Originally Posted by
Choke
Oddly the first time that I met Paul was at the first Eroica, I had lined up at the start next to him (and Bruce Gordon, whom I had met before) and we talked for several minutes before we introduced ourselves. Here's a pic (borrowed from Red Kite Prayer).....I'm in the INRNG cap and Cino jersey.
I have met Paul twice since then, both times at NAHBS. If you really want me to meet a number of famous builders, NAHBS is the place to go. It's not vintage oriented but there is no other place to meet a huge number of builders in one place. NAHBS was where I had previously met Bruce.
H**Y CRAP!
You hit the jackpot IMO, lining up and riding with these guys.
Yep, been to NAHBS a couple of times and meeting builders there is a given, met Gordon, DiNucci, Ritchey, seen many others, Newlands, Merz and plenty lesser known as well.
Also have met several at Oregon builders shows, Jeff Bock, Paul Ketelaar from Australia and others.
Living in PDX also means you can visit many others right here, Bob Kamzelski of Bantam worked for Bilenky for several years before coming here to setup shop, Joseph Ahearne, Chris Igleheart, Tony Pereira, Ira Ryan of Breadwinner, Andy Newlands of Strawberry, Vanilla, Dave Levy at TiCycles. All of them and many others as well as suppliers and a long history ensure that we are a mecca/epicenter of the framebuilding universe as we have been for over 50 years.
I'm all about it, hence my ongoing discussion here, you don't even have to ride Eroica to have a fantastic time talking and hanging out with like minded folks.
You really don't have to participate in the chaos if you don't want to, but you should ride your bike there no matter what.