Tuesday, March 07, 2006

North American Handbuilt Bicycle show

This past weekend was the 2nd North American Handbuilt Bicycle Show in San Jose. I didn't get down there but thanks to digital cameras and the Internet I think I've seen every bike that was there. Here's my top nods:
1) Bruce Gordon: custom titanium racks, baskets, light mounts, cantilever brakes, toe clips, and frame pumps. This man is very talented and has a lot of time on his hands!!

2) Vanilla Bicycles: Sacha showed a custom tricycle. Sacha's bikes continue to amaze me. The attention to detail is phenomenal, especially for such a young builder.

3) J.P. Weigle: The randonneur bike featured in a recent issue of VBQ was shown. Weigle's bikes have a wonderful, understated elegance to them.

4) Roland Della Santa: Roland is perhaps most famous for being the builder to Greg LeMond throughout much of his career. I wasn't really sure if he was still building or not so it was nice to see some snapshots of his frames.

5) Racks: looks like custom mini-front racks are all the rage. Many appear to be more form than function but who cares when they look that nice! Certainly no worse than aero wheels on bikes that rarely go more than 20mph.