Ooof…bike sales down 5 percent in October, shipments down 11 percent. It’s gonna be awhile before we dig out of this hole, folks.

On the brighter side, Mountain Bike Action‘s resident Everyman, Jimmy Mac, looks back on 2009. Great stuff, but Jimmy, I haveta speak up. That photo of the guy going over the rock: As a faithful MBA reader, I recall a letter you printed whose author claimed the photo was faked. And MBA said, as I recall, Hey, we DO NOT FAKE photos. So which is it? Your faithful fan, Paul.

We luv Evil cuz they’re based in our home town of Seattle and have one of the coolest bike names, slotting in at No. 4 on our Top 10 Bike Names Of All Time list. So by extension we have to luv Steve Smith.

Happy 2010 everyone! Now get out ‘n RIDE!!!

Attendance a mixed bag. Overall attendance declined, but buyer numbers were up. Exhibitors were said to be happy, so that’s good, because if the exhibitors aren’t happy, then the booth bimbos aren’t happy, and if the bbs aren’t happy, well, you know…

Great video from Mountain Bike Action with Richard Cunningham showing off Ibis’ new HD Mojo (beefy, very beefy), Magura fork/brake combo and a new rack from Kuat that, face it, puts the Thule T2 to shame.

And BikeSnob goes off on Reynolds’ $6,000 set of carbon wheels.

Finally, re our standing feature This Day in Doping, check out this video on new anti-doping controls that somehow feels like a 5th grade tutorial on urine testing for pot. No wonder Lance gets annoyed with these people. We support rigorous dope testing of cyclists (emphasis on rigorous, because so far there’s little evidence testing is inhibiting doping). We also support doing it in a professional and respectful way.