The Midnight Requisition
Leading up to the Fall Interbike Trade Show is always chaotic and tense. Trying to complete new models, design and build a booth, complete and buildup the show bikes, design and print a catalog call upon the efforts of everyone. Hours get long. Tempers flair. Yet we have always managed to make it happen. In September of 1996, we thought we were ahead of the game as we finished most of the show bikes a week before they had to be shipped to Interbike.

Late one night, some enterprising young lad pried open the louvers of the big industrial exhaust fan of our factory, squeezed his way between the fan blades, shimmied along a sprinkler pipe and made his way safely to the floor some 15' below and managed to liberate one of the show bikes before the Somerville Police arrived in response to the burglar alarm. Undaunted, we managed to craft, paint, buildup and hand carry the replacement bike in time for the Interbike opening. Another problem solved. If you visit, our factory, you will see a Rube Goldberg network of angle iron welded around the exhaust fan. Another case of closing the barn door.

1996 Interbike
The three new models and the improved mountain models were presented at the Anaheim Interbike show in September and the Philadelphia Interbike in October of 1996 and were well received. People were pleasantly surprised to see that IF survived its first year and had expanded its line. Guy Stevenson, put much of our crew up at his house in Philadelphia and has hosted Steven out in Colorado since he moved there.

The Rush to Judgment
Philadelphia brought some unexpected publicity when Lloyd was arrested for allegedly attacking a city bus driver while the driver was sitting behind the wheel of his bus at a stop light and Lloyd was sitting on his bike. The bus driver had nearly run Lloyd and his girlfriend off the road and Lloyd had raised one of his fingers in the air. The bus driver claimed it was an obscene gesture. Lloyd said that it represented his estimate of the bus driver's IQ. What transpired next is unclear, but the bus driver left his bus and ran after Lloyd. The police saw a scruffy bike person being chased by a uniformed transit worker and rushed to a too hasty judgment as to who was right and who was wrong.

The, "Free Lloyd," movement was organized at the Trade Show and we were able to relieve the city of the responsibility of housing and feeding our VP. I raised the cash and Guy Stevenson went down to the jail on his motorcycle to bail Lloyd out. After a night in jail, Lloyd reflected, "there aren't a lot of nice people in that place." According to a very grateful Lloyd, Guy has secured a, "sponsorship for life for his bike racing activities."

IF published its first catalog which was presented in the Fall of 1996 for the 1997 model year. Now a collector's item, it was in the form of a fold-out poster which depicted each model with size selection but no specifications. It was colorful, inexpensive and we were very proud of it.

Racing - Summer & Fall, 1996
1996 began the first year of many trips to West Virginia to compete in the annual Granny Gear Production 24 Hour Mountain Bike Relay Race. That year we took two full teams, a 4-person team of men and a 4-person team of women. Steve wrenched for both teams. Lloyd's team finished 3rd among experts with Johs Huseby, Adam Ford and Jeff Maycock. Lloyd has attended every year since and in 2000 competed in the 2-person open class with friend of IF, Jeff Gilman. Jane's 1999 team was the winning women's team, and stood the tallest on the podium, a picture featured in the 2000 catalog with IF teammates: Amy Gregorich, Jen Olbrich and Barb Allan.

The Planet Cross was ridden by Johs Huseby to the National Collegiate Championship in October. The Planet Cross victory and the successful show resulted in a very busy winter going into 1997 (normally a slow time for the bike industry) and we have been busy ever since.

Good News & Bad News
To help support our growth, the company received a $30,000 loan from the Campaign for Human Development of the U. S. Catholic Conference in October of 1996 and $15,000 from the Somerville Community Corporation in January of 1997.

As though the fickle finger of fate was pointed at us, another show bike disappeared from where it was stored near our main entrance in the middle of the day a week before the Interbike Trade Show. More late night hours were required to replace it in time to be carried out to Interbike.

The sequel to this story is that super sleuth, Jeffrey Buchholz, spotted the bike two years later in a park and rounded up a posse to reclaim it. Despite the fact that it had a different fork and was crudely painted over, Jeff was able to identify it from a long way off. The not-so-young rider of the bike was required to do a lot of explaining to a formally robed gentleman and we got the bike back.

1997 Interbike
The company added employees in 1997 as sales continued to increase each quarter. IF made appearances at the Anaheim Interbike Trade Show and Chicago CABDA Trade Show events in 10' X 20' format. It seemed, that observers now were beginning to take IF seriously. The ink was not quite dry on the new 16-page catalog introduced for the 1998 model year as they were handed out at Anaheim. The new catalog featured hand drawings from Sue Lee, a good friend of the company, depicting the features of our frames, lots of pics of happy riders, complete specs and a soft goods section.

www.ifbikes.com
Toward the end of 1997, IF obtained a technical assistance grant of $7,000 from the City of Somerville for the development of a web site. The web presence was developed for IF by Harrison Creative and was well received. www.IFBIKES.com was updated for 1998 and has become a significant sales and marketing tool ever since.

The Independence
Mike Flanigan is our veteran cross country bike rider and he announced he was going to design and build a touring bike for himself. Mike has pedaled cross country and has done many other long distance treks. He borrowed the top touring bikes carried by our local dealers and picked them apart. Borrowing features he liked and discarding features he disliked, Mike drew upon his experience in putting together a design that would serve as his preferred beast of burden. And so was born the Independence, the IF full bore touring bike.

Not long after the Independence was introduced, John Paul and Alycea Lamb-Horth took off on a touring ride from Tierra del Fuego (the southern tip of South America) to Alaska and beguiled us with regular reports of their adventures - truly a remarkable journey.

Colorado Cyclist
1998 proved to be another year of growth and maturation. IF was included in the Colorado Cyclist catalog for 1998. Despite concerns expressed by some dealers, the exposure obtained from the catalog was instrumental in growing sales and enhancing the value of our brand. Dealers reported customers walking in with the Colorado Cyclist Catalog in hand to order their IF.

Multiple Sclerosis 150
While Steven was traveling to Colorado to close the deal with Colorado Cyclist, his Mom passed away after a 20-year battle with Multiple Sclerosis. IF has become a committed sponsor of the Multiple Sclerosis 150, a ride from Boston to Provincetown. Steven and others have volunteered time for this event, providing neutral support to riders. Each year, IF has donated a custom Crown Jewel frame set to the silent auction, in the hope that the funds raised will help to find a cure for this as yet incurable disease.

More Growth Issues
Both the road and cyclocross bikes received additional favorable reviews. Sales of both of these frames increased with the road frame almost catching the mountain frame in unit sales. Sales were constrained toward the end of the year as demand exceeded our capacity in welding and painting. Lead times got stretched out to 8 weeks due to the capacity constraint and difficulty with our fork supplier. Wages were increased again and the company acquired product liability insurance to satisfy the concerns of some of the larger multi-store dealerships.

A Legal Controversy
The cyclocross bike was involved in a mild controversy in 1998. We were threatened with a law suit by a California company which claimed to have a copyright on the name, "Planet X." This company imported low end bikes from Taiwan and felt that our use of the name, "Planet X," would cause confusion in the minds of the consumer. John explained to the potential litigant that this was a cyclocross bike and that the name of the bike was, "Planet Cross," and not, "Planet X," - that the graphic employed on the frame which used a stylized, "X", was short for, "cross." We agreed to avoid referring to the bike as Planet X (using Planet Cross instead) in any narrative and to restrict the use of X to the stylized graphic employed on the chain stay.

The Fork in the Road
IF was purchasing forks for the road, cross and touring frames from an outside supplier. These were outstanding forks, but we found it increasingly difficult to get delivery on time. Since we were already purchasing the raw materials, we decided to manufacture the forks ourselves. We introduced our road, cross and touring forks at the 1998 Las Vegas Interbike.

CABDA
Steve and I got to know each other very well as we shared driving chores from Boston to Chicago and back for the CABDA Trade Show in 1998, 18 hours of driving each way. Packing the Chevy Suburban belonging to my significant other, Sue, from floor to ceiling side to side and front to back, we were able to bring the IF story to the mid west for the first time. After a late night of socializing, Steven looked like death warmed over for the last half day of the show and didn't rejoin the living until I stopped for rest in Pennsylvania on the return trip.