Interbike, the largest bicycle industry trade event in North America, has today announced that NBA Hall of Fame inductee and basketball legend Bill Walton will headline the Interbike Industry Breakfast on Wednesday 10 September 2014. Walton will deliver an inspirational message to the audience using his past experience in basketball, and his love of cycling.
Sponsored by PeopleforBikes, The National Bicycle Dealers Association and the Bicycle Product Suppliers Association, The Interbike Industry Breakfast will take place at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center, Las Vegas, Nevada, in the Mandalay Bay Ballroom at 07:30 local time.
This is a first-come, first-served event with a limited number of seats available to Interbike attendees. Only 700 attendees will be allowed in – attendees interested in being at this event should plan to arrive as early as possible.
“Bill Walton is relentlessly positive, multi-talented and successful in so many ways,” said Tim Blumenthal, President of PeopleForBikes. “He has been an avid bike rider for nearly all of his 61 years. Bill’s Industry Breakfast keynote messages will resonate with the audience and inspire attendees to feel a new sense of pride in the wonderful bike business.”
Walton rode as a kid growing up in La Mesa, California, and to class and basketball practice at UCLA, has been knocking out century rides for a good 20 years, and has often circled the velodromes at Encino and San Diego on a 72cm frame.
Bicycling has never been more central in his life than now – five years after the latest in a long-line of major bone fusion surgeries (to both ankles and his spine) that were products of a bruising (and exceptional) college and pro basketball career. At UCLA, he was named NCAA player-of-the-year in each of his three seasons, as his team won two national titles. He won two NBA Championships (with the Portland Trailblazers in ’77 and the Boston Celtics in ’86), and was the NBA’s MVP in 1978.
Bill is widely revered for his broadcasting work, his motivational speaking, his business acumen, and his ability to recall obscure bike racing names, facts and results. He was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 1993, the Grateful Dead Hall of Honor in 2001; and in 2009, he was named one of the top 50 sportscasters of all time by the American Sportscasters Association. Fortune magazine named him as one of the top 10 pundits in America in 2007.
Today, he says the bike “acts as my wheelchair, my gym and my church—all in one.”
Interbike returns to the Mandalay Bay Convention Center beginning with OutDoor Demo in Boulder City, Nevada, on 8-9 September 2014, followed by the Interbike Expo on 10-12 September 2014.
Interbike is the largest bicycle trade event in North America, bringing together manufacturers, retailers, industry advocates and media to conduct the business of cycling. Established in 1982, the show gathers more than 1,200 cycling-related brands, over 25,000 total attendees annually and is considered one of the most important global trade events for the bicycle industry.
Interbike is one of 90 premier trade events owned and operated by Emerald Expositions, a leading producer of large business-to-business tradeshows. Emerald Expositions, based in San Juan Capistrano, California, produces shows and conference events globally that connect more than 525,000 buyers and sellers across nine diversified end-markets. Markets covered include general merchandise, sports, hospitality and retail design, jewellery, photography, decorated apparel, building, healthcare and military.
