The Radavist

Greg, Marty and Brad from Geekhouse have been burning the midnight oil getting all their bikes together and let me tell you, their work this year for the 2011 NAHBS is AMAZING.

Check out a Teaser of Geekhouse’s 2011 NAHBS offerings below!

Erik Noren from Peacock Groove is a character. Year after year his bikes at the NAHBS are surrounded in controversy. The elitists hate his work but the young people love it. This year his bikes are looking better than ever!

Check out a Teaser of Peacock Groove’s 2011 NAHBS offerings below!

Today I snuck into the 2011 NAHBS to grab a few teaser from everybody’s favorite builders. First up is Chris Bishop from Bishop Bikes. Chris’ work is covered here extensively and he’s one of my favorite builders in the US. I love Bishop and his bikes at the 2011 NAHBS are ridiculous!

Check out a Teaser of Bishop Bike’s 2011 NAHBS offerings below!

I feel like I’m an airport shuttle service today. Earlier I picked up Ben from Cinelli USA and like all cycling manufactures, there’s always one guy who handles accounts and distribution within the company. Ben is that guy for the US and will be at the Cinelli booth this weekend at the 2011 NAHBS. If you have any questions about Cinelli or Cinelli products, he’s the man to meet.

Oh and those MASH x Cinelli pursuit bars are due out in May. Now stop emailing me! ;-)

Jon came by earlier today to pick up my KHS Aero Track. Since he didn’t bring a bike, I told him he could borrow mine. He also brought his wife and son with him and so I took the time to shoot their photo in our front yard. Jon runs Two Tone ATL and he will be providing some coverage for Prolly is Not Probably at the NAHBS this weekend here in Austin. Be on the look out for Jon and hit him up for one of his stickers if you see him!

Awesome. Simply awesome:

“Dave Wages builds a frame from Reynolds 953, True Temper S3 and Dedacciai tubing to be displayed unpainted at the 2011 North American Hand Made Bicycle Show in Austin, Texas, February 25-27.”

Can’t wait to see it and meet Dave from Ellis Cycles next week at NAHBS!

Photo by Dave Trimble

It’s getting to the point where I almost prefer 35mm photos of bicycles more than digital. At least when it comes to slightly more design-driven bicycles like the Legor Cicli NAHBS bike. I can’t wait to rape this bike with my AE-1 at NAHBS! Thanks to Dave Trimble for the photo and Legor Cicli for the Beautiful Bicycle!

Edit: Check out one more recent photo by Dave below.

Photo by Heather McGrath

NAHBS is approaching and somehow Marty from Geekhouse found the time to answer a few questions from the guys putting on the show. These questions, listed below are entitled Proust Questionnaire: Marty Walsh.

Check them out below!

Fast Folks has a few events planned to keep your legs sore during the 2011 NAHBS. When they were planning the alleycat, I told them it’d be rad to do a 4-points race. North, South, East and West. We’ll see how this turns out! If you’ve gotta go to the hills in the west, you’re gonna be in a world of pain!

Check out the flier for the trick comp below!

Photo by Doug Takeshi Wolfe

David Trimble shot me an email with these exclusive looks at the new Legor Cicli track bike for the 2011 NAHBS. Holy hell, is this thing ever nice! Even though I’m usually not into bright colors on track bikes, I’d thrash the hell out of this thing on the boards.

Check out more photos below!

This may look like an ordinary fastback seat cluster but it’s not and those might look like ordinary tubes but they’re not. Chris Bishop has a nice little treat up his sleeves for this year’s NAHBS: a Columbus MS track frame and it’s loaded with details. Check out that BB shell! Wow. Can’t wait to see this in person and rape it with my camera. Check out more at the Bishop Flickr.

Rapha is gearing up for their spring and summer 2011 line and their NAHBS events. Check out the NAHBS flier below.

This’ll be fun!

So it looks like Bishop Bikes isn’t closing shop to make guns afterall. The Baltimore-based framebuilder just posted some teaser for the forthcoming 2011 NAHBS. It’s a bi-lam lug day baby! Check out more photos here.

Lately I’ve been having really vivid dreams. You know, the kind of dreams where every detail is a reflection of some event you’ve had that day. Well, last night I went to bed thinking about how much fun NAHBS is going to be. I just paid the crew at Geekhouse for my SRAM group yesterday and the bike’s been on my mind a lot the past few weeks. So I went to sleep only to wake up this morning with some really weird memories.

The NAHBS was outdoors in Austin, under a highway overpass. There were tents everywhere and all the photographers were complaining about the lack of light. I was stuck in the Cyclops tent (heh) trying to get my lens working correctly when Chris Bishop got on the PA system and announced “I’m over making really, really sweet bikes”. He went on to say that “From now on, I’ll be making firearms”.

Everyone was shocked. Why would Bishop Bikes close down? While I was sitting there, scratching my head, it began to rain. People huddled under the tents when Marty from Geekhouse came running over saying “You haven’t seen your bike yet!”. Randomly, someone turned around and yelled “MY LITTLE PONY” at me. Confused, I headed over to the Geekhouse tent (which was covered in muddy cross bikes, a beer basket cruiser and a 20″ fixed bike (because, you know, no company has made one of those before).

In the back, on a shelf was my Woodville touring bike. It was lavender and black with glitter couplers, a sparkle Brooks saddle, a suspension fork, tassles and pink Deep V’s. Now my dream had turned into a nightmare. Marty gave it to me and told me to go get them pretzels and beer. I got on it and music came out of the wheels. Then I ran over a pothole and a dancehall airhorn erupted from the fork. As I was riding away, everyone chanted “MY LITTLE PONY” over and over again. Before leaving the NAHBS area, I woke up.

I Tweeted part of this story earlier and someone commented that Marty told them that he and I snuggled at the NAHBS in one of his dreams. Strange indeed!

As the 2011 North American Hand-Built Bicycle Show approaches, all the builders are scrambling to not only pull together their bicycles but also to pull together their PR. Luckily Geekhouse has Gregory pushing full steam in that department. So much so that I think Geekhouse are one of the builders on the list right now that has all their social media links up. Crazy! Those tech nerdz! Anyway, I’m pleased to have one of my photos included in their profile page.

Check out the Geekhouse NAHBS Profile Page right here!

As I was going back through my photos from last winter, I came across a folder from the NAHBS that hadn’t been imported yet. I sifted through it all and picked out some choice shots that never made it to the blog or to my Flickr. Even though they’re long past due, you check them out right here if you feel so inclined.

Previously:
NAHBS 2010: Richard Sachs
NAHBS 2010: Vanilla Bicycles
NAHBS 2010: Six-Eleven Bicycle Co.

Believe it or not, I’m still editing photos from the 2010 NAHBS. Last night I came across a photo of Alan’s freakbike locked up to a fence at the Polo courts. Cycling WMD‘s always got something in the works and even though this is a self-proclaimed “rush job”, I think it came out looking pretty sharp.

Check out his post on the bike here.

There are very few builders in the United States who can come close to the precision and elegance that Richard Sachs crafts into each of his frames. His legacy began in 1972 when he decided that, unlike his colleagues in the industry, he would build each of his frames by himself, without the aid of assistants or factories. When you order a Richard Sachs frame, you can be assured that Richard Sachs is the one who builds it.

His booth at the NAHBS displayed his intent as a man who builds precision race bikes, ignorant to trends. Check out more photos below.