The Show: Highlights

Digestible Matter: The Head Tube Badge

There is so much to take in at the show that it's hard to focus on everything. One entity that continues to stand out is the badge mounted on the head tube of each bicycle. I have an appreciation for companies who have attention to detail from end to end. 


The custom cut alloy badges that many companies display showcase creativity, personality and serious aesthetic detail that I can digest.


-Liz, 25- Middle School Teacher, lives and plays in Boulder, CO


*Badges from Naked Bikes, Black Sheep Bikes, Watson Cycles, Vanilla Cycles and Signal Cycles bicycles.

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Speed Hound- What's Old Meets New:

Fabricating your own drop outs is an obvious way of keeping one's brand current and topical in the handmade cycling market.  It takes lots of experience and time to develop new ideas.  Speedhound satisfied one of my muses as a cyclist riding since the late seventies by combining their newest custom drop outs design with a restored 1950s vintage rear derailleur by the French manufacturer Huret.

This entire newly fabricated Speedhound frame is outfitted with c vintage components including the 50's vintage companion down tube mounted lever actuated front derailleur as well. all together it gives me the sweet remembrance of my early bikes and equipment some of which I have maintained and adapted to frames I still covet and ride regularly. 

-Rick, 60- Designer, works, paints, creates and lives in St. Louis, MO
 






 


















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Making International Friends:

The sun shines down on the bus's windshield as a young, well dressed Japanese man boards the city bus from the airport.  Wielding a $5.00 bill, our future friend is growing quiet as the language barrier heeds the monetary transaction of paying fare. He looks to me and asks if I can make change for him.

"I can't, but here is a dollar."  The idea that someone would willingly pay another fare was foreign to our new friend.

In very broken verbage we learn it's his first time to America, he's only been practicing English for 9 months and is headed to NAHBS.  He wants to attend UBI to become a frame builder and begin his own business.

Shinya Hattori, a true inspiration for taking big steps, away from comfort.

Go see the world, we're all passionate.

-Big Al, 24- Ast. Dir. of Field Marketing for a national sport nutrition company, lives and works in Boulder, CO. (with his rad dog named Stewart)

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 YiPsan Town Bike:

As a frame builder, I appreciate the time it takes to craft a fully custom steel bicycle.  The attention to detail on the YiPsan town bike shows just that. Yipsan shows his craft on this fillet brazed bike with custom racks and all.  my favorite part; the detail work on the sliding dropouts and the seat tube/ top tube cluster.  Mmmm.



-Aaron, 27- Mosaic Owner, Frame Builder and Welder, lives and
works in Boulder, CO

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Vendetta Cycles' Track Bike:

I have a great appreciation for bare ti and carbon frames, and there are plenty examples of amazing bikes at this show.  But what really catches my eye is color!

This eye-popping lime green track bike glows from twenty feet away.  And it has been beautifully pin striped by hand by a seventy-two year old man by the name of Carmickle who has been pin striping since the age of fifteen. His signature, visible in the picture, is so small it could just about fit on your thumbnail. It it wonderful to see a hand-built bike that is also so masterfully hand-painted, not just covered in decals.


-Grace, 22- Seismology Researcher Assistant, lives and plays in St. Louis, MO.