NAHBS 2008, Thursday Feb 7th

The North American Handmade Bicycle Show has begun. The show opens on Friday for the industry, and possibly another day of setup for some vendors, and then to the general public on Saturday and Sunday. The Urban Velo shutter is working overtime.

Read on for 50+ images, with more to come as the weekend unravels.

Thursday February 7th

While ultimately organized alphabetically, it’s appropriate that Broakland is first in the line-up as I’m crashing on on their designer’s futon here in Portland and mooching transportation to and fro, and a bicycle, from the Broakland folks. This is their take on the triple-triangle design made famous my 3Rensho, GT and the infamous Murry brand name. Paul dropouts, fast wheels, meant for speed.

Calfee brought out this bike for the show, topping their previous best with not only bullhorn bars, but a fork also made of horn. Ordinary old bamboo provides the frame structure, with hemp lugs holding it all together.

Show founder Don Walker had a few new bikes on display, namely this blue track racing bicycle and this lugged, gold singlespeed road bike. Check out the fender mount on the bb lug of the road frame.

El Camino is the builder for Broakland, and had this polished aluminum track bike on display, with a completely decadent downtube tire cutout.

Frances brought by two bikes to photograph, the first being a unique cargo bike with cable actuated steering. Interesting, and it felt fantastically smooth. Is that a cut up stop sign forming the bottom of the cargo bin? I think so. And look at the well worn hoods on the road bike. I love it.

Steve Rex brought by his wife’s bike and his own personal machine. I think a bit of grime on a show bike shows some character, and these bikes clearly had some miles on them. Those are carbon tubes on the gold bike, not just black paint on the top and seattubes.

Roark had this amazing bicycle made for a lucky daughter. There’s an internally geared hub inside that machined rear wheel, with butterfly accents all around. The kids bikes that appear at this show each year never cease to amaze me.

Sadilah with a Russian inspired split seattube. Chuck’s personal bike that suffered at the hands of FedEx, but came out of it still looking good.

Signal Cycles is making their premier at the show this year, and this beauty made its way to the background. Completely beautiful. Look at that paintwork in line with the built in racks. Notice that the racks feature custom machined lugs at the attachment points to the frame. Quite a first bike to show.