Bicycle trade shows are fun because of all the free magazines that are available. The usual crowd were at the 2008 Handmade Bicycle Show including VeloNews with a free bicycle giveaway, Dirt Rag with their Sock Guy socks, and Road Bike Action with free magazines.

Momentum Magazine is a two year old Canadian publication that made it’s first foray into the U.S. market with the January/February 2008 issue. Momentum is distributed for free at bike shops in New York City, Chicago, Minneapolis, San Francisco, Portland and Seattle. Momentum focuses on the everyday riding of “urban” cyclists who ride mostly to get around. The tech tips are things like how to install fenders, and product reviews are on the latest in longtail bikes.

Embrocation is a gorgeous new quarterly featuring high quality bike porn and other cycling photography. It’s like a coffee table book that you can subscribe to, printed on high quality stock. Read the Embrocation blog to get a feel for this publication. The current issue highlights Cyclocross racing and racers.

2009 venue announced

During the award ceremony Sunday afternoon, Don Walker announced that Indianapolis will be the location of the 2009 North American Handmade Bicycle Show. “It’s a great venue, plus I live there,” said Don Walker.

Record year

This fourth NAHBS has been said by many to be a coming of age year for the show, with exhibitor and attendance records shattered and an amazing excitement and buzz on the show floor. The standard of bicycles presented at the show seemed to have taken a step up from last year in San Jose, with many builders going the extra mile with their show bikes. The result was a feast of creativity, craft work, and healthy doses of humor and soul.

More than 6800 people streamed through the doorways of the show, which at one point on Saturday exceeded capacity, forcing the city fire marshal to order the doors closed to keep people out. In addition to the usual array of builders who’ve supported the show along with component suppliers such as Chris King and White Industries, industry heavyweights SRAM and Shimano also had booths to display their wares. Shimano also provided important sponsorship along with Chris King and Portland City Commissioner Sam Adams.

Suppliers used the show as an opportunity to meet with the builders. SRAM OEM account manager Mike Stejskal said, “In one day here yesterday I had more valuable customer interactions than I have in a week at Interbike.” Linda Brown, representing the U.S. distributor for Continental Tires, Fizik and other European brands, also told me she received valuable feedback on the U.S. bike market that she forwarded back to Europe.

2009 2008 NAHBS Awards

Best Lugged Bicycle – Bruce Gordon
Best Fillet Brazed Bicycle – Dave Kirk
Best TIG Welded Bicycle – Mike De Salvo
Best Paint Job – Brian Baylis
Best Carbon Fiber Bicycle – Nick Crumpton
Best Titanium Bicycle – Black Sheep
Best Road Bicycle – Bruce Gordon
Best Track Bicycle – RetroTech
Best Off-Road – Engin
Best Tandem – Calfee
Best New Builder – Courage
Best City Bike – Ahearne
President Walker’s Choice – Naked
People’s Choice – Naked
Best of Show – Naked

Watch this space for followups from the 2008 NAHBS.

Photo Credits: Hummingbird saddle/Independent Fabrications by Cecil Reniche-Smith; Sweatpea chainstay by Gino Zahnd; Thien Dinh of Road Bike Review by me.

Road frame made with bamboo fiber composite material

Brano Meres is an engineer in Slovakia who first built a carbon / bamboo composite bike four years ago. He continues to dabble in new materials. His latest innovation is this frame made from a bamboo composite material.

This frame looks and kind of feels like a carbon composite frame, but the material is made up of bamboo fibers instead of carbon fiber. Like carbon fiber and fiberglass, the bamboo fiber is embedded in a plastic polymer to create a strong and lightweight composite material.

Brano tells me this bamboo fiber composite bicycle is currently too flexible for it to ride well, but he continues to investigate its properties. The other builders at the show who work with carbon fiber tell me that carbon fiber is getting to be almost impossible to obtain, so perhaps we’ll see some more work in new alternative materials like this.

I’ve dumped several photos from NAHBS to my Flickr account.

Some highlights:

The floor was so crowded that the fire marshall ordered NAHBS staff to limit entrances because the hall had exceeded its limit. People were lined up 50 yards waiting to get inside the hall this afternoon.

Tyler from Delta 7 Sports explains that mud doesn’t collect within the truss structure of his Arantix truss design. He told me that it was a concern, but in real life the mud doesn’t compact inside the tube, but just pass through and doesn’t stick.

This fat tire Moots features interchangeable front and rear tires. There are cogs on the front hub so you can switch the front out to the back. 165mm hubs mean no dish in either wheel.

Brano Meres displayed this carbon fiber truss structured road bike at the show.

Black Sheep Fab in Fort Collins, CO had this beautiful long tail bike. $5,000 for this configuration.

More later!

I’ve seen bikes made from steel, bamboo, carbon fiber, titanium and aluminum at the North American Handmade Bicycle Show in Portland this weekend, but something that really caught my eye was this monocoque wooden bicycle from Renovo Bikes of Portland, Oregon.

Renovo’s builder, Ken Wheeler, said he researched the use of wood in airplane design. A solid wood bicycle frame would be too heavy, so Wheeler designed a hollow monocoque frame, precision jointed and bonded with epoxy. He starts with hand selected hardwoods like Jatoba, hard maple, ash, hickory, Douglas fir and cuts them to size. A few tools that was bought by looking at miter saw reviews and a few other woodworking machines were used to shape the tubes, then each piece is bonded, detailed, sanded and finished to create something with the grace of a handmade wooden boat or a fine article of furniture. These bikes glow — they really are amazing to look at. Complete bikes weigh 17 to 20 lbs. According to Wheeler, the bikes give a magically smooth yet stiff ride with crisp, responsive handling.

Wheeler says that impacts that might dent and ruin a metal frame will bounce off of Renovo frames, leaving inconsequential dimples. Unlike carbon, cracks don’t propogate from scratches or chips and wood doesn’t conceal hidden damage.

Because wood’s fatigue life exceeds that of metal and rivals carbon’s, the Renovo bikes are heirloom quality bikes that will last multiple lifetimes. Wood doesn’t rust, and the wood is sealed inside and out. Wheeler points out that wooden boats live in water and wooden airplane propellers fly through it. Renovo uses the same epoxy construction and finishes used on boats.