this was a very last minute decision for me to go, but it was just SOCLOSE to sf. so we rented a zipcar (cheaper than amtrak, faster than bike unfortunately), and off we went in the wee hours of saturday morning to go to the show.
when we heard "it is now 10 minutes until 6 o'clock," is when we realized we had been standing and looking at the most gorgeous bikes i've seen for just over SEVEN HOURS.
my favorite was probably this one made by bishop bikes. it eventually won best lugged bike.
another one that stood out to me was the shamrock cycles cross/commuter bike. i'm not crazy about that color, but the idea is awesome. can easily remove the racks/fenders.
saw some people we knew too...
and then this won best city bike. any surprise it's a (near) mixte frame? didn't think so.
saw so many bamboo bikes, carbon/ti tandems, belt drives, internal gear hubs, integrated [fill in the blank], accessories, you name it. we saw it. oh, except female framebuilders. didn't really see any of those. i hope they were on their lunch break while i was visiting the booth. ahem.
oh and lots of chain guards that looked like this:
i was happy to see some latino last names represented as well. dominguez is one, and rebolledo is another
we also chatted with the people (metrofiets) that made ade's frame!
i'm still swooning over the bikes....maybe drooling a little bit too. i know it's hard for framebuilders to get out to the show all the time, but would be great to see more women framebuilders represented in the coming years.
so glad we decided to go 6 hours before we left sf. thanks to prawnpie, owlboogie and richard for the pics from the show!
I didn't realize that Sycip is a Filipino (Chinese-Filipino) name until the show. My heritage was represented. Woohoo!
ReplyDeleteThat Muse bike- the best city bike- is GORGEOUS!!! And I love that it's a belt drive. I wonder why more urban/city bikes don't have belt drives. It makes far more sense to me to have one as opposed to a chain. Of course, I've never ridden one, so they might suck. ;)
ReplyDelete@owlboogie: !! i love their designs too, i've looked at them online for awhile. i thought their use of integrated ulock was the best one i saw on the showroom floor.
ReplyDelete@tanya: isn't it?! and yah, belt drives not so common at the moment, but i bet they will be soon. at least i hope so!!