Tuesday, January 03, 2006

Handbuilt bike show...

In 2006 in San Jose California, March 3rd-5th is the 2nd Annual Hand Built Bicycle Show...

hand made bicycle show

Here is their mission statement:

"Our mission for the North American Handmade Bicycle Show is a simple one. Showcase the talents of the best builders of handmade bicycle frames in the world. Whether they are well known or unknown, no matter the material of choice, these artisans have learned and mastered their craft to the point of making rideable art forms of the greatest invention ever, the bicycle. These craftsmen (and women) have varying backgrounds, and so is their ideology when it pertains to their selection of tubing, components, and construction methods. One thing remains perfectly clear, the attention to detail that goes into these bicycle frames is second to none. Our gathering is designed to let the consumer get up close and personal looks at the artists who not only design and create these machines, but to allow them access to ask questions of the frame makers."

Bike by Bruce Gordon.

Bruce Gordon makes some nice bikes, with incredible detail in the lugs, he was at a hand built bicylce fair in Tokoyo 2005 and had this to say:

"I have just returned from the 2005 Handmade Bicycle Fair in Tokyo Japan, where I displayed 2 bikes.
I decided to go to this show, because I have seen frames from small builders in Japan that are very nice, but that aren't often seen in the US. In all fairness, I also went for the chance to spend a week in Tokyo. Tokyo is quite a treat - everything goes 100 miles per hour (approx. 160kph).

The show itself was a very interesting experience compared to the "dealer only" trade show where I usually exhibit. There were roughly 1000 visitors over 2.5 days, and the one thing I noticed was how respectful and interested the visitors were. There were many finely crafted and inventive bikes in the show, and they very carefully examined every square inch of every bike. Each visitor was given a ballot when entering in order to vote for what they thought was the best bike in each of 3 catagories - Competition Racing, City Bike, and Touring/Road bike. The GREAT news for me personaly, is that my bike was chosen the best of the Touring/Road Class. I am very honored to receive this award, considering that I was exhibiting with builders like Toei, Watanabe, Hirose, Level, Crescent, Cheribum, etc.

Needless to say, The Tokyo Hand Made Bike Show was a wonderful experience."

Bruce Gordon Bicycles

some other phat rides:




Jealous.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
New Year's Eve highlights: Time's Up had its traditional New Year's Eve Ride, here is what one person had to say: (ok it was Rodger)

"About 60 bikes. Cooperative weather. The music bike was pumping. We rolled from downtown up to Belevedere Castle in Central park for the midnight fireworks, dancing, snacks, champagne - woo hoo. Cop chopper had to butt in overhead for awhile - those damn bikers, such a threat! We headed back downtown blasting the music bike right through the glorious mess at times square around 1:30am as the crowds were still leaving. Millions of cops didn't what to do with us as we plowed through, revelers cheering us all the way back downtown often taking the road crit-mass style.

Hey move it
hey shove it
my bike is rad
i love it !
(radical cheerleaders)"

A few pix:





Meanwhile there was an Alley Cat race on New Year's Eve, put together by folks who love bikeforums.net, more like an Alley Kitten designed for beginners, outoftowners...there first alley cat.


Some of the participants:

a little blurb about it:
The AlleyKitten was specially designed to be not so freakin' hardcore that you don't need to be twisted on Sparks to get through it, and designated for first timers & out of towners only. Amazingly, it saw an unexpectedly large turnout - nearly 50 racers on New Years Eve. Many traveled from Jersey, Connecticut, Providence, and DC. Some technically traveled all the way from Australia. One guy didn't have the $7.53 entry fee, so he sold his Sparks to pay for it. The checkpoints made you do ridiculous things, like being sprayed with silly string & having your picture taken, writing down a new years resolution, taking a shot of vodka & doing 10 pushups, and spinning around on a baseball bat, then drinking a beer. Anyone who's New Years Resolution was to drink less completely blew it. Here are the results.

Results are up on NYBMA's website.

This kind of idea really helps promote bike culture and alley cat races by opening up the field to all kinds of people!

More info at:

chuckibis.com

Also, New Year's Day, Trackstar hosted a twisted crank event:

"Kinda Special Winter Olympics Results"
From NYBMA website:

All I've got to say is that crooked crank racing is hysterical. And what is crooked crank racing? Good question. That's the same question I had yesterday. Instead of your cranks being at 180° to eachother, Trackstar set up some fixies with cranks at 90°. It was hilarious. It looked like you were galloping down the street. Alex won it. John from Bike Habitat got second, and Squid came in Third. The rest of the results for Skids, Trackstands, Foot-Down, Arm Wrestling & more are at trackstarnyc.com. Or at least, they will be soon.

What else: Oh yah, events for January:



1. Memorial ride, hosted by time's up to comemorate 11 of the 21 people killed by cars in 2005.

The ride will leave from 4 or 5 different spots, depending if there will be a Staten Island ride, and go to the sites where people have been killed.

Here is the details:

January 8th, Sunday. 1:00pm

Rides will leave from 5 places:
Bronx: Brook Community Garden (138th @ Brook Ave)
Queens: College Point Entrance to Queens Botanical Garden
East Brooklyn: 300 Logan St.
South Brooklyn: 69th Street Pier
Staten Island: TBD

The rides will be leaving from five places and riding to various fatality sites, holding mini-memorials, riding and hooking up with other groups until they all come together in the city and put up a ghost bike for the 10 Unnamed Bikers (we only have info on 11 of the 21 bikers who died).
Friday the 13th!! January, 2006

Celebrate Ken's Birthday with Goldsprint races at Capone's Bar in Williamsburg.

More info at Carlo's Monster Track Site:

Monster Track 07

Then in DC:


Check out: Frost Bite

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Such a wealth of information.

You should break up each of these seperate events/stories so that readers can directly comment. Also when posting a large previously published article, you might want to give your own take and then link the article.

I say this only beacuse I often check back on this site looking for reader comments and sometimes it's a really long scroll.

4:16 PM  

Post a Comment

<< Home