Is it only me or a lack of pics? I'm not seeing anything that fantastic. I've seen cleaner, more aesthetically pleasing build ups here. The cranks and discs on that Panasonic look goofy IMO. Better performance, probably, but this is a show as well. The tribal book looks like a track frame, Unknown or one of those companies. The Weigle and Chapman are tasteful and I like the thin cages, but still looks like a lot of the previous bikes.

I was at NAHBS yesterday, a bit overwhelmed to take a lot of pics, but I'll post a few here. Overall impressions:

--28mm tires are the new 23mm tires. Except for a few time-trial or track bikes, almost everything had 28mm tires or wider, and that was regardless of frame materials (CF, alu, steel, ti, bamboo). The smooth-trade Panaracer Gravel Kings look really nice and were fitted on quite a few bikes.
--Really fat tire bikes are popular for builders to play around with.
--Disc brakes were ubiquitous.
--CF dominated when it came to frame materials. The skinnier, steel-built bikes really stood out because they were a tiny minority.
--Very few rando-type builds, other than those from Chapman, Weigle, Bilenky, and maybe one or two others.
--Many tandems here! I'd be surprised if the market was really that big.

My pics:

Black sheep rat-rod grocery getter?


Some great paint on display. I really liked this one:


Chapman hand-built crankset with very drillium rings:


That same Chapman showing seat stay treatment and bottle generator (color is off here; first pic is closer to actual):


That wacky CF bike shown on the previous page; I told the builder that it looked like a Bowden Spaceliner, which he hadn't heard of. It's just the second of these that he's built, and I admire his creativity:




Chris Bishop, whose bikes were really stunning:

I couldn't make it. My travels are keeping me too busy. Maybe I'll make it one year. I love this stuff.

A buddy and I attended yesterday, strong turn out. We rode from his place a couple towns over - the organizers provided a 'bike valet' which was a nice touch. Inside, there was a ton of eye candy and there were seminars going on throughout the day. We attended a seminar hosted by Damon Rinard on bicycle dynamics which was a good crash course in front-end geometry and handling.

I want to say I remember reading that Brian Chapman built these crankarms. Apparently I didn't get a shot of the entire bike - the crowd made doing much more than snapping a quick pic from the hip a challenge.

This guy's stuff was wild. He carved molds for the decorative pieces brazed to the frames and stems. Thin strips of leather wrapped around pretty much everything then coated with shellac then a clear enamel (if I'm remembering correctly).

King Cage tube bender jig.

A fair number of quill stems.
Love it.

Great pics, Bob. You capture the extent of what I saw really well. Yes, Brian Chapman did hand make those crank arms. I asked him why, and he essentially said, why not?

A highlight was watching the King Cage guy use his tubing bender to build a bottle cage on the spot. Took about 30 seconds (just the bending from a hollow rod, not including the part where he welds on the cross braces). I think I need to buy a couple of his ti cages--just because.

The pics reflect a nice blend of Traditional (lugs, cream panels, quill stems, racks,etc) with Modern (OS tubes, perfect miters, clean welds, painted threadless stems, etc).


I just like to see some of the individual craftsmanship in our industry displayed so nicely. And annually.


Has NAHBS become an institution yet? So different from InterBike. Haven't attended NAHBS since Portland ('09? or 2010?), but it still looks to be a Big Happy weekend, not overly commercial.


Was Calfee there? - as usual. I like Craig Calfee.

Thanks, Neal. The Chapman cranks looked great to my eye - remind me of Profile BMX cranks I always wanted back when. I like the 'lugged' appearance of Chapman's take on the design. I caught a King Cage tubing bender demo as well - impressive in the simplicity and repeatability. I have a couple sets and love 'em.

It was great to see the variety at the show and to see how some of the builders pulled "C&V" details into current designs. I was chatting with a guy at Don Walker's booth who mentioned that they have plans to bring New England into the circuit every three years or so. Great indication for the health of the show (as well as my attendance ). Agreed on the "Big Happy weekend, not overly commercial." comment, nice relaxed atmosphere with a good cross section of companies/builders.

Calfee was there, I wish I had grabbed a pic or two. Some beautiful lugged carbon on display.

Calfee


From their instagram page
https://www.instagram.com/p/BfVvNinA...y=calfeedesign
https://www.instagram.com/p/BfToI-7g...y=calfeedesign
https://www.instagram.com/p/BfTSXShg...y=calfeedesign
https://www.instagram.com/p/BfV5BxXA...y=calfeedesign

Thanks for that.
A lot of tandems. I saw one of Craig's early, early tandems in the Calfee Santa Cruz factory location back in the 90s. He enjoyed taking his daughter on rides. I owned a steel Co-Motion and the weight difference was huge. Also saw a few early bamboo bikes just after that; and a prototype of the Stiletto recumbent later. Lots of smaller adaptive innovations have run thru that shop in past years (carbon bar/stem combo, early Di2 battery compartments, etc).


edit: I still love my turn-of-th-millennium Calfee TetraPro. Still under frame warranty, I might add.

The direction of the front tire completely ruins this bicycle.

That first Weigle in post #18!

Please see my photos from the Show. I got so see some of the legends in person; Chris Chance, Bilenky, Weigle. Oh, and there were some pretty nice bikes too.

more pics

I have a pair on a bike- very nice.
Thank all for the images from the show. I will be contrarian and state that Bishop and Chapman show very clean execution, they just fall short to my eye to get super excited. Chapman gets additional points for integrating accessories, but I guess just not for me.
The ornament shown is interesting... Almost 100 years ago Diamond Jim Brady had them all beat with a bike artfully encrusted with diamonds and gems. Not much is new.

These are my quick-and-dirty auto-edits from Sat/Sun. I'd rather wait to post these till they're properly edited and titled, but I'm heading out of town again early Tue, and will have a lot of catch-up after I get back. Plus, I realized today that I never put up an album after Philly. So I'm feeling like mono-buttocked is hopefully better than nothing.

I decided to concentrate on stuff I liked instead of trying to document the whole show. That meant a lot more time with DiNucci, Weigle, Chapman, Bishop and Hollingsworth (Royal H) than some others. Johnny Coast had a smaller booth that was always crowded, so I couldn't manage to shoot there.

Lots of other pretty bikes with a more modern complexion. I did snap some that caught my eye, but not a lot of coverage from me. Feel free to avert your gaze.

I did two separate albums for Products & Peeps.

https://flic.kr/s/aHsm76roNN
https://flic.kr/s/aHsmd2cULP

Fantastic. Thank you so much!

Drillium Revival did those Chapman chainrings and the brake arms that were on the same bike. https://www.flickr.com/photos/54616231@N04/

Pretty awesome collaboration...

Amazing pics, really wanted to make this show since it was within driving distance, however I had the kids Presidents day basketball tourney to attend. Thanks to all these great photo's I can still drool over them.

You definitely made the right choice. Looking at it from the other side, with both my kids in their 20s and out of my house/hair, I don't miss any of the rides I might have taken instead of going to all those stupid effin soccer games/matches/tourneys/expositions/whatever the heck you call 'em. Helping them do stuff they loved meant a lot more than messing around with bicycles.

And, FWIW, if you live within driving distance of Hartford, you wouldn't have seen much more at NAHBS than you can, every year, at the Philly show. It's not like you have wait another 3-5yrs for the circus to come back to town.

Thanks Paul, makes me feel better

Your pics are amazing as usual, Thanks for sharing!