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Chris Bishop‘s 2012 raw track bike returned for 2013 with a fresh coat of paint and a new, Italian component group. The razor sharp blue wet paint was supplied by Fresh Frame. The vintage Cinelli and Campagnolo components were drilled, shaped and milled by Drillium Revival. Bottom line is, this bike has sass and class (you either love or hate that tag line, don’t you?).
Little details like the etched Bishop logo on the fork crown and chainstays make this build for me…
Over the past few years, the crew at Geekhouse Bikes have slowly grown apart from their brightly-colored, low-pro, bent seat tube, triple triangle track bikes that they became so well known for. This slow and steady move towards class, with a bit of sass has culminated in their 2013 NAHBS offerings in Denver. New this year are the Brentwood Porteur and Hopedale Light Tourer. Both bikes would make ideal vehicles for a weekend camping trip, or around town jaunts. These models will be available in conjunction with Geekhouses’ already established models. Let me just say the brightly-colored Mudville singlespeed disk cross looks so dialed. Even the Adria Klora-designed graphics are top notch. Well done guys!
Check out some more photos, by the lovely Heather McGrath in the gallery!
This year, like before, I’ll be working hard and partying harder at the 2013 NAHBS. I’ll do my best to bring you the bikes with the most class and sass as well as something a little different. I’ll have Flag Hatchet stickers on me, as well as passes to the Outside is Free party, so come track me down. Bourbon sips are appreciated!
If you want some eye candy from last year, check out the 2012 NAHBS archives!
Nao from Tomii Cycles won’t be at NAHBS this year but that doesn’t mean his work isn’t worthy of the show. His Flickr has been exploding with great photos of even the simplest things like fork ends. Check out more photos at the Tomii Flickr.
Custom, bent titanium chain guard for a titanium singlespeed porteur? That sounds like a show bike if you ask me. Surely, Firefly will be there, right? Nope. Not going to NAHBS. But that’s because they deliver everything from the elegant, modern road to quirky customer requests and document each one like it is a show bike. While the gang won’t be at NAHBS this year, they are moving into new digs in March. Best of luck guys!
If you carve it, they will come (for orders). JP Weigle is a master at what he does. His 650B randonneur conversions and his own frames rival even the top vintage French framebuilders. If he can carve something, he will. It doesn’t matter if it’s his own con denti pedals, or drillium dropout faces, the man will find some way to leave his mark on metal. Like many builders today, JP Weigle documents his work on his Flickr.
I don’t know what sparked this post, I guess I just wanted to make a point that not every framebuilder can make it out to NAHBS but that doesn’t mean they’re not capable of producing show-quality work.
Here’s the official NAHBS Framebuilder Party flier for this year’s event. Like I said, there are a bunch of parties happening Saturday but this one’s for the exhibitors, VIPs and media, at the Colorado Convention Center.
Another related note is the radness that’s been going on in the Velocipede Salon’s Thursday Night Lights thread. Definitely check that out. I wish I had more free time to poke around that forum more often…
Here come the parties!
“Are you going to be in Denver for NAHBS this coming weekend? If not you should book your tickets, hop a train, rent a car, hire a mule, ride a bike, or just start running because we going to have great booth with all of our newest Chris King and Cielo offerings on display at the convention center. As if that wasn’t enough we would like to invite you to an amazing party that we are throwing Friday evening at Salvagetti’s Annex where chef extraodinaire Chris DiMinno from Portland’s renowned restaurant Clyde Common will be serving a delectable array of sliders, New Belgium will be providing an array of intoxicating suds, and all of our pals will be talking shop, telling stories, and having a good laugh.”
There’s going to be a lot of parties going on Saturday night during NAHBS weekend in Denver but this is the one I’ll be attending. Brian Vernor, Jeremy Dunn, Chris McNally, Dustin Klein and I compiled some photographs and art to display under the theme “Outside is Free”. The show will be at Pearl Velo & Avery County Cycles. We’ll be selling prints, zines and there will be bourbon to be consumed. I’ll try to bring some Texas warmth with me!
The only catch is, there’s a pesky fire permit involved, so at most, 300 people are allowed. If you’re interested in attending, find one of the exhibitors, Tyler from Pearl Velo, or Josh from Avery County Cycles at NAHBS for a free invite.
Get there early, because I’ll probably be wasted at 7:15. Serioulsy.
With NAHBS just a week or so away, I’m already trying to plan out what I’ll be covering. Year after year, I’ve found a lot of people doing the same thing and a few new faces doing extraordinary work. One of those new faces is Aaron Stinner at Stinner Frameworks. I say “new faces” but Aaron won rookie of the year last year for his 29r MTB and I didn’t even get to meet him…
This year though, he’s got plenty of rad things in the works, including Ty from Golden Saddle‘s Ride the Divide MTB. There’s a great profile up on the NAHBS site, showcasing Aaron’s work. Make sure you check it out and as always, I’ll do my best to bring you the very, very best from this year’s NAHBS.
Oh and follow @StinnerFrameworks on Instagram to check out his 2013 NAHBS progress.
With NAHBS just around the corner and the crossie disc cult at maximum capacity, it should come as no surprise that Cielo would announce their new CX Racer. This frame highlights the CX Racer’s new paint scheme, the inclusion of the Chris King Press Fit bottom bracket, and the new Chris King R45 Disc hubs.
See more below.
Look, I had ambitions of stealing this bike, holding it for randsom and riding the shit out of it when I first saw it at NAHBS. Tony Pereira makes amazing frames and this award-winning NAHBS singlespeed 29’r MTB had everyone drooling. Check out more at the Pereira Flickr.
I hate hearing myself talk and seeing myself on video but I’m sure that’s the case with everyone. While at the 2012 NAHBS, I met up with the Flwrider TV crew and they just posted up the video. There’s a few shots of my Bishop road in there and I talk about my plans for 2012. I haven’t seen Brian since 2009 and it was nice to catch up.
Thanks guys!
Since PiNP is a one-man show, it’s tough to make it out to every single event. Over the years, I’ve gotten to know a lot of inspiring and talented individuals through the bike scene. Many of which are photographers who’ve inspired me to continue pressing forward with the site. So when I relaunched PiNP with new galleries and photosets, I wanted to reach out to my peers and ask them to contribute content. While I’m not ready to start handing over guest accounts, one of the ways I’m implementing this material is through Recent Roll posts: looking through their lenses.
The first Lens post is from Crihs and his experience at the 2012 NAHBS Mash Team TT race. Below are a series of photographs compiled while he raced. All photos by Chris Thormann.
Click the above photo to launch the gallery, or here to open in a new tab.
This year, more than any other year at NAHBS, I got to talk face to face with the builders and their assistants. I took more time listening to their process and their pains. It’s not easy building bicycles in the States and sometimes, things get a little rough financially.
Earlier this year, Bruce Gordon put out an SOS (shop on stress) and the framebuilding world responded. Now, I’m not saying their shop is slammed, but business picked up and Bruce has some new products on the way. Cantis, toe clips and even a nice, 700c gum wall touring tire, made by Panaracer in Japan. It looks like Bruce Gordon is doing a lot better. His booth’s pride was a carbon road bike with details for days.
The townie and commuting bike contingency was rather large this year. More and more people are ditching their cars for handlebars and Ahearne Cycles showed off a few recent builds. My favorite was the blue townie, complete with bamboo lock box and rotating child seat. It even has foot pegs. Other goodies included his Sheldon Brown flasks and shirts.
DiNucci Cycles‘ bikes included a raw road frame and a classic road bike with Curtis Odom tri-arm sport cranks. Sharing the same booth was Vendetta Cycles, who returned with their ever-so-popular Columbus MAX track bike. This bright green beast had everyone drooling. I always love seeing how people use MAX on track bikes and this bike’s custom pinstriping just takes it over the top!
See all this in the Gallery.
This bike has been floating around the Bishop Bikes Flickr for months. The amount of time that builders spend on randoneur bikes goes above and beyond the normal price for a frame. Not to mention the pain of getting Shimano Dura Ace to work with Suntour, Campagnolo and TA. All of this was precisely fused together in one complete Beautiful Bicycle, with more details than three or four frames combined. Did I mention it has a Campagnolo Portacatena? Talk about a show bike.
Each of Chris’ bikes at the 2012 NAHBS were painted by Bryan Myers in his wet paint shop, Fresh Frame and Ahmet’s 650b randonneur was the prize of the booth. It won best lugged construction bike and was in the running for the best in show. As I wheeled it out of the 2012 NAHBS, I could barely take photos without someone coming over to ogle it. This has to be Chris’ finest work yet. Shear beauty! Check out the gallery for more details.
You’d think Marty and the Geekhouse gang would have mistaken Austin for Boston at last year’s event. Somehow they got confused and set up their NAHBS booth in their new space at HQ Boston. Silly guys, the convention was 3,011 miles away! While they sort out their flub up, head over to the Geekhouse blog and Flickr for more details on what happened.
As much as I love NAHBS, I get worn out after the long days. Last night, Brad from Urban Velo posted this photo of me shooting Souphorse’s Ritte road bike. Thanks for lightening the mood Brad! Check out all of Urban Velo’s coverage here.
The second day of the 2012 North American Handmade Bicycle show was a madhouse. Walking up to the convention center, I was shocked to see the line wrapping around the block. Inside, the booths were crowded with bell-ringers, brake pullers, tire kickers and top tube tingers. As someone who tends to obsess over frame details, it was easy to document some bikes but the overall frame shots were a real pain. I managed to document a good number of builders, as well as some friend’s bikes. For now check out a photo gallery, featuring Richard Sachs, Yipsan, Mosaic, Rebolledo, Della Santa and Sycip.
This year at the 2012 North American Handmade Bicycle Show, I wanted to spend the first day capturing the overall vibe of the booths. I meant to bring my tripod for some long exposures but left it at home. Instead, I ended up using the booths themselves, the ground and my lens cap to prop the camera up. While I don’t usually like low, wide angles, these actually came out pretty rad. Check the Gallery out below.
