Best Bike: Cervelo P3 Carbon. Shrouded in complete secrecy, the P3 Carbon came as a complete surprise on the morning of the 6th. While other makers are still busy copying the P2k, Cervelo went one step beyond with the P3c. It is simply the sexiest, most innovative new bike at the show.

Cleverest Component: Maxim Seatpost. Very few seatpost clamps allows for independent adjustments of saddle fore/aft and angle. Not only does this design accomplish this with a strut on a sliding collar, it does so with stresses applied across the bolts instead of along the bolts, where it can strip the threads. It’s also feather light.

Cleverest Component, Honorable Mention: Reynolds Ouzo Seatpost. Two bolt seatpost clamps are great for making precise angle adjustments, but are hard to fit on the head of the post. Thomson has a good one, but can only achieve setback with a bent post. FSA gets the whole mechanism behind the post with a ton of setback. Others use a hard to reach knurled knob under the saddle. The Reynolds post gets around all these problems by setting the two bolts at an angle, a solution so elegant and simple it’s hard to believe no one thought of it sooner. As a bonus, the barrel nuts are T shaped for more thread contact, allowing the use of aluminum nuts instead of steel, as well as shorter bolts.

Best Tinkering: Ritchey had Thomas Frischknecht’s Scott hardtail on display, which sported one of the coolest wheelsets ever. Frischy cuts the tread off Ritchey’s ZED Race tires, and sends them to Dugast to be made into tubulars. They’re glued onto 650c carbon rims built onto disc hubs.

Most Poignant Display: I have a soft spot for Celeste, and I have a real soft spot for the Celeste and Yellow color scheme of Mercatone Uno ’98. This was Pantani’s TT bike from that year, which he rode in the Giro. It’s an awfully trick machine for a guy who found TT’s so boring he once said he’d like to bring along some comics to read during the ride.

Keep checking back for more awards.

More Interbike: Mountain bikes, Cyclocross, TT bikes, TT Parts, Carbon Road Bikes part 1, Carbon Bikes Part 2.