Montgomeryville, Pennsylvania - The Bicycle Product Suppliers Association announces new dates, location and conference director for the 12th annual BLC event

In an effort to better leverage networking opportunities and industry leadership attendance, the Bicycle Product Suppliers Association (BPSA) today announced it signed a three-year agreement with the Sea Otter Classic to host its annual Bicycle Leadership Conference (BLC) in conjunction with the cycling festival through 2011.

The 2009 BLC will be held April 15-17, 2009 at the Sea Otter host hotel, the Embassy Suites in Seaside, Calif. The 2009 Sea Otter Classic will be held April 16-19 at the Laguna Seca Recreation Area in Monterey Calif., and is considered the world’s largest cycling festival.

“Aligning ourselves with the Sea Otter Classic, a well-attended and highly relevant cycling-focused event, is one way we can further support our attending membership and improve the effectiveness of our conference,” said John Nedeau, president of the BPSA and vice president of global sales for SRAM. “Because many of our members also attend the Sea Otter Classic, we are confident that by combining the two events we will boost attendance from manufacturers and suppliers alike.”

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Defending team, the Successful Living p/b Parkpre team stacked the deck by putting three man in an four-man breakaway. Their designated sprinter for that day, JR Grabinger won the the Sea Otter NRC Circuit Race, his teammate Brian Jensen took second and Rock Racing’s David Clinger survived the 3-on-1 sprint to take third place.

Grabinger takes the sprint ahead of Jensen and Clinger; Photos c. Lyne Lamoureux

The four men in the breakaway, the three Successful Living riders, Grabinger, Jensen and Brad White worked well with solo Clinger to create an unsurmountable gap and lap the field.

“We were worried about him, he was riding really strong today, we had talked a few scenarios over and Steve was talking to us on the radio, I guess when it came down to it we had the confidence to do a leadout at the end and pull out a win, that’s what we did.” said Grabinger.

“I’ve been in the situation a lot of times with 3 or 4 guys and you’re the only one from your team. Basically all I could have done is follow then if they start attacking but they were so confident that they were going to win the sprint, they could box me in, put me in the barriers, they just set tempo to the line. I told them that I wasn’t going be too aggressive, if they kept if to the line, I was going to sprint it out with them.” said Clinger.
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