NAHBS 2017 Pix - Part1
 

Managed to get most of my NAHBS pix edited and posted on flickr:
https://flic.kr/s/aHskW6cWTU

I ran outta time for a few of my fave builders, a whole slew of Cherubims, and some one-shot builders. Check back over the next few days for the remainder.

Enjoy!

Thanks, the images up to the Confente I was able to view, got tired of waiting for the server beyond that.
The Allied concept s intriguing. Hope they make a good go of it. Buying the Guru assets at a fire sale price should help.
I saw elsewhere the Peacock Groove Purple Rain bike, not my style but a total concept.

Pictures are excellent! Thankyou.

Thanks.

Excellent quality. :)

As always, great pics of your visit to NAHBS, and as usual, I am jealous. Thanks much!

I believe I am in love with both the gold and silver colourway Della Santa frame sets. No, I'm quite certain I am.

Thanks for posting such a great collection of photos. Now I'm sorry I didn't make the trip. :(

Good set of pictures. The Confente is beautiful. Funny how blue and yellow are so attractive!

Silca pumps keep showing up as if they are still available!

Glad you liked 'em!

Both of those Della Santas were sold to customers who came to NAHBS to pick them up. I spent quite a bit of time chatting with them, discovered that the talkative one and I both had a similar-era Mikkelsen. When I mentioned something about risking divorce if I went home with a new frameset, he said: "Well, I'm a two-time loser, and I'll tell you what I tell everyone - wives come and go, but bicycles are forever!"

If you want to talk about jealous, watch during the last couple of hours at NAHBS when customers are picking up their frames from various booths. You fall in love with a bunch of frames, then watch as some other guy takes 'em home with him. Or her. Not that you ever had a shot...

The gold/butterscotch Della Santa color was requested by the owner to match the gold background of the Columbus sticker as closely as possible. Near-perfect match to my eye.

Della Santa, BTW, is sitting on a large pile of NOS Reynolds and Columbus tubing from about '78-'82. Some of the Columbus tubes are date-stamped, and when he can he'll orient the dove/date stamp right behind the top point of the top head tube lug. Then he paints it thin enough that you can see the dove and read the date. So if you want the closest thing to an old-school frame from a living master, Roland will build it for you for under $2k.

The Della Santas are amazing, I had no idea he was under $2k for a custom. Do you know how long his waiting list is? I may also need the butterscotch DS lawyers phone number.

[MENTION=290087]pcb[/MENTION], if I wasn't a happily married man, for over 40 years now, I'd be saying the hell with it, where is the order form. I can imagine the jealous looks as customers claim their frames, I would be among the oglers.

I keep saying that after seeing someone's report from NAHBS I will be at the next year's show. I lied again last year so I will just live vicariously through the threads here. Thanks again.

Bill

Nice pics! Thanks for sharing!

Steve Potts' bicycles are still the stand-outs of the show for me. Very unified, minimal aesthetic that is still immediately distinct from the other builders. The welds are beautiful. Those bikes are show stoppers. Thanks for the photos.

Thanks for posting the pics, great to get a glimpse of the show. Beautiful bikes all around, interesting details on the Horton-Merckx on the lever blades, hubs, etc. Cool Ritchey, too. And the PB Weigle is getting around - I'd love to see that one in person.

Great pics and much appreciated for sharing.

Of minor note: The Pros Closet / #47 Confente has been talked of here, other forums and a publication magazine, but its funny they still left the extra long brake cables in front of the bars. Call it what you want, but being this a premier representation and 'pro' whatever, someone is due a paddling. LOL

And the Pros Closet build of the '75 Ritchey.... a threadless stem... among all their little treasures.... really??

Nice! Thank you!

Yeah, I caught that as well. I can deal with the cable length since that is often personal preference, but it looks to me like someone unpacked the bike and didn't pay attention to where the cables were going.

Really got to get me another Della Santa...anyone notice that two out of the three frames had over the BB cable routing? Cinelli panto fork crown on the gold one? Did not know he still had some older tube sets, but the celeste one was built with 531. His prices are very reasonable and the wait times are relatively short, last I heard.

Awesome picture quality, and lots of 'em. Thanks!

Thanks for sharing these photos, pcb. some really slick looking bikes there.

I'm surprised that Della Santa doesn't have more of a following. The quality/history/price-point are unmatched I would think?

Agreed.

Our son is gaga over his DS. I ride it as well and it compares straight up with every other top brand I've owned.

I wish he would toss canti posts on one so I could fit wider tires.

I'd order a silver one this afternoon.

Thanks for taking and posting these pictures, wonderful to see them!

Now to stir a little controversy: Love seeing any of Tom Ritchey's vintage frames and that red/orange number is true eye-candy, but...1975?
With those short dropouts?
Unless I'm misinformed (no doubt about that) neither Campagnolo nor Gipiemme were selling that style of dropout in 1975, so could these be Tange "TR" dropouts and if so are they the very first run?
Or is the date incorrect?
I've been told that the first date that Campy versions were widely offered is '78 but MAYBE '77 to a very few special (Italian) customers...

And how about that STEM, what's the story on that piece?

thanks for sharing. The photos are very well done.

I've seen a few of those early Ritchey's with positive rise thread-less stems he made for them. I never liked the look of a positive rise stem on a road bike, but you can't argue with the weight savings and better performance of the design. They were definitely original pieces on the bikes I've seen, not a restoration error like the the cable routing on the Confente.

Threadless stems date back to at least the French constructeurs. There was no internet in '75, but some French rando/touring bikes made it into Cali, and there were copies of The Data Book floating around. So there was underground knowledge that they existed, both as a concept and in the flesh. Teenager Tom Ritchey decided to build some.

I went on a Ritchey rant on the CR list, I'll paste it in here since Ritchey and his road bikes has come up.

[soapbox]IMHO the '75 Ritchey should've won Best in Show. I think Ritchey's fame from mountain bikes, especially MTB componentry, keeps some of us from realizing his immense talent with a torch. Check out the detail on that frame, then realize that Ritchey's dad taught him how to braze, and he was just one year out of high school when he built it. At which time he had built and sold more than 200 frames!

Jim Merz' father-in-law backed Ritchey when Tom was still in high school, and Jim's brought a high school-era Ritchey to CR events. That frame is chock-full of outside-the-box thinking, at almost every joint and juncture. I think of the '70s as a time when young American builders leapfrogged the framebuilding orthodoxy they first learned and built some remarkable and beautiful machines. And Tom Ritchey belongs way up near the top of that pantheon. Ritchey originally hailed from Cherry Hill, NJ, too, so---go Jersey![/soapbox]

Wow... Great show & Great pictures !

How about a "Caption Contest" for the guy at the Calfee booth :D

I agree with all that, but you also have to acknowledge Peter Johnson. They were both riffing (or maybe ripping) off each other at the time. And their styles are pretty well intertwined. Pretty amazing for a couple of high school kids. But the wealth of talent (in riders and craftsmen) in that area at that time is phenomenal.

Those are wonderful photos--thanks for posting them. The Confente, Della Santa, and Potts are especially nice.