Bike Show

I attended the North American Handmade Bicycle Show in Indy yesterday. Man, it was impressive! If you're at all into bikes or skilled fabricators, you would have loved it. All kinds of bikes - racer bikes with carbon fiber everything, cargo bikes for hauling around everything including the kitchen sink, randoneering bikes with lights and bags, bamboo bikes, and bikes that were made just to have fun riding. Also in attendance were suppliers to the trade with lugs, tubing, saddles, wheels, and the tooling necessary to build a bicycle.

I got a chance to see bikes made by some of the legendary builders and some by people I had never heard of before. Some weren't exactly my cup of tea - I'm not sure the bamboo bike pictured above would do it for me - but the blue one with the bag on the front would. It's a randoneering type ride complete with a dynamo hub and light. It's also got a bottle cage that holds a flask rather than a water bottle. That would be just the thing to warm your innards after a long ride on a damp autumn afternoon. It's made by Ahearne Cycles and Mr. Joseph Ahearne said it would be about $6500.00 for one like it. Not cheap, but quality rarely is.

The green one was made by YiPsan Bicycles. I talked to Mr. Yip for a little while and he seemed to understand almost instinctively what I was looking for in a bike. I liked his building philosophy and his attitude towards putting out a product that would meet the customers needs and wants. A frame is going to cost you about $1500.00 plus the fork and go up from there. You could probably get a real nice bike of the kind I would want for about $3500.00. That would be a lugged steel frame, two tone paint, decent wheels and components. It would last me the rest of my life with only minimum maintenance and I could ride it for a 100 miles at a time. If I buy a new one, I'll be talking to Mr. Yip.

As mentioned, there were also suppliers to the trade in attendance as well. If I was the kind of guy interested in building my own bike, which I certainly am, I could buy a tube set and start to work next week. The photo above shows a fillet brazed frame that has been smoothed up slicker than snot on a doorknob. I could braze weld a frame easy enough or TIG weld one as many of the frames are these days, but I really like the traditional look of the lugged steel frames. If a guy didn't want to get too crazy with the type of tubing, about $300.00 would put you in the driver's seat. After buying the rest of the components and getting a custom paint job, you could come to appreciate the value a $3000.00 handmade bicycle is.

As soon as your 401 (K) recovers, support a custom bicycle builder and get you one. Some of these guys have a pretty long waiting list, you might want to get your order in now.