurcher
On-One Carbon Race 29
On-One 456 Steel
On-One Dirty Disco
On-One Scandal 29er
On-One Whippet

Other Equipment:
Shiggy
2 x Easy Ups
2 x Frame Display Framework
12 x Buckets
1 x Coffee Maker (with coffee)
18 x bike display stands

We’ll update you on his progress tomorrow, I’m guessing he will be heading through Eugene, OR right about now, so if you are on the I-5 tonight, be sure to keep an eye out for him.

Myself and Michael will be heading down on Thursday with a bunch of other models so if you don’t see what you are looking for don’t worry, we probably just haven’t built it yet.

For those of you who aren’t heading to the show this weekend, here’s a sneak peek of the latest edition to the Titus range, the El Guapo 29er (this is so hot off the press we haven’t even trimmed the brake lines yet). Stay tuned for more updates (and better quality pictures) on this over the next few days.

That’s all for today, hopefully by this time tomorrow we will have had a delivery of brand new Planet X frames, built them, packed them and will be all set to hit the road with van 2 first thing Thursday morning, and Shiggy will be at Laguna Seca unloading the van (which may look like this). Oh,and it looks like it could stay dry!

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The Sea Otter is a four-day ‘Celebration of Cycling that welcomes nearly 10,000 athletes and 50,000 race fans and other bicycle enthusiasts from around the globe. Professional and amateur athletes make the annual pilgrimage to participate in cycling’s best competitive events in various mountain and road bike disciplines.

Hundreds of pro cyclists, including national and world champions, come to Sea Otter to race, sign autographs, and share their racing techniques with fans.

“We attended the Sea Otter event last year, just 5 months after we acquired Titus Cycles. We were in the middle of a transitional period of establishing ourselves within the US market, and it was the first opportunity to hear what you were expecting from us, and for us to introduce the On-One and Planet X brands to a wider audience.

“We had a great time, met some amazing people, drank some unusual beers, and received valuable feedback as to the direction we should take the company in going forward.

“This year we are back and are keen to further establish our presence in North America. We’ve spent the past year acting on what was learned from the event last year. We relocated to Portland, moved into a 10,000 sq/ft warehouse, and filled it full of Planet X, On-One and Titus product.

“The key for us was to maintain the characteristics which have led to the success of the UK operation, namely offering the best products, from the best factories in the world, at outstanding value, backed up by unrivaled customer service.

“It’s been a long year, and it hasn’t been easy, but we have made real progress and again, we look forward to hearing what you think.”

So what can you expect from the show this year?

“From Titus we have 3 new models that we are super excited about, the best-selling El Guapo and Rockstar 29er models have being revamped, and we have a prototype El Guapo 29er that will be getting its North American debut at the 2012 show.

“We’ll also have demo’s of the ever popular FTM Carbon and X-Carbon trail bikes available for you to check out in person.

“We will also have the full range of On-One models on show, including the new Lurcher Carbon 29er (both of the geared and single speed varieties), the Dirty Disco full carbon disk only cyclocross bike, and the top selling Carbon 456 and Whippet models.

“It’s not only complete bikes, we will also be taking our range of steel and carbon frames, along with a selection of top components, including the full range of On-One handlebars (if you buy them at the show, we might even get Shiggy to sign them for you!), as well as stems, chainsets and accessories.

“For the roadies, we will also be debuting the Planet X N2A, RT57 and Exocet 2 road bikes, alongside the tried and tested Superlight Pro Carbon and Stealth TT Carbon models. We are also the North American distributor of Guerciotti so will have a fair sharing of Italy’s best available for you to drool over.

“We’re sure that’s not all, and preparations are continuing at 100 miles an hour, so make sure to follow us on Twitter and Facebook, and sign up to our newsletter for the latest from the USA’s premier cycling event.”