I recently attended my first NAHBS.
That’s: North American Handmade Bicycle Show.
Fifth annual. Indianapolis. Feb. 26-28. See: handmadebicycleshow.com
This is the world of bikes and bike stuff that the people in the booths actually make with their own hands. It’s small-world, owner-operated action.
I was blown away.
It was such fun to get out of the house and meet folks who I’d worked with for years online, or who I’d emailed with about bike culture.
100+ handmade exhibitors and 6000+ bike buffs = oh yeah!
Yohei
I got a taste of the show a couple days beforehand in a way that would have surprising reverberations at the show. My brother Tim hosted Yohei Morita, a photographer for COG magazine—a “fixie hipster” visiting from Japan. Yohei visited our house and seemed to like what he saw, as his camera blazed away. Martha and I like Japanese hip culture but turnabout is fair play. My bro threw a party for him at a local microbrew one evening and the fixie hipsters from town showed up in youthful solidarity. I hadn’t seen this tribe up close before. It was a good, bikeful time.
Road Trip
A local posse of bike freaks—Yohei made 5—jammed into a minivan and had an energized drive south on a cold, clear morning. Getting closer!
Big City
Indy seemed full of life, with a big yet compact downtown of occupied buildings in a wide range of periods and styles. I always like seeing the businesses with neon signs that have been around since the 1930’s or so, a la Hopper’s “Nighthawks” painting.
Full Immersion
We unpacked then dove headlong into The Show at about noon. I brought a dozen pieces of OYB bike luggage for sale and flung them onto each of our willing cohorts for display on the hoof. It worked. People kept asking about their sweet rigs throughout the weekend and I ended up selling all the Panniers I brought plus a few of the OYB Normal 6-Way bags. Fun!
NOTE: Whenever you see me in a pic…it’s a pic my bro Tim took! …Like the one above. I use a few others of his below as well.
Me, Oh My!
Gorgeous bikes galore! Art bikes! Bikes that push design and paint-job limits!
Rockin’ bike folks dressed up to the bike culture nines!
I didn’t eat or drink until the Show closed for the day. Whew!
Media Challenge
I attended the Show as both Media and Volunteer and Wide-Eyed Newbie and Bike Luggage Salesman.
So I went upstairs to Media HQ and asked the media director what he wanted me to do. The media room was buzzing with laptops and reporters, photographers coming and going. I hadn’t been a part of a deadlines operation in decades. Yow!
As I headed into the melee of the Show with my story assignment, I wondered about…everything! I experienced a combination of dissipation and tunnel vision. I wanted to see the show AND I wanted to write a good story. Ah, the joys of mixing work and pleasure.
I remembered back when I was looking for photos of the very first NAHBS. They were hard to find. I knew that tiny digital cameras were available. I was wondering why the bike geeks weren’t walking around the show taking pics and uploading them. Five years later, that’s what half the attendees appeared to be doing.
Recorded reality…only 1% of the images taken will ever be seen by…anyone! And of those only a few will be noteworthy.
Who knows if any of mine will be among them? My 62 tries are at: picasaweb.google.com/JeffOYBHQ/NAHBSPics#
Let the competition begin!
As for me, I’ll keep my eye on Yohei’s site for NABHS pics when he gets a chance to upload his faves at: flickr.com/photos/spastica.
My bro did a great job at: picasaweb.google.com/flyingdutchman63/NAHBS2009FavPics#
It was great to finally meet Maurice Tierney of “Dirt Rag,” the indie mtbike mag. I’ve emailed with him for a decade, since we were both doing our projects on the level of black’n’white zeens! …I think it seemed to both of us that we’d already met.
I also got to meet the people behind other indie bike mags I try to promote: Amy Walker of Momentum; Peter DiAntonio of COG; Jeff Guerrero and Brad Quartuccio of Urban Velo. Rockin’! (Reviews and links for all these mags elsewhere at OYB.)
After the show closed for the day, I wrote my little story. It took less than an hour, but it was HARD—thrilling, too, exercising those old quick-reflex braincells.
In the end, NAHBS used several of my reports and a buncha my pics (they list both my and my bro’s Picasa albums). It was nice to contribute in that way. The official show materials are good and well-balanced, the pics cover the main topical areas. The director said he liked my story notions, said they seemed like a fresh take. He was a calm, diplomatic, sleep-deprived British person. It was neat to see the organization side in action, smoothly weathering various surprises.
ArtBike Party
We headed to a local warehouse of art studios for an afterparty called ArtBike. A candid-camera photo booth with cavorting vixens greeted us, along with a roller racing frenzy in full tilt, dance floor, art bikes and bar.
Local artists, activists, fixie hipsters and just plain bikers were out in force to welcome the show to Indy.
Momentum’s editrix Amy was there with the mag’s sociable posse, helping as a clever, welcoming impresario, luring hundreds into their photo booth.
My bro Tim entered the roller racing. He’s been doing daily stoplight commuting and is ready for this kind of action. He got matched up with the Fastest Man in the World! Sam Whittingham is the fastest guy by human power. 82mph! …In a sweet Varna streamliner, as reported in my recumbent bicycle book. He’s on the cover of the Canadian edition of “Reader’s Digest” this month! He beat my bro by a second. Great fun!
As the night wound on my bro was able to advance and eventually turned in a time that was a second faster than his first, so good going!
He mentioned that the wild intensity we noticed in the roller crowd was due to a fiesty Bay Area Visitors versus Indy Homeboys challenge.
Calm Then Storm
I caught part of the “media only” portion of the next morning’s show. I didn’t appreciate how nice it was to just stroll and ponder with fellow media types.
I might’ve liked the citybikes best. They were out in full force.
Track bikes, including retro variants, were also big.
But the touring bike was the backbone. There were drop bars, racks and fenders everywhere.
(Considering the French movement, I only heard someone say “650B” once. That was kind of surprising. But I’m sure there had to be a bike with 42 mm red Gran Bois Hetre’s mounted. Right?)
The rich, glowing, liquidy paint jobs on so many bikes were hard to take, they were so alluring.
Anyone with a decent job or a desire to stay connected to those who walk the land: buy handmade! Maybe you buy veggies from a real farmer when you can. A bike is a fruit that will last decades. Many will spend a handmade amount on a bike anyway. There’s probably someone working nearby, designing with your region in mind, who has a feel for the heritage of where you live, who can make you a bike.
I’ve heard people get snarky about expensive bikes. Sure, most handbuilts are pricey, but I see a lead role for the Glorious Bikes of the world—where they go many will follow. I promote from the grassroots but I include the high end. Firstly, po’ folk often shop the high end. Of course, there’s a limit but many handmade bikes are WITHIN that limit. Secondly, the patron has a role to play. The bike scene should include the CEO, if we’re going to have them (and the Commissars if we’re not). Both elites and populists, push and pull, are important. There’s nothing wrong with bikes in a gallery or museum. They often give me ideas, like any art.
I suppose there are big egos in this sector, but I find them equally anywhere. I had a fine time chatting with whomever I had something relevant to talk about. Mostly I just gaped. That was work and joy enough!
Then, again, it’s not all about the bike. There are other areas in which one can buy handmade, such as clothing and luggage.
There are handmade folks making wares for every sector.
A bike I personally dream about these days is carbon with integrated full features, that is, with racks, fenders, lights, internal security and a place to clamp a trailer. No such bike is made at present. (Hint, hint, builders!) I live 5 miles from town and make fast hops for errands. I also ride with a fast club and would like to use the same bike with them. I think of an aero-everything 15-lb bike for a hefty 6-foot lad. But I have no idea if such a bike would be significantly faster than what I have. I’ve never ridden carbon! But I love carbon in a ski pole and a boat paddle. In the meantime, I’ll try to regain my speed on my old steel steeds via powerwork for my twig legs.
At 11 a.m. the doors opened to the public and a solid wall of bike freaks poured into the arena, tripling the previous day’s attendance.
Then it got hard to think.
Colors. Bikes. Innovation. People. Fashion. Media.
Nations.
Japan!
There were 3 Japanese custom booths and numerous Japanese attendees. I asked the promoter if this was the first time for them and he said “YES! They’re all new!” I then asked each Japanese booth owner (via my brother, who is fluent) how they found out about NAHBS. They all said the same thing: “Yohei’s blog!” He just shrugged and danced away when I looked at him to confirm this. Yohei was everywhere during the show. It turned out that he had been to ALL THE SHOWS!
The Italian builder Zullo also had a booth. Remember, folks: this is the handmade show IN America. The world is welcome! …And it’s starting to arrive.
This whole show was about so much more than bikes.
Bikes are the tie that binds. No, the people are. Bikes are just a manifestation of a surge in the DIY indie lifestyle. As the title of Arnie Gingrich’s memoir about starting Esquire magazine has it: “Nothing But People.” The bikes seemed more like my comrades in a cause rather than things I might buy or dare to compare against each other.
There was a whole range of “Best Of” prizes given out at the show, but to me that was just a handy hook, fun on the side. To me, all indie boats are rising. The whole scene, furthermore, needs to stick together to make it work. So far, it looks like it’s happening.
Then there was the “show within the Show.” In the hall alongside the main arena there were rows of bike racks staffed by valet parking dudes where folks could park the rides what brung ’em to the show. Man, that’s where the action was! There’s where we saw hundreds of muddy, scratched-up bikes put together with loving care in a hundred configurations. Dozens of them were handmades.
Alert, “sausage party”! Thank heavens that wasn’t entirely the case. Sure, it seemed like 90% of attendees were men. But actually there were quite a few women. They made up in panache for their lack of numbers. The recent bike boom seems to be bringing many of them. A few years ago I didn’t see many women out riding, but now I do. Especially in the city. A summer dress, a front basket and no helmet: it’s a fresh liberation movement coming on strong. And I’m all for it.
Sam Whittingham of Naked was the “People’s Choice” winner with his curvy bikes that used wood for some parts. He said he wanted to make bikes more feminine. He’s from the curvy world of organic streamliner HPV shapes. Bring it on!
Off to dinner! —As organized by the vintage bike buffs at the Classics Rendezvous email list.
I’d been bumping into Gabriel and Lovely Rita Romeu (she’s a media person you’ll notice in a couple pics here). At the dinner I found out that this stylish couple was also heavily involved in the qajaq world. Yes, the life and lore of early-style kayaks, which in Greenland are the skin on slender-frame qajaqs. …Handmade boats, handmade bikes, and the handmade furniture which is Gabriel’s scene—it all goes together. What media reveals this truth to us? Oh, I know of one, at least! : )
After dinner a bunch of us repaired to Joe’s Cycles, a shop across the street that had stayed open late for show people. What a bike shop! Old building, wood floors, art on the walls, cafe works behind the counter. Joe had just learned frame-building and had a jig set up on the main floor with a frame being brazed in it. …Share the further education with the public, why not.
My brother hauled out a set of real rollers that Joe said he could try. He tried. No go. I thought we might witness a dramatic post-prandial in-shop bike wreck. Then pal Chris hopped on and whirred away like a champ. Then a bunch of others joined in…and Tim gave it another go and got rolling just fine. I didn’t join in. It had been too long. My stunts have to be more timely. Joe said he had 15 riders on rollers at one time in the shop. Nice guy, great shop!
Tom Martin of Velo Orange came in with friends and sixes of Dogfishhead IPA that they passed around. Thanks, Tom!
Then the owner of the famous “Orange 20” shop from…Los Angeles!…rode up all cold on his fixie.
It was bike-love heaven.
Back at the hotel we found a Secret Party in full swing, hosted by Embrocation magazine (https://www.embrocationmagazine.com) and the invisible Rapha crew. Among the sweet bikes parked inside the bar was builder Alexis Villin’s personal ride made with copper wire wrapping for lugs. Dang, I like those primitive skills. He also forges dropouts out of damascus steel. I like it when the skills of different worlds can mesh.
I had mentioned to both Sam, the wood-parts bike builder, and Gabriel, furniture designer, that they should consider Osage Orange, a wood neither was familiar with, not being from the Midwest. I bet that quite a few folks in Indy would know that wood! Sam used rock maple for the seatpost of his “show bike.” I’m thinking that Osage might be better…and might look better, too…with its snaky orange character twists and fantastic resilience. I googled its stats and it far outworks other woods in dynamic performance. ( www.archive.org/stream/themechanicalpro12299gut/12299.txt )
The next morning my bro said he still had some things he had to see. Whew, I still had just about everything to *comprehend*.
We learned who won the “Best in Show” prizes. The awards covered the gamut in type and style. I was, however, most pleased by a couple winners: two of the builders who had worked the longest and made the most bikes, either in terms of worlds-level race winners or in terms of diversity. They had exhibits of just themselves, bluejeans, 3 frames and the card table and folding chair provided. There were a lot of fancy booths and entourages. But our sleeper heroes went away with a good chunk of the honors.
My NAHBS!
